Dutch linguist Harry Stroomer has spent years researching and compiling his Tachelhit-French dictionary, which will be published at the end of March by De Gruyter Brill. The dictionary spans over 3,000 pages and is the result of four decades of meticulous work. Stroomer, an Arabist and Berberologist and emeritus professor at Leiden University, specializes in Afro-Asiatic languages, particularly Berber and South Semitic languages. His interest in Amazigh began in 1969 when he first visited Morocco, where he quickly realized that many locals spoke Tamazight rather than Arabic—a fact he had never been taught in the Netherlands. From 1985 onward, he specialized in Tachelhit, one of the three Amazigh languages spoken in Morocco. «Tachelhit is the largest Berber language in the world, with an estimated eight to ten million speakers», Stroomer told NRC in an interview. «The name literally means 'the language of the Chleuh.' The Chleuh are a people from southern Morocco, with Agadir and Ouarzazate as their main cities. Due to migration, Tachelhit has spread to Europe in recent decades. In the Netherlands alone, there are about 75,000 speakers». Stroomer's research drew from archival materials he accessed in France, fieldwork in Morocco, and input from the Amazigh diaspora in Europe. Why French? According to Stroomer, France—along with Spain, Morocco's former colonial rulers—accumulated extensive knowledge of the language over the past century. «After my first visit to Morocco, I wanted to learn more about Berber languages», Stroomer explains. «I visited the librarian at the Institute for the Modern Near East at the University of Amsterdam. He pointed me toward several French experts», he recalled. The archive of the late French Berberologist Arsène Roux served as Stroomer's starting point. «In Aix-en-Provence, I found two crammed archive cabinets filled with manuscripts, index cards, and notes on scraps of paper. Every year, I spent a month there digitizing everything», he remembered. Stroomer emphasizes that his dictionary meticulously includes all references, allowing each word's source to be traced.
