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In Southern Mauritania, several thousand people still speak a language that predates the arrival of Arabic: Zenaga. While this language is now almost extinct, historical research shows it was the majority language in all Mauritania until the 17th Century. Many place names, while usually considered as being of Arabic origin, actually derive from Zenaga.
Origins
Modern-day Mauritania has always been a melting-pot between White Moorish populations from North of the Sahara, and Black populations (Soninke, Fulani, Toucouleur, etc.) from South of the Sahara. Another distinct population group, the Bafour, are believed to be the ancestors of the Imraguen who live the Banc d’Arguin.
In Antiquity, the Southern Moors were related to those who lived further North, in the Kingdom of Mauretania (modern-day Morocco). Unlike the Moors of the Mediterranean basin, they have never been under Roman domination. The Senegal River marks the limit of their expansion.
The introduction of the camel into the Sahara, during the 3rd Century, revolutionized desert life. From there on, certain tribes, especially Sanhaja, started getting involved in Trans-Saharan trade, enabling them to increase their influence. They traded with the Ghana Empire, to the South of modern-day Mauritania. Zenaga is the original pronunciation of the Arabized name Sanhaja.
After the arrival of Islam, the Moors became Muslim and were the first to spread the new religion into what is now Mauritania – long before the Arabs arrived. It was probably those Moors who introduced Islam to the Wolof and the other West African people groups, thus the influence of Zenaga on their religious vocabulary (see further).
The first Almoravids were from the Lamtuna Sanhaja tribe, and probably spoke a language close to Zenaga. When they went North, they absorbed other populations on their way.
The Zenaga language
The Zenaga language, اكلام اژناڮة (klâm znâga) in Hassaniya Arabic, away iznaguen in Zenaga, is derived from the language spoken by the Moors who were nomadizing in the Sahara before the arrival of the Arabs. This language is related to the Amazigh languages, as well as to Tamacheq, the language spoken by the Tuareg. However, due to its isolation, it is very different from the Amazigh languages of Morocco and Algeria. Among other things, it maintained the distinction between long and short vowels, an element of the ancient proto-Amazigh language that is mostly lost in the Northern Amazigh languages.
While the Zenaga language is certainly part of the same linguistic family as the Amazigh languages, the Zenaga-speakers in Mauritania do not consider themselves Amazigh. They are aware of the origins of their language, but their identity is distinct from the Northern Amazigh. They see themselves first of all as Moors, without distinction with their Arabic-speaking neighbors (there are actually Arabic-speakers and Zenaga-speakers in the same tribes). Some of them even view the modern-day Amazigh movement negatively, as a source of division in North African society. Tifinagh is unknown in Mauritania.
Surprisingly, the Tetserret language, spoken by the Ait Awari and Kel Eghlal tribes of the Azawagh Valley, in Niger, is closely related to Mauritanian Zenaga. These two tribes live among the Tuareg, but their language is unintelligible for the Tuareg. The link between two communities living so far away from each other, but speaking two such closely-related languages, is a mystery for historians. A linguistic study of Tetserret can be read online here.
Decline and survival
Arabic tribes from the North, mostly Banu Hassan, settled in Mauritania between the 15th and the 17th Centuries. While Zenaga was still spoken everywhere in Mauritania until the 17th Century, the language of the new arrivers later took over, giving birth to Hassaniya Arabic. Today, the Mauritanian Moors consider themselves Arabs, even though the vast majority are descended from the ancient Moors rather than the Banu Hassan.
Zenaga profited from the ancestral rivalries between warrior tribes and religious tribes to survive: while the warrior tribes quickly assimilated with the Banu Hassan, the Zwaya (marabouts), who devote themselves to prayer and study, became the custodians of the pre-Arabic Moorish culture. The use of Zenaga thus became a symbol of Zwaya resistance to the warriors. Paradoxically, Zenaga was considered in Mauritania as the language of civilisation – against Arabic, the language of the Quran!
Zenaga survived the longest in the Emirate of Trarza (17th-early 20th Century), where the influence of the Banu Hassan was less strong. Nowadays, the last Zenaga-speakers live in the Trarza region, around Mederdra.
Three Moorish tribes still speak the Zenaga language: the Idablahsen (Idhabudjhas, in Zenaga), the Awlad Dayman (Dagg Tawnkadji), and the Tendgha (Tandghan). All three are marabout tribes; the Awlad Dayman claim descent from Caliph Abu Bakr as-Siddiq. However, even in these tribes, only a minority still understands Zenaga.
Some Moorish tribes who were enslaved by the Banu Hassan are called Zenaga because of their origins, even though they don’t speak the Zenaga lanuage.
Zenaga today
Nowadays, only a few thousand people, most of them old, still speak Zenaga. The younger generations no longer learn this language. There are some initiatives to revive it, carried by young people who wish to reappropriate the language of their ancestors, but the lack of both political and popular will makes this difficult. Unless for a radical change, the Zenaga language is likely to disappear.
In the colonial era, there were a few Zenaga speakers on the Southern shore of the Senegal River, but there are probably none left.
Zenaga influences can also be found in other West African languages, especially in religious vocabulary: the mid-day prayer (ٱلظُّهْر dhuhr) is called tisbaar in Wolof and tusbaar in Pulaar, from the Zenaga tižbaran, “coming before”; while the afternoon prayer (العصر al-asr) is called takkusaan in both Wolof and Pulaar, from takkuthan, “fourth”. For the ancient Moors, the day finished in the evening, so that the sunset prayer (المغرب al-maghrib) was the last prayer of the day, and the night prayer (العشاء al-isha) the first one.
There are many theories on the origin of the name Senegal. One possibility is that it could be a deformation of “Zenaga”. A popular etymology claims it comes from the Wolof sunu gaal, “our boat”; but the inhabitants of the region around the Senegal River were Zenaga-speaking Moors before the Wolof arrived.
Is Tabaski, the name used in West Africa for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, also originally Zenaga ? Tabaski comes from tafaska, the name of the holiday in various Amazigh languages, which itself derives from Easter. This name doesn’t exist in Zenaga today, but it might have been lost. Tifiski, another closely related Zenaga word, means “spring”. As Easter is celebrated in springtime, some linguists believe that tifiski comes from tafaska, while others disagree. Anyway, tifiski was borrowed by Hassaniya Arabic, becoming تيفسكي (tiviski; the Arabic letter ف is pronounced v in Hassaniya).
The Finnish linguist Miikka Alhonen, who lives in Mauritania, wrote a short grammar of the Zenaga language, which has never been published. We share the draft of his study here, with the author’s permission. We also wish to thank him for his precious advise in preparing this article.
