Zenati language

Gurara
تازناتيت (Taznatit) / ⵜⴰⵣⵏⴰⵜⵉⵜ
Native to	Algeria
Region	Gourara (wilaya of Adrar)
Native speakers	11,000, including Tuwat (2014)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Berber Northern Zenati Mzab-Wargla Gurara
Language codes
ISO 639-3	(included)
Linguist List	grr-gou
Glottolog	tazn1238
Map of the ksour of Gourara by spoken language

Gurara (Gourara) is a Zenati Berber language spoken in the Gourara (Tigurarin) region, an archipelago of oases surrounding Timimoun in southwestern Algeria. Ethnologue gives it the generic name Taznatit ('Zenati'), along with Tuwat spoken to its south; however, Blench (2006) classifies Gurara as a dialect of Mzab–Wargla, and Tuwat as a dialect of the Riff cluster.

Gurara and Tuwat is the only Berber language to change r in certain coda positions to a laryngeal ħ; in other contexts it drops r, turning a preceding schwa into a, and this latter phenomenon exists also in Zenata Rif-Berber in the far northern Morocco.

There is inconclusive evidence for Songhay influence on Gurara.

The local tradition of ahellil poetry and music in Gurara, described in Mouloud Mammeri's L'Ahellil du Gourara, has been listed as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.