Judeo-Berber language

[Lezer]

Judeo-Berber is the language formerly used in those Jewish communities located in the High Atlas range, Tifnut and other neighboring regions in Morocco. The Berber languages and dialects, spoken over a large area from western Egypt to Mauritania, are descendants of the native languages of North Africa and belong to the Berbero-Libyan group of the Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) family of languages. Colonies of Jews lived in the High Atlas long before Islam came to the region. Variants of Berber languages and dialects were used by Jews living in rural communities in the Atlas Mountains well into the 20th century. Judeo-Berber is written in the Hebrew script. In modern times, probably all speakers of Judeo-Berber were also native speakers of Arabic and/or Judeo-Arabic. Following the mass emigration of Jews from the countries of North Africa, Judeo-Berber is currently used by very few speakers, most of them located in Israel and in France.

http://www.bh.org.il/Links/JewishLangs.asp#Berber