Eastern Middle Atlas Berber

{{Short description|Berber dialect cluster of Morocco}}

{{Infobox language

|name=Eastern Middle Atlas Berber

|nativename=Tmazight, Tamazight

|states=Morocco

|region=Central Morocco: Middle Atlas

|ethnicity=

|speakers={{formatnum:150000}}–{{formatnum:200000}}

|ref=

|date=2013, est.

|script=Tifinagh, Arabic, Latin

|familycolor=Afro-Asiatic

|fam2=Berber

|fam3=Northern Berber

|fam4=Zenati

|dia1=Ait Seghrouchen

|dia2=Ait Warayn etc.

|iso3 = none

|glotto=east2803

| map = Eastern Middle Atlas Berber.PNG

| mapcaption = {{legend|#ffff66|Eastern Middle Atlas Berber}}

}}

Eastern Middle Atlas Berber is a cluster of Berber dialects spoken in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the Middle Atlas, in Morocco. These dialects are those of the tribes of Ait Seghrouchen, Ait Warayn, Marmoucha, Ait Alaham, Ait Youb and Ait Mourghi.{{cite journal |last1=Bernard |first1=Augustin |last2=Moussard |first2=Paul |title=Arabophones et berbérophones au Maroc |journal=Annales de géographie |page=275 |publisher=A. Colin |date=1924-05-15 |volume=33 |issue=183 |doi=10.3406/geo.1924.9671 |jstor=23439805 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23439805|url-access=subscription }}{{cite book |first=J. |last=Bourrilly |title=Éléments d'éthnographie marocaine |page=42 |publisher=Larose |year=1932}}{{cite web |first=G. S. |last=Colin |url=http://i55.servimg.com/u/f55/14/67/35/08/bbscan54.jpg |title=Carte linguistique du Maroc |year=1934 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230712065037/https://i55.servimg.com/u/f55/14/67/35/08/bbscan54.jpg |archive-date=2023-07-12}}

Despite the fact that they are mutually intelligible with neighbouring Central Atlas Tamazight dialects and are generally classified among them, these dialects actually belong to the Zenati languages and are intermediate dialects between the Riffian and Atlas languages.{{cite journal |journal=Revue d'ethnographie et des traditions populaires |volume=2 |page=68 |publisher=Société française d'ethnographie |date= January 1921 |title=Bulletin bibliographique |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1192173r/f80.item}}{{cite book |author-link=Maarten Kossmann |last=Kossmann |first=Maarten |title=The Arabic Influence on Northern Berber |series=Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics |volume=67 |pages=20–22 |publisher=Brill |year=2013 |isbn=978-90-04-25308-7}}{{cite journal |first=Maarten |last=Kossmann |url=https://www.academia.edu/8902056 |title=Berber subclassification (preliminary version) |journal=Chapter Proposed for the Oxford Handbook of African Languages, ed. By Rainer Vossen |date=January 2011 |pages=2–3}}

Among these Zenati dialects, those of Ait Seghrouchen and Ait Warayn were subject to most studies, while only a few studies were focused on the dialects of Ait Alaham and Marmoucha, and practically none focused on the dialects of Ait Youb and Ait Mourghi.