Sokna language

"Sawkna language" redirects here. For the town Sawkna, see Sokna, Libya.

Sokna (also Sawknah, Sukna; native name: Tasuknit)^[2] is a presumably extinct Eastern Berber language which was spoken in the town of Sokna (Isuknan) and the village of Fuqaha in northeastern Fezzan in Libya. According to Václav Blažek (1999), Sokna was also spoken in the oasis of Tmassa.^[3]

Sokna
Tasuknit
Native to	Libya
Region	Fezzan
Extinct	(date missing)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Berber Eastern Awjila–Sokna Sokna
Dialects	Sokna Fezzan (Foqaha, Tmessa)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	swn
Glottolog	sawk1238
ELP	Sawknah

The most extensive and recent materials on it are Sarnelli (1924)^[4] for Sokna and Paradisi (1963)^[5] for El-Fogaha. Both articles report that the language was spoken only by a handful of old people at the time, so it is generally presumed to be extinct.

Aikhenvald & Militarev (1984) and Blench (2006) consider Sokna and Fezzan to be separate languages. Blench lists Tmessa and Al-Foqaha as dialects of Fezzan.