Names of the Berber people

The indigenous population of the Maghreb region of North Africa encompass a diverse grouping of several heterogenous ethnic groups who predate the arrival of Arabs in 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]

Look up Berber in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Historically, Berbers did not refer to themselves as Berbers/Amazigh 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 Numidian, 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 Archaic Greece, βάρβαροι (barbaroi) '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]

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 endonym for indigenous North Africans otherwise known as "Berber."[8] "Amazigh" is also used in English; the native language plural "Imazighen" is sometimes but not always used as well.[5][6][8][9] There have been efforts by self-identified Amazigh to popularize the term over "Berber," including in English, due to the perceived derogatory nature of the latter.[8][9][11] The use of "Amazigh" is particularly common in Morocco, especially among Central Atlas Tamazight, Tarifit and Shilha speakers in 1980.[23] Its usage does not replace that for more specific ethnic groups, such as Kabyle or 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

References
  1. Andrews, Jonathan (2019-04-30). The Missiology behind the Story: Voices from the Arab World. Langham Publishing. 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. Skutsch, Carl (2013-11-07). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. p. 211. 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. Fields, Nic (2011-01-26). Roman Conquests: North Africa. Casemate Publishers. 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. Aïtel, Fazia (2014). We are Imazigen : the development of Algerian Berber identity in twentieth-century literature and culture. Gainesville, FL. ISBN 978-0-8130-4895-6. OCLC 895334326.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. Ilahiane, Hsain (2017). Historical dictionary of the Berbers (Imazighen) (2nd ed.). Lanham, Maryland. ISBN 978-1-4422-8182-0. OCLC 966314885.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. Oxford Arabic dictionary : Arabic-English · English-Arabic. Tressy Arts (First ed.). Oxford. 2014. pp. 979, 990. ISBN 978-0-19-958033-0. OCLC 881018992.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  8. Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce (2011). The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States. University of Texas Press. pp. 14–17. ISBN 9780292745056.
  9. Vourlias, Christopher (January 25, 2010). "Moroccan minority's net gain". Variety. Vol. 417, no. 10. Penske Business Media, LLC.
  10. ""Respecting Identity: Amazigh Versus Berber"". Society for Linguistic Anthropology. 2019-09-23. Retrieved 2022-10-25.
  11. Language Diversity Endangered. Matthias Brenzinger. Berlin. 2015. p. 124. ISBN 978-3-11-090569-4. OCLC 979749010.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  12. Goodman, Jane E. (2005-11-03). Berber Culture on the World Stage: From Village to Video. Indiana University Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-253-21784-4.
  13. Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce (2022). Amazigh politics in the wake of the Arab Spring. Austin. ISBN 978-1-4773-2482-0. OCLC 1255524815.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  14. Zimmermann, K. (2008). "Lebou/Libou". Encyclopédie berbère. Vol. 28-29 | Kirtēsii – Lutte. Aix-en-Provence: Edisud. pp. 4361–4363. doi:10.4000/encyclopedieberbere.319.
  15. Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 5. p. 162.
  16. "The term barbaros, "A Greek-English Lexicon" (Liddell & Scott), on Perseus". Perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2018-07-12.
  17. Delante Bravo, Chrostopher (2012). Chirping like the swallows: Aristophanes' portrayals of the barbarian "other". p. 9. 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. Rouighi, Ramzi (2019). Inventing the Berbers: History and Ideology in the Maghrib. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8122-5130-2. JSTOR j.ctv16t6h7b.
  20. Soulaimani, Dris (2016). "Writing and rewriting Amazigh/Berber identity: Orthographies and language ideologies". Writing Systems Research. 8 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1080/17586801.2015.1023176. S2CID 144700140.
  21. Hoad, T.F., ed. (2003) [1996]. "Berber". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford University Press. 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. Heggoy, Willy N. (July 1947). "The Mozabites of Algeria". The Muslim World. 37 (3): 192–208. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1947.tb02488.x. ISSN 0027-4909.
  26. "Tamazight language | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-02-13.
  27. The encyclopaedia of Islam. H. A. R. Gibb, P. J. Bearman (New ed.). Leiden: Brill. 1960–2009. ISBN 90-04-16121-X. 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. Gross, Joan E. (1993). "The Politics of Unofficial Language Use: Walloon in Belgium, Tamazight in Morocco". Critique of Anthropology. 13 (2): 181. doi:10.1177/0308275X9301300204. ISSN 0308-275X. 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. Alalou, Ali (2018-04-03). "The question of languages and the medium of instruction in Morocco". Current Issues in Language Planning. 19 (2): 136–160. doi:10.1080/14664208.2017.1353329. ISSN 1466-4208. S2CID 149159548.
  32. Aïtel, Fazia (2014). We are Imazighen: the development of Algerian Berber identity in twentieth-century literature and culture. Gainesville, FL. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-8130-4895-6. 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. Lipiński, Edward (2001). Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. p. 38. ISBN 978-90-429-0815-4.
  35. Ibn Khaldun (1925). Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l'Afrique septentrionale (in French). Vol. 1. Translated by de Slane, William MacGuckin. Paris: P. Geuthner. p. 176. 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. Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce (2006). "Ethno-politics and globalisation in North Africa: The Berber culture movement". The Journal of North African Studies. 11 (1): 71–84. doi:10.1080/13629380500409917. 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. Blackmore, Josiah (2009). Moorings: Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa. U of Minnesota Press. p. xvi, 18. ISBN 978-0-8166-4832-0.
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