Notes on the spirantization of Berber */t/ in the Guanche terms

Abstract

The Francophone tradition in Berber studies uses the term spirantisation to refer to the phonetic phenomenon whereby the plosive consonants become affricates, palatal fricatives, approximants or vowels. This phenomenon, that seems to be originated around the 2nd century BC, mostly affects the Berber dialects spoken along the Mediterranean coast and, because of substratum, some Maghrebi Arabic varieties. The Guanche language, traditionally assigned to the Berber family, also seems to present spirantisation. This feature firstly allows us to establish a classification of the insular speeches based on the character of their consonantism (strong or weak); secondly, to set a terminus post quem of the settlement of the Canary Islands that matches with the most reliable archeological sources; and, finally, to draw one of the possible paths that could be followed by its spreading for reaching the Islands. Once again, the study of a Berber variable inside the corpus of Guanche terms reveals us some keys about the genesis of Canarian Spanish and the reconstruction of Proto-Berber.