North Africa · LY

Libya

Home to 4 dialects represented on Dialect Atlas, spanning 3 language families.

Arabic dialects in Libya

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Maghrebi Arabic

also: Darija

Spoken across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Shaped by Berber, French, and Spanish contact.

Libyan Arabic

also: Sulaimitian Arabic

The Maghrebi Arabic of Libya, transitional between western Maghrebi and Egyptian. Tripolitanian and Cyrenaican varieties differ noticeably in vocabulary and phonology.

Toubou dialects in Libya

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Toubou

also: Tubu, Tebu, Tibbu, Teda, Daza, Gorane

The Saharan Nilo-Saharan cluster of the central Sahara: Teda in the Tibesti and southern Libya, Daza further south in Borkou and Kanem. Sister branch to Kanuri within Saharan; commonly treated as a single Toubou cluster of two closely related varieties, with around half a million speakers across northern Chad, north-eastern Niger, and south-eastern Libya.

Tamazight dialects in Libya

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Nafusi

also: Nafusi Berber, Jebel Nafusa

The Berber variety of the Nafusa mountains in north-western Libya. Around 200,000 speakers; one of the few surviving Berber languages inside Libya.