Siwi

Siwi is an Eastern Berber language spoken mainly in Siwa and Gara oases in the Matrouh Governorate in northwestern Egypt. There are also some speakers of Siwi in Jaghbub, a town in the Al Butnan district in the northeast of Libya. In 2013 there were abotu 20,000 Siwi speakers in Egypt. The number in Libya is not known.

Siwi is also known as Siwan, Siwa Berber, Oasis Berber, Sioua, Siwa or Zenati. It has no official recognition, is not used in education or the media, and is classified as endangered by the UN. It contains many words borrowed from Egyptian and Bedouin Arabic, and almost all Siwi speakers also speak Egyptian Arabic.

Siwi has an oral literature of poems, fairy tales, riddles and proverbs. It is rarely written and Siwi speakers generally write in Arabic. There are, however, ways to write Siwi with the Latin and Tifinagh alphabets.