Afro-Asiatic · ISO 639-3 rif
Tarifit Language
Tarifit is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by about 4.4 million people in 2 countries. It is written in the Latin and Tifinagh scripts.
Where Tarifit is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Tarifit
Language family
- Afro-Asiatic
- Berber
- Greater Zenatic
- Zenatic
- Tarifit
Writing system
Latin and Tifinagh scripts
Related languages
About the Tarifit language
Tarifit is spoken by about 4.4 million people, which makes it the 198th most spoken language in the world — just behind Pulaar (4.5 million) and ahead of Norwegian Nynorsk (4.3 million). It belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family and, more precisely, to the Zenatic group within the Greater Zenatic branch.
Where is Tarifit spoken?
Tarifit is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in Morocco (1.8 million) and Netherlands (213,268).
Share of the population that speaks Tarifit: Morocco 4.9% (1.8 million) and Netherlands 1.2% (213,268).
Tarifit is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Tarifit is written in the Latin and Tifinagh scripts. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Tachawit.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 rif.
Frequently asked questions about Tarifit
How many people speak Tarifit?
Where is Tarifit spoken?
What language family does Tarifit belong to?
Is Tarifit an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.