The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages, are a branch of the Afrasian language family. They form a group of closely related dialects spoken by the Berbers - the indigenous people of North Africa. The languages of this group use a special ancient letter, which now exists in the form of a special symbolic system - typhinagus. It should be noted separately that there is no separate Berber language. This is an extensive language group, distributed almost throughout North Africa.
Spread
These languages are spoken by large populations of Morocco, Algeria and Libya, smaller populations of Tunisia, northern Mali, western and northern Niger, northern Burkina Faso and Mauritania, as well as in the Siwa oasis in Egypt. Since the 50s of the 20th century, large Berber-speaking migrant communities have been living in Western Europe, currently numbering about 4 million people. The number of people who speak Berber languages is much higher than the number of people who speak the same languages. It is believed that the bulk of the population of the Maghreb countries has Berber ancestors.
Diversity
About 90% of Berber-speaking residents speak one of the seven main types of this language group, each of which has at least 2 million speakers. These include the following languages:
- Shilha.
- Kabil.
- Tamazit.
- Shavia.
- Tuareg.
It is believed that the extinct Guanche language, spoken by representatives of the Guanche people living in the Canary Islands, as well as the languages of the ancient cultures of modern Egypt and northern Sudan, belonged to the Berber-Libyan languages of the Afro-Asian family. There is also a significant proportion of extinct languages allegedly belonging to this group.
Written tradition
The Berber languages and dialects have a written tradition that includes about 2500 years of history, although it was often interrupted by various cultural shifts and invasions of foreign invaders. In antiquity, they all used a special type of writing - the Libicoberber Abjad, which is still used by the Tuareg in the form of typhinages. The oldest dated inscription of this kind dates back to the 3rd century BC. Later, between 1000 and 1500 CE, most of these languages used the Arabic script, and since the 20th century they have been translated into the Latin alphabet, which has taken root among the Kabile and Reef communities of Morocco and Algeria. It has also been used by most European and Berber linguists.
Writing development
A modernized form of the Typhinagian alphabet, called neo-typhinagh, was adopted in Morocco in 2003 to write texts in the Berber languages, but many Moroccan publications still use the Latin alphabet. Algerians for the most part use the Latin alphabet in public schools, while typhinagus is mainly used to create various artistic symbols. Mali and Niger recognize the Tuareg Berber Latin alphabet tuned to the Tuareg phonological system. However, traditional typhinagus is still used in these countries.
Rebirth and Unification
Among the carriers of closely related varieties of North Berber dialects, there is a cultural and political movement that promotes and unites them through a new written language called tamazigot (or tamazayt). Tamaziɣt is the current local name for the Berber language in Morocco and the reef regions, as well as in the Libyan region of Zuvara. In other Berber-speaking areas, this name has been lost. From medieval Berber manuscripts, there is historical evidence that all the indigenous people of North Africa from Libya to Morocco once called their Tamazite language. This name is now increasingly used by educated Berbers to denote their language.
Confession
In 2001, the local Berber language became the constitutional national language of Algeria, and in 2011 it also became the official language of Morocco. In 2016, it became the official language of Algeria along with Arabic.
Name history
The name we know today of these languages has been known in Europe since at least the 17th century; it is still used today. It was borrowed from the famous Latin word "barbarian". The notorious Latin word is also found in the Arabic designation for these populations - البربر (al-Barbara).
Etymologically, the Berber root MZ-Ɣ (Mazigh) (singular: amazigh, feminization - tamazight) means "free man", "noble man" or "protector". Many Berber linguists prefer to consider the term “tamazyte” as a purely local word that is used only in the Berber text, while the European word “berber / berbero” is used in European texts. European languages distinguish between the words "Berber" and "barbaric", while in Arabic, the same word "al-Barbari" is used for both meanings.
Some Berber nationalist writers, especially in Morocco, prefer to call their people and language the native word Amazigh, even when they write in French or English.
Traditionally, the term “tamazait” (in various forms: tamazight, tamashek, tamajak, tamahak) was used by many Berber groups to designate the language they spoke, including Rifz, Cenedic in Tunisia and Tuareg. However, other terms are also often used by other ethnic groups. For example, some Berber inhabitants of Algeria called their language taznatite (zenati) or husk, while Kabul called it takbaylit, and the inhabitants of the Siwa oasis call their dialect the word Siwi. In Tunisia, the local Amazigh language is usually called shella - a term that also occurs in Morocco. A translator of Berber languages is a rare profession, because the knowledge of Europeans in them is usually limited.
The Linguasphere Observatory scientific group attempted to introduce the neologism “Tamaz languages” to refer to the Berber dialects.
Berber languages: roots
This linguistic branch belongs to the Afrasian family. Many nonetheless believe that the Berber language is from a rude language family. Since the modern languages of this group are relatively homogeneous, the date of origin of the Proto-Berber dialect from which modern languages derive was probably relatively recent, comparable to the age of Germanic or Romanesque subfamilies.
On the contrary, the separation of the group from another Afrasian subphile occurs much earlier, and therefore its origin is sometimes associated with the local Mesolithic Cape culture. It is believed that many extinct peoples spoke the Afrasian languages of the Berber branch. According to Peter Behrens (1981) and Marianne Behaus-Gerst (2000), linguistic evidence suggests that the peoples of a number of cultural groups in modern southern Egypt and northern Sudan spoke Berber languages. The Nilo-Saharan Nubian language today contains a number of key loan words related to cattle breeding that are of Berber origin, including names for sheep and water (Nile). This, in turn, suggests that the ancient population of the Nile Valley gave rise to the modern peoples of North Africa.
Spread
Roger Blench suggests that proto-Berber dialects spread from the Nile Valley to North Africa 4,000 to 5,000 years ago due to the spread of cattle breeding and formed a modern language resemblance about 2,000 years ago when the Roman Empire expanded rapidly in North Africa. Consequently, although the Berbers broke away from the common Afrasian source about several thousand years ago, the proto-Berber itself can only be reconstructed in the form in which it existed in 200 CE. and later.
Blench also notes that the ancient Berber language was significantly different from other Afrasian dialects, however, modern languages of this group demonstrate a very low internal diversity. The presence of Punic (Carthaginian) borrowings from Proto-Berbers indicates the diversification of modern varieties of these languages after the fall of Carthage in 146 BC. Only the Zenaga language does not have Punic borrowings. This language group is very different from European languages, even if it has, presumably, a distant connection with Basque. Russian and Berber are completely different.