Awjila (also Aujila, Augila, Aoudjila, Awgila, Awdjila; own name: Jlan n Awilen; in other Berber varieties Tawjilit) is a severely endangered (considered "moribund" by Ethnologue) Eastern Berber language spoken in Cyrenaica, Libya, in the Awjila oasis. Due to the political situation in Libya, immediate data on the language has been inaccessible. However, Facebook postings by speakers and younger semi-speakers have provided some recent supplementary data. General information Awjila is a member of the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic language family, of the Eastern Berber subgroup. It is closely related to Ghadames of Libya though considerably more endangered, with an estimated 2,000–3,000 native speakers remaining. UNESCO considers Awjila to be seriously endangered as the youngest speakers have reached or passed middle age. The Berber languages of Libya faced severe oppression during the period of Muammar Gaddafi, which has likely been the cause of the demise of some varieties such as Sokna and the endangerment of others, including Awjila and Ghadames. The usage of Berber/Amazigh languages was effectively prohibited, and Gaddafi completely denied the existence of the Imazighen people, reportedly saying, "call yourselves whatever you want inside your homes – Berbers, children of Satan, whatever – but you are only Libyans when you leave your homes". He denied the existence of Berbers as a separate ethnicity, and called Berbers a "product of colonialism" created by the West to divide Libya. He repeatedly targeted Amazigh rights activists (including linguists from abroad), to which can be attributed the lack of current and updated information on the Libyan Berber languages and the relatively limited content available, even in Arabic, on the Internet (as opposed to the more extensive resources found on Moroccan and Algerian Amazigh varieties). The language is, however, used on Facebook by some Awjili members. History of scholarship Because of the political issues in Libya, field work on Awjila has been limited. The earliest studies of the language were carried out by Müller in 1827, however, his work is difficult to analyze because there were no standard conventions such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for transcribing it at that time and because he failed to make distinctions for various sounds in Awjila (such the difference between as emphatic, pharyngeal consonants and their non-emphatic counterparts). Moritz von Beurmann also contributed a short word list but some forms contradict information found in later sources. The latest field work was done by Umberto Paradisi in