Names of the Berber people

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The indigenous population of the

Arab migration to the Maghreb.[1][2][3] They are collectively known as Berbers or Amazigh in English.[4] The native plural form Imazighen is sometimes also used in English.[5][6] While "Berber" is more widely known among English-speakers, its usage is a subject of debate, due to its historical background as an exonym and present equivalence with the Arabic word for "barbarian."[7][8][9][10] When speaking English, indigenous North Africans typically refer to themselves as "Amazigh."[11]

Historically, these groups of people did not refer to themselves as "Berbers" but had their own terms to refer to themselves. For example, the Kabyles use the term "Leqbayel" to refer to their own people, while the Chaouis identified themselves as "Ishawiyen" instead of Berber/Amazigh.[12]

The

Mauri and Libu populations of antiquity are typically understood to refer to approximately the same population as modern Amazigh or Berbers.[13][14]

Today

Berber

In

barbarians' was an onomatopoeic word to describe languages perceived as defective, as well as their speakers; bar-bar was an imitation of these languages.[15][16][13] Around the beginning of Classical Greece, the term had come to be used for all foreigners and non-Greek speakers.[15][16][17] Greeks referred to North African tribes as barbaroi, along with other generalized terms, such as "Numidians," and tribal designations.[8] Among the oldest written attestations of the word Berber is its use as an ethnonym in a document from the 1st century AD Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.[18][citation needed
]

The Greek barbaroi was borrowed as the Arabic word بربرة (barbara) 'to babble noisily, to jabber', which was used by conquering Arabs to describe indigenous North African peoples, due to the perceived oddness of their (non-Semitic) language. This usage was the first recorded to refer to indigenous North Africans as the "Berber" collective.[8][19] Though "Berber" had been used in reference to East Africans as well, it was mostly applied to Maghreb tribes in conquest narratives, and this became the dominant usage of the term.[19]

Following a period of

Islamization, the highly-influential Arab mediaeval writer Ibn Khaldun considered "Berbers" to be their own "race" or "great nation." This idea fell out of use as indigenous North Africans were increasingly marginalized, but was revived by French colonists in the nineteenth century in hopes of dividing the population.[8][13][20]

The English term "Berber" is derived from the Arabic word barbar, which means both "Berber" and "barbarian."[7][21][22] Due to this shared meaning, as well as its historical background as an exonym, the term "Berber" is commonly viewed as a pejorative by indigenous North Africans today.[8][9][10]

Amazigh

Amazigh (fem. Tamazight, pl. Imazighen) is an

Chaoui.[24]

Relatedly, the endonym of Berber languages is typically Tamazight, and in English, "Tamazight" and "Berber languages" are often used interchangeably.[8][25][26][27] "Tamazight" may also be used to a specific language, such as Central Atlas Tamazight or Standard Moroccan Amazigh, depending on the context of its usage.[28][29][30][31]

Although Amazigh as a term had been used throughout history, its use as a claim on collective indigenous North African identity is more recent. Many scholars suggest that the 1945 poem “Kker a mmis umazigh” (“Rise up Son of Amazigh”) by Mohand Idir Aït Amrane to be its first use as a cultural claim.[32]

Etymology

Some scholars suggest that the root word maziġ in the name Amazigh may be related to early Libyco-Berber tribes, which had been referred to as Mazices in some sources.[33][34] According to Ibn Khaldun, the name Mazîgh is derived from one of the early ancestors of the Berbers.[34][35]

According to the Berber author Leo Africanus, Amazigh meant 'free man'; some argued that there is no root of M-Z-Ɣ meaning 'free' in the modern Berber languages. However, mmuzeɣ ('to be noble', 'generous') exists among the Imazighen of Central Morocco and tmuzeɣ ('to free oneself', 'revolt') exists among the Kabyles of Ouadhia.[36] Further, Amazigh also has a cognate in the Tuareg word Amajegh, meaning 'noble'.[37][38]

Historical

Libu

Main article: Libu

Numidians

Main article: Numidians

Moors

Main articles: Mauri and Moors

Romans referred to the indigenous tribes of Mauretania as Mauri, or "Moors."[13][19][39]

Indigenous North African tribes, along with other populations, were referred to as "Moors" by medieval Europeans.[40]

The historical interchangeability between "Berbers" and "Moors" is a subject of academic inquiry.[19]

See also

  • Berber people
  • Berber language

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-78368-599-8
    . Berber: A collective term for the indigenous peoples of North Africa who predate the arrival of Arabs during the expansion of the Arab empire in the seventeenth century.
  2. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1
    . Berber is a generic name given to numerous heterogenous ethnic groups that share similar cultural, political, and economic practices.
  3. ISBN 978-1-84884-704-0
    . It must be said that modern Berbers are a very diverse group of peoples whose main connections are linguistic.
  4. ^ "Berber | Definition, People, Languages, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-12-13.
  5. ^
    OCLC 895334326.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  6. ^
    OCLC 966314885.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  7. ^
    OCLC 881018992.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  8. ^
    ISBN 9780292745056
    .
  9. ^ a b c d Vourlias, Christopher (January 25, 2010). "Moroccan minority's net gain". Variety. Vol. 417, no. 10. Penske Business Media, LLC.
  10. ^ a b ""Respecting Identity: Amazigh Versus Berber"". Society for Linguistic Anthropology. 2019-09-23. Retrieved 2022-10-25.
  11. ^
    OCLC 979749010.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  12. ISBN 978-0-253-21784-4
    .
  13. ^
    OCLC 1255524815.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  14. doi:10.4000/encyclopedieberbere.319
    .
  15. ^ a b Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 5. p. 162.
  16. ^ a b "The term barbaros, "A Greek-English Lexicon" (Liddell & Scott), on Perseus". Perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2018-07-12.
  17. ISBN 978-1-248-96599-3
    .
  18. ^ Schoff, Wilfred Harvey (1912). The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century. Longmans, Green. p. 56. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  19. ^
    JSTOR j.ctv16t6h7b
    .
  20. S2CID 144700140
    .
  21. ISBN 9780191727153
    . XIX. — Arab. barbar.
  22. ^ "berber | Etymology, origin and meaning of the name berber by etymonline". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  23. ^ "INALCO report on Central Morocco Tamazight: maps, extension, dialectology, name" (in French). Archived from the original on July 27, 2010. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
  24. ^ Mohand Akli Haddadou (2000). Le guide de la culture berbère. Paris Méditerranée. pp. 13–14.
  25. ISSN 0027-4909
    .
  26. ^ "Tamazight language | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-02-13.
  27. OCLC 399624.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  28. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-05-22. Retrieved 2016-01-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  29. ^ Sanga, Oumar; Mackie, Chris (October 31, 2022). "Education in Morocco". World Education News & Reviews.
  30. S2CID 145058398
    . Tamazight in Morocco is divided by linguists into three major dialect areas usually referred to as: Taselhit in the south, Tamazight in the Middle Atlas mountains, and Tarifit in the north.
  31. S2CID 149159548
    .
  32. OCLC 895334326.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  33. ^ Morocco's Berbers Battle to Keep From Losing Their Culture. San Francisco Chronicle. March 16, 2001.
  34. ^
    ISBN 978-90-429-0815-4
    .
  35. OCLC 556514510
    .
  36. ^ Brugnatelli, Vermondo (16–18 June 2012). À propos de la valeur sémantique d' amaziɣ et tamaziɣt dans l'histoire du berbère [About the semantic value of amaziɣ and tamaziɣt in Berber history]. BaFraLe (in French). Retrieved 30 March 2022.
  37. ^ Brett, Michael; Fentress, E. W. B. (1996). The Berbers. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 5–6.
  38. S2CID 143883949
    .
  39. ^ οἰκοῦσι δ᾽ ἐνταῦθα Μαυρούσιοι μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων λεγόμενοι, Μαῦροι δ᾽ ὑπὸ τῶν Ῥωμαίων καὶ τῶν ἐπιχωρίων "Here dwell a people called by the Greeks Maurusii, and by the Romans and the natives Mauri" Strabo, Geographica 17.3.2. Lewis and Short, Latin Dictionary, 1879 s.v. "Mauri"
  40. ISBN 978-0-8166-4832-0
    .
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