Northern Berber
43-637: Tamazgha is a fictitious entity and neologism in the Berber languages denoting the lands traditionally inhabited by the Berber peoples within the Maghreb . The term was coined in the 1970s by the Berber Academy in France and, since the late 1990s, has gained particular significance among speakers of Berber languages. Although Berberists see Tamazgha as the geographic embodiment of a Berber imaginary of
86-557: A dialect continuum . There is a debate as to how to best sub-categorize languages within the Berber branch. Berber languages typically follow verb–subject–object word order . Their phonological inventories are diverse. Millions of people in Morocco and Algeria natively speak a Berber language, as do smaller populations of Libya , Tunisia , northern Mali , western and northern Niger , northern Burkina Faso and Mauritania and
129-557: A few official governmental and possibly religious inscriptions have been found. The Libyco-Berber script was a pure abjad ; it had no distinct vowels. However, it had equivalents for "w" and "y", and "h" was possibly used as an "a" too. Gemination was not marked. The writing was usually from the bottom to the top, although right-to-left, and even other orders, were also found. The letters took different forms when written vertically than when they were written horizontally. The letters were highly geometrical. There are multiple variants of
172-612: A number of key loanwords related to pastoralism that are of Berber origin, including the terms for sheep and water/ Nile . This in turn suggests that the C-Group population—which, along with the Kerma culture , inhabited the Nile valley immediately before the arrival of the first Nubian speakers—spoke Afroasiatic languages. Berber languages are primarily oral languages without a major written component. Historically, they were written with
215-616: A once unified language and culture that had its own territory, it has never been a single political entity, and Berbers across the Maghreb did not see themselves as a single cultural or linguistic unit, nor was there a greater "Berber community" due to their differing cultures and languages. Despite this, certain (but not all) Berberists such as members of the Algerian separatist Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia use
258-485: A policy of Arabisation, which, after the imposition of the Circular of July 1976, encompassed the spheres of education, public administration, public signage, print publication, and the judiciary. While primarily directed towards the erasure of French in Algerian society, these policies also targeted Berber languages, leading to dissatisfaction and unrest amongst speakers of Berber languages, who made up about one quarter of
301-665: A prospective new constitution, it does not have official status in Libya as in Morocco and Algeria. As areas of Libya south and west of Tripoli such as the Nafusa Mountains were taken from the control of Gaddafi government forces in early summer 2011, Berber workshops and exhibitions sprang up to share and spread the Berber culture and language. In Mali and Niger, some Tuareg languages have been recognized as national languages and have been part of school curriculums since
344-1384: Is listed as negligible, and the last Sokna speaker is thought to have died in the 1950s. There are an estimated 50,000 Djerbi speakers in Tunisia , based on figures from 2004. Sened is likely extinct, with the last speaker having died in the 1970s. Ghadamés, though not indigenous to Tunisia, is estimated to have 3,100 speakers throughout the country. Chenini is one of the rare remaining Berber-speaking villages in Tunisia. There are an estimated 20,000 Siwi speakers in Egypt , based on figures from 2013. As of 2018 and 2017 respectively, there were an estimated 200 speakers of Zenaga and 117,000 of Tamasheq in Mauritania . As of 2009, there were an estimated 122,000 Tamasheq speakers in Burkina Faso. There are an estimated 1.5 million speakers of various Berber languages in France. A small number of Tawellemmet speakers live in Nigeria. In total, there are an estimated 3.6 million speakers of Berber languages in countries outside of Morocco and Algeria, summarized as follows: After independence, all
387-419: Is often included as an Eastern Berber language alongside Siwa, Sokna, and El Foqaha. These approaches divide the Berber languages into Northern, Southern (Tuareg), Eastern, and Western varieties. The vast majority of speakers of Berber languages are concentrated in Morocco and Algeria. The exact population of speakers has been historically difficult to ascertain due to lack of official recognition. Morocco
430-549: Is sometimes used to refer to a specific subset of Berber languages, such as Central Tashlhiyt. "Tamazight" can also be used to refer to Standard Moroccan Tamazight or Standard Algerian Tamazight , as in the Moroccan and Algerian constitutions respectively. In Morocco, besides referring to all Berber languages or to Standard Moroccan Tamazight, "Tamazight" is often used in contrast to Tashelhit and Tarifit to refer to Central Atlas Tamazight . The use of Berber has been
473-600: Is the country with the greatest number of speakers of Berber languages. As of 2022, Ethnologue estimates there to be 13.8 million speakers of Berber languages in Morocco, based on figures from 2016 and 2017. In 1960, the first census after Moroccan independence was held. It claimed that 32 percent of Moroccans spoke a Berber language, including bi-, tri- and quadrilingual people. The 2004 census found that 3,894,805 Moroccans over five years of age spoke Tashelhit, 2,343,937 spoke Central Atlas Tamazight, and 1,270,986 spoke Tarifit, representing 14.6%, 8.8%, and 4.8% respectively of
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#1732787244015516-529: The Amazigh languages or Tamazight , are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family . They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who are indigenous to North Africa . The languages are primarily spoken and not typically written. Historically, they have been written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which now exists in
559-719: The Kabyles use the term "Leqbayel" to refer to their own people, while the Chaouis identified themselves as "Ishawiyen" instead of Berber/Amazigh. Since modern Berber languages are relatively homogeneous, the date of the Proto-Berber language from which the modern group is derived was probably comparatively recent, comparable to the age of the Germanic or Romance subfamilies of the Indo-European family. In contrast,
602-646: The Libyco-Berber script . Early uses of the script have been found on rock art and in various sepulchres; the oldest known variations of the script dates to inscriptions in Dugga from 600 BC. Usage of this script, in the form of Tifinagh , has continued into the present day among the Tuareg people . Following the spread of Islam , some Berber scholars also utilized the Arabic script . The Berber Latin alphabet
645-416: The Maghreb countries to varying degrees pursued a policy of Arabisation , aimed partly at displacing French from its colonial position as the dominant language of education and literacy. Under this policy the use of the Berber languages was suppressed or even banned. This state of affairs has been contested by Berbers in Morocco and Algeria—especially Kabylie —and was addressed in both countries by affording
688-914: The Massinissa Temple (discovered in 1904) and the Prince Ateban Mausoleum in Dougga / Thugga (TBGG), northern Tunisia. Other significant Libyco-Berber inscription are the Azib N'Ikkis and the Oukaimeden, both found in the High-Atlas Mountains of Morocco . The use of the Libyco-Berber alphabet died out in northern areas during or after the reign of the Roman and Byzantine empires , but it spread south into
731-623: The Numidian language in ancient North Africa. The Libyco-Berber script is found in thousands of stone inscriptions and engravings throughout Morocco , northern Algeria , Tunisia , northern Libya and the Canary Islands, with inscriptions of the later (transitional) Saharan variant in rocky outcrops in Mali and Niger. Apart from thousands of small inscriptions, some of the best known and significant Libyco-Berber inscriptions are in
774-664: The Sahara desert and evolved there into the Tuareg Tifinagh alphabet used by the Tuareg Berbers to this day. Before, during, and after the existence of the ancient Berber kingdoms of Numidia (northern Algeria, 202 BC–40 BC) and Mauretania (northern Morocco, 3rd century BC – 44 AD) many inscriptions were engraved using the Libyco-Berber script, although the overwhelming majority of the found ones were simple funerary scripts, with rock art, cave art, graffiti, and even
817-573: The Siwa Oasis of Egypt . There are also probably a few million speakers of Berber languages in Western Europe . Tashlhiyt , Kabyle , Central Atlas Tamazight , Tarifit , and Shawiya are some of the most commonly spoken Berber languages. Exact numbers are impossible to ascertain as there are few modern North African censuses that include questions on language use, and what censuses do exist have known flaws. Following independence in
860-556: The 1960s. In linguistics, the phonology of Berber languages is written with the International Phonetic Alphabet , with the following exceptions: Libyco-Berber The Libyco-Berber alphabet is an abjad writing system that was used during the first millennium BC by various Berber peoples of North Africa and the Canary Islands , to write ancient varieties of the Berber language like
903-561: The 20th century, the Berber languages have been suppressed and suffered from low prestige in North Africa . Recognition of the Berber languages has been growing in the 21st century, with Morocco and Algeria adding Tamazight as an official language to their constitutions in 2011 and 2016 respectively. Most Berber languages have a high percentage of borrowing and influence from the Arabic language , as well as from other languages. For example, Arabic loanwords represent 35% to 46% of
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#1732787244015946-557: The 24 have been deciphered. Libyco-Berber inventory (compared to equivalent Tifinagh letters by sound): The Western variant was used along the Mediterranean coast from Kabylia to the Canary Islands. It used 13 supplementary letters. As of 2002, much of the Western variant has yet to be deciphered. Western variant signs have also been observed to be used in combination with possible pictograms of animals. The origin of
989-520: The Berber people as one group comes in the form of Arabic بربر ( barbar ), as borrowed from Ancient Greek βᾰ́ρβᾰρος ( bárbaros , 'barbarian'). The Arabic word barbar was applied to the people whose language seemed very strange, hence the name "Berber". Berbers started being referred to collectively as Berbers following the Arab Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th century. This word referred mostly to groups in northwest Africa. By
1032-525: The Libyco-Berber script is still debated by academic researchers. The leading theories regarding its origins posit it as being either a heavily modified version of the Phoenician alphabet, or a local invention influenced by the latter, with the most supported view being that it derived from a local prototype conceptually inspired by a Phoenician or archaic Semitic model. Other unlikely explanations include Greek, Punic or South Arabian influences. One of
1075-640: The Libyco-Berber script; some studies divide these varieties into eastern and western, while others have identified more than 25 "dialects" grouped in 5 different families. The eastern variant was used in what is now Constantine and the Aurès regions of Algeria and in Tunisia , and to an extent Kabylia. It is the best-deciphered variant, due to the discovery of several Numidian bilingual inscriptions in Libyco-Berber and Punic (notably so-called KAI 100 and 101 at Dougga in Tunisia). Since 1843, 22 letters out of
1118-538: The case of Zenaga and Tuareg. Kossmann roughly groups the Berber languages into seven blocks: The Zenatic block is typically divided into the Zenati and Eastern Berber branches, due to the marked difference in features at each end of the continuum. Otherwise, subclassifications by different linguists typically combine various blocks into different branches. Western Moroccan languages, Zenati languages, Kabyle, and Ghadames may be grouped under Northern Berber ; Awjila
1161-632: The exception of Zenaga, Tetserret, and Tuareg, the Berber languages form a dialect continuum . Different linguists take different approaches towards drawing boundaries between languages in this continuum. Maarten Kossmann notes that it is difficult to apply the classic tree model of historical linguistics towards the Berber languages: [The Berber language family]'s continuous history of convergence and differentiation along new lines makes an definition of branches arbitrary. Moreover, mutual intelligibility and mutual influence render notions such as "split" or "branching" rather difficult to apply except, maybe, in
1204-515: The form of Tifinagh . Today, they may also be written in the Berber Latin alphabet or the Arabic script , with Latin being the most pervasive. The Berber languages have a similar level of variety to the Romance languages , although they are sometimes referred to as a single collective language, often as "Berber", "Tamazight", or "Amazigh". The languages, with a few exceptions, form
1247-461: The inclusion of Tamazight as an official language. The 2000 Charter for Education Reform marked a change in policy, with its statement of "openness to Tamazight." Planning for a public Tamazight-language TV network began in 2006; in 2010, the Moroccan government launched Tamazight TV . On July 29, 2011, Tamazight was added as an official language to the Moroccan constitution. After gaining independence from France in 1962, Algeria committed to
1290-527: The language official status and introducing it in some schools. After gaining independence from France in 1956, Morocco began a period of Arabisation through 1981, with primary and secondary school education gradually being changed to Arabic instruction, and with the aim of having administration done in Arabic, rather than French. During this time, there were riots amongst the Amazigh population, which called for
1333-593: The medieval period, Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun elevated the "Berbers" into a "race" or "nation", granting them equal status with the nations of the world. This was then solidified during French colonization when the Kabyle myth developed and 'Berbère' became a relatively common term of self-identification. In an attempt to reclaim the identity from the history of colonization, the Agraw Imazighen (a Paris-based Kabyle activist association that dissolved in 1978 and
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1376-594: The population. After the 1994-1995 general school boycott in Kabylia, Tamazight was recognized for the first time as a national language. In 2002, following the riots of the Black Spring , Tamazight was recognized for the second time as a national language , though not as an official one. This was done on April 8, 2003. Tamazight has been taught for three hours a week through the first three years of Algerian middle schools since 2005. On January 5, 2016, it
1419-469: The speakers of the languages descended from what is now called Proto-Libyan nor was there a term for their land. Instead, more specific terms for each subgroup were employed such as the Kabyle term Leqbayel or the Shawi term Ishawiyen . Berber peoples did not refer to themselves as Berbers/Amazigh but had their own terms to refer to their own groups and communities. The earliest known reference to
1462-577: The split of the group from the other Afroasiatic sub-phyla is much earlier, and is therefore sometimes associated with the local Mesolithic Capsian culture . A number of extinct populations are believed to have spoken Afroasiatic languages of the Berber branch. According to Peter Behrens and Marianne Bechaus-Gerst, linguistic evidence suggests that the peoples of the C-Group culture in present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan spoke Berber languages. The Nilo-Saharan Nobiin language today contains
1505-549: The subject of debate due to its historical background as an exonym and present equivalence with the Arabic word for "barbarian." One group, the Linguasphere Observatory , has attempted to introduce the neologism "Tamazic languages" to refer to the Berber languages. Amazigh people typically use "Tamazight" when speaking English. Historically, Berbers did not refer to themselves as Berbers/Amazigh but had their own terms to refer to themselves. For example,
1548-452: The surveyed population, or roughly 28.2% of the surveyed population combined. The 2014 census found that 14.1% of the population spoke Tashelhit, 7.9% spoke Central Atlas Tamazight, and 4% spoke Tarifit, or about 26% of the population combined. These estimates, as well as the estimates from various academic sources, are summarized as follows: Algeria is the country with the second greatest number of speakers of Berber languages. In 1906,
1591-481: The term to imagine and describe a hypothetical federation spanning between the Canary Islands and the Siwa Oasis , a large swathe of territory including Morocco , Algeria , Tunisia , Libya , Mauritania , Mali , Niger , Egypt , the Western Sahara , Burkina Faso and Senegal . Historically, Berbers did not see themselves as a single cultural or linguistic unit, and there was no singular endonym for
1634-468: The total population speaking Berber languages in Algeria, excluding the thinly populated Sahara region, was estimated at 1,305,730 out of 4,447,149, or 29%. Secondary sources disagree on the percentage of self-declared native Berber speakers in the 1966 census, the last Algerian census containing a question about the mother tongue. Some give 17.9% while other report 19%. Kabyle speakers account for
1677-614: The total vocabulary of the Kabyle language and represent 51.7% of the total vocabulary of Tarifit . Almost all Berber languages took from Arabic the pharyngeal fricatives /ʕ/ and /ħ/, the (nongeminated) uvular stop /q/, and the voiceless pharyngealized consonant /ṣ/. Unlike the Chadic , Cushitic , and Omotic languages of the Afro-Asiatic phylum, Berber languages are not tonal languages. "Tamazight" and "Berber languages" are often used interchangeably. However, "Tamazight"
1720-1211: The vast majority of speakers of Berber languages in Algeria. Shawiya is the second most commonly spoken Berber language in Algeria. Other Berber languages spoken in Algeria include: Shenwa , with 76,300 speakers; Tashelhit, with 6,000 speakers; Ouargli , with 20,000 speakers; Tamahaq , with 71,400 speakers; Tugurt , with 8,100 speakers; Tidikelt , with 1,000 speakers; Gurara , with 11,000 speakers; and Mozabite , with 150,000 speakers. Population estimates are summarized as follows: As of 1998, there were an estimated 450,000 Tawellemmet speakers, 250,000 Air Tamajeq speakers, and 20,000 Tamahaq speakers in Niger . As of 2018 and 2014 respectively, there were an estimated 420,000 speakers of Tawellemmet and 378,000 of Tamasheq in Mali . As of 2022, based on figures from 2020, Ethnologue estimates there to be 285,890 speakers of Berber languages in Libya : 247,000 speakers of Nafusi , 22,800 speakers of Tamahaq, 13,400 speakers of Ghadamés , and 2,690 speakers of Awjila . The number of Siwi speakers in Libya
1763-536: Was announced that Tamazight had been added as a national and official language in a draft amendment to the Algerian constitution; it was added to the constitution as a national and official language on February 7, 2016. Although regional councils in Libya's Nafusa Mountains affiliated with the National Transitional Council reportedly use the Berber language of Nafusi and have called for it to be granted co-official status with Arabic in
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1806-538: Was developed following the introduction of the Latin script in the nineteenth century by the West. The nineteenth century also saw the development of Neo-Tifinagh, an adaptation of Tuareg Tifinagh for use with other Berber languages. There are now three writing systems in use for Berber languages: Tifinagh, the Arabic script, and the Berber Latin alphabet , with the Latin alphabet being the most widely used today. With
1849-585: Was known as the Berber Academy before 1969) coined the term Tamazɣa using the pre-existing triconsonantal root M-Z-Ɣ in the 1970s to refer to the lands where the different Berber languages were spoken. The term has been translated into Spanish as Mazigia, abbreviated as MZG and used as an alternative international license plate code for some people. Berber languages Kabyle Atlas Zenati Western Berber Eastern Berber Tuareg The Berber languages , also known as
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