| Tagdal | |
|---|---|
| Tagdal-Tabarog | |
| Tihishit | |
| Native to | Niger |
| Ethnicity | Igdalen, Iberogan |
Native speakers | 65,000 (2021)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Tifinagh | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | tda |
| Glottolog | tagd1238 |
| ELP | Tagdal |
 | |
| Agdal | |
|---|---|
| Person | Agdal |
| People | Igdalan |
| Language | Tagdal |
| Abarog | |
|---|---|
| People | Iberogan |
| Language | Tabarog |
Tagdal (Tuareg name: Tagdalt)[3] is a mixed Northern Songhay language of central Niger. Ethnologue considers it a "mixed Berber–Songhay language",[1][4] while other researchers consider it Northern Songhay.[5] There are two dialects: Tagdal proper, spoken by the Igdalen people, pastoralists who inhabit a region to the east along the Niger border to Tahoua in Niger,[4] and Tabarog, spoken by the Iberogan people of the Azawagh valley on the Niger–Mali border.
Nicolaï (1981) uses the name Tihishit as a cover term. Rueck & Christiansen[6] say that
...the Igdalen and the Iberogan have for many purposes been treated as one group, and their speech forms are closely related. Nicolaï uses "tihishit" as a common designator for these two speech forms...; however, this term is ambiguous. "Tihishit" is a term of Tamajaq origin meaning "the language of the blacks". The Igdalen and Iberogan used it to refer to all Northern Songhay speech forms.[5]
Meanwhile, the Iberogan sometimes refer to their language as Tagdal.
