Tamasheq language

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Tamashek or Tamasheq is a variety of Tuareg, a Berber macro-language widely spoken by nomadic tribes across North and West Africa in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Tamasheq is one of the three main varieties of Tuareg, the others being Tamajaq (Air Tamajeq and Tawellemmet) and Tamahaq. Tamashek is spoken mostly in Mali, especially in its central region including Timbuktu, Kidal, and Gao. It is also spoken by a sizeable population in Burkina Faso where it is spoken by 187,000 people as of 2021. As of 2022, approximately 900,000 people speak Tamashek, with the majority of speakers residing in Mali with approximately 590,000 speakers. The livelihood of the Tuareg people has been under threat in the last century, due to climate change and a series of political conflicts, notably the Arab-Tuareg rebellion of 1990–1995 in Mali which resulted in ethnic cleansing of the Tuareg in the form of reprisal killings and exile. Tamashek is currently classified as a developing language (5), partly...

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