Sawknah language
Encyclopedia
Sokna or Sawknah is a Berber language spoken in the town of Sokna (Isuknan) and the village of Fuqaha in northeastern Fezzan
in Libya
. The most extensive and recent materials on it are Sarnelli (1924) for Sokna and Paradisi (1963) for El-Fogaha. Both articles report that the language was spoken only by a handful of old people at the time, so it is generally presumed to be extinct. The Ethnologue
reports that it had 5,600 speakers as of 2006; the basis for this claim is unclear.
Fezzan
Fezzan is a south western region of modern Libya. It is largely desert but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara.-Name:...
in Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
. The most extensive and recent materials on it are Sarnelli (1924) for Sokna and Paradisi (1963) for El-Fogaha. Both articles report that the language was spoken only by a handful of old people at the time, so it is generally presumed to be extinct. The Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
reports that it had 5,600 speakers as of 2006; the basis for this claim is unclear.