ABSTRACT
Amazigh language has not always been marginalized as it had been between independence and the early 2000s. In fact, colonial scholarship infused it with new life, integrating it into larger networks of exchanges and knowledge communities since the nineteenth century. Hence, one should not be surprised to see that prominent scholars presented their findings about this language and the culture it vehicled at international gatherings of Orientalist societies and shared their questions with scholars who worked on adjacent fields in linguistics and other closely related fields. Specialists, like André Basset, an important Berberologist, turned Algiers and Rabat into sites for Amazigh pedagogy and scholarship. Although colonial scholarship was philosophical, documentation-oriented and information-gathering-focused for government purposes, it created opportunities for the teaching and learning of Tamazight alongside Arabic, allowing it to be a language of pedagogy and scholarly endeavours. Of course, this work should not be dissociated from the language’s use to advance colonialism. However, coloniality and its obvious goals aside, French administration has bequeathed us with a rich archive that, if used critically, can help us shed a new light on the status of Tamazight, its pedagogy, and scholarly potential, beyond its limitations.
