Ouargli language

Ouargli, or Teggargrent (also Twargrit, Təggəngusit), is a Zenati Berber language. It is spoken in the oases of Ouargla (Wargrən) and N'Goussa (Ingusa) in Algeria.

Ouargli
Twargrit
Native to	Algeria
Region	Ouargla, N'Goussa
Native speakers	20,000 (2014)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Berber Northern Zenati Mzab–Wargla Ouargli
Language codes
ISO 639-3	oua
Glottolog	taga1278
ELP	Ouargli
Berber-speaking areas of the Mzab, Ouargla, and Oued Righ

As of 1987, Ouargli had no more than 10,000 speakers.^[2] Ethnologue estimated only 5,000 speakers as of 1995.^[3]

There are some differences between the dialects of Ouargla (Təggargrənt) and N'Goussa (Təggəngusit), notably in the position of pronominal clitics; within Ouargla, there are minor differences between the three tribes At-Brahim, At-Sisin and At-Waggin.^[4]

Speakers from Ouargla regard the varieties of Ouargla, N'Goussa, Tugurt/Temacine and Tumzabt/Mozabite, and possibly other Zenati varieties, as dialects of a single language they call Twargrit.^[5] According to Delheure (1987:355), at Wargrən fəhhəmən d awəḥdi tawsint, "the Ouarglis understand Temacine very well."

The principal grammatical study is Biarnay (1908);^[6] a less detailed sketch is provided in Basset (1893).^[7] Its lexicon is fairly extensively documented in Delheure's (1987) dictionary.^[8] The bilingual texts in Biarnay and Basset are more recently supplemented by the texts on daily life in Delheure (1988)^[9] and the folk tale collection in Delheure (1989);^[10] the latter, unlike other work on Ouargli, includes texts from N'Goussa as well.