Ngoussa is a small oasis (ksar) in Algeria located about twenty km north of Ouargla*, capital of the wilaya of the same name. Ngoussa currently has commune status. It was once on the Touggourt-Ouargla caravan route, one of the main departure points towards the great desert and Sahelian Africa. The traditional economy was based on the palm grove, the cultivation of cereals (wheat, barley, sorghum, millet) and caravan trade.
Official Algerian statistics gave 1,700 inhabitants in 1966; 13,344 in 2002; the current population must slightly exceed 20,000 inhabitants.
The local population is Berber-speaking and uses a variety of Berber, təggəngusit, very close to Ouargla. For Jean Delheure (1988, Introduction), the main reference for the Berber of this region: “The Berber of Ouargla [...] and that of Ngoussa [...] are one and the same despite some minimal particularities. ". These dialects have, for a long time (Basset 1893), been considered “Zénet” and, in fact, we find there numerous linguistic features common to all Berber dialects – often residual – of the area of extension of the Medieval Zenetes* (Mzab*, South Oranese, Oranie*, East Moroccan...).
According to the already old survey by Alain Romey (1974), the use of Berber is very strong there. But Delheure (ibid.) specifies: “Most Berber speakers from Ouargla and Ngoussa, especially the men, are bilingual, also speaking central Saharan dialect Arabic”; ancient sociolinguistic configuration, which is very well understood given the predominantly Arabic-speaking North-Saharan nomadic environment and the caravan stopover status of Ngoussa and Ouargla. The almost total sedentarization of the region's nomads (Sa'id 'Atba, Mekhadma, Chaanba, etc.), all Arabic speakers, has certainly reinforced the weight and use of the Arabic language. As is the proximity of Ouargla, which since the early 1960s has become the Algerian hydrocarbon capital and a large cosmopolitan city.
Ibadism was well established in Ngoussa, as in the entire region: around 911, Ya'qûb, the last Rostemide sovereign, founded Sedrata 10 km south of Ouargla. Ibadism declined rapidly from the 12th century and has now disappeared. The history of Ngoussa cannot be dissociated from that of the nomadic groups, Zenet Berbers, then Arabs and Arabized, of the region, and that of Ouargla with which it is closely intertwined. She has often been a satellite; sometimes also, a serious competitor, notably under the long reign of the Babia sheikhs/sultans, who imposed, in the 17th-19th centuries, the supremacy of Ngoussa over Ouargla, relying on alliances with nomadic Arab tribes (Sa'id 'Atba) of the region and/or the support of the Dey of Algiers.
We will find some Berber texts by Ngoussa in René Basset (1893), Biarnay (1908), Delheure (1988 and 1989) but especially in Romey (1992/1974).
The primitive Berber form of the name was most probably (masc. plural noun): Ngusən (or Ingusən).
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