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Tifinagh ( Tuareg Berber language: ; Neo-Tifinagh: ; Berber Latin alphabet: ; ) is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifinagh, is still favored by the Tuareg people of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria, northeastern Mali, northern Niger, and northern Burkina Faso for writing the Tuareg languages. Neo-Tifinagh is an alphabet developed by the Berber Academy by adopting Tuareg Tifinagh for use for Kabyle; it has been since modified for use across North Africa. Tifinagh is one of three major competing Berber orthographies alongside the Berber Latin alphabet and the Arabic alphabet. Tifinagh is the official script for Tamazight, an official language of Morocco and Algeria. Outside of symbolic cultural uses, Latin remains the dominant script for writing Berber languages throughout North Africa. The ancient Libyco-Berber script was used by the ancient norther ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tuareg Languages
Tuareg (), also known as ''Tamasheq'' (), ''Tamajaq'' or ''Tamahaq'' (Tifinagh: ), is a group of closely related Berber languages, Berber Linguistic variety, varieties. They are spoken by the Tuareg people, Tuareg Berbers in large parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya, and Burkina Faso, with a few speakers, the ''Kinnin'', in Chad. Description The Tuareg varieties, on account of their low internal diversity and high Mutual intelligibility, mutual intercomprehensibility, are commonly regarded as a single language by linguists (as for instance by Karl-Gottfried Prasse). They are distinguished mainly by a few sound shifts (notably affecting the pronunciation of original ''z'' and ''h''). The Tuareg varieties are unusually Conservative and innovative language, conservative in some respects; they retain two short vowels where Northern Berber languages have one or none, and have a much lower proportion of Arabic language, Arabic loanwords than most Berber languages. The Tuareg languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berber Latin Alphabet
The Berber Latin alphabet () is the version of the Latin alphabet used to write the Berber languages. It was adopted in the 19th century, using a variety of letters. History The Berber languages were originally written using the ancient ''Libyco-Berber'' script and then centuries later by the Tuareg Tifinagh script in Tuareg language areas, of which the Neo-Tifinagh alphabet/abjad is the modern development. The use of a Latin script for Berber has its roots in European (French and Italian) colonial expeditions to North Africa. Dictionaries and glossaries written with Latin letters, ordered alphabetically and following European orthography (mainly French) began to appear in print in the 19th century, they were intended to the colonial administration, traders and military officers. With the arrival of linguists specialized in Semitic languages there emerged a system based on Semitic romanization conventions: diacritics were used, and dictionary entries were now ordered by root. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kabyle Language
Kabyle () or Kabylian (; native name: ''Taqbaylit'' ) is a Berber languages, Berber language spoken by the Kabyle people in the north and northeast of Algeria. It is spoken primarily in Kabylia Estimating the number of Berber speakers is very difficult and figures are often contested. A 2004 estimate was that 9.4% of the Algerian population spoke Kabyle. The number of diaspora speakers has been estimated at one million. Classification Kabyle is one of the Northern Berber languages, a branch of the Berber languages, Berber language family within Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic. It is believed to have broken off very early from proto-Berber language, Proto-Berber, although after the Zenaga language did so. According to Maarten Kossmann, Kossmann (2020), Kabyle appears to be quite distinct. In several respects, it shares certain linguistic innovations with the Atlas languages, western Moroccan dialect group. However, it is unclear whether these similarities result from an earl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libyco-Berber Script
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 the Numidian language. The use of the Libyco-Berber alphabet died out in northern areas during or after the reign of the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire, but it spread south into the Sahara desert and evolved there into the Tuareg Tifinagh alphabet used by the Tuareg Berbers to this day. It is also known as the Numidian script or the Old Lybian script, the point being to avoid an assumption that Numidian has any continuity with any surviving modern Berber language. Origin The origin of 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 i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauretania
Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It extended from central present-day Algeria to the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, encompassing northern present-day Morocco, and from the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean in the north to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, of Berbers, Berber ancestry, were known to the Romans as the Mauri and the Masaesyli. In 25 BC, the kings of Mauretania became Roman vassals until about 44 AD, when the area was annexed to Rome and divided into two provinces: Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis. Christianity spread there from the 3rd century onwards. After the Muslim Arabs subdued the region in the 7th century, Islam became the dominant religion. Moorish kingdom Mauretania existed as a tribal kingdom of the Berber Mauri, Mauri people. In the early 1st century Strabo recorded ''Maûroi'' (Μαῦροι in Greek language, Greek) as the native name of a people opposite the Iberian Peninsula. This appel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numidia
Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia and Libya. The polity was originally divided between the Massylii state in the east (Capital: Cirta) and the Masaesyli state in the west (Capital: Siga). During the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), Masinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into the first unified Berbers, Berber state for Numidians in present-day Algeria. The kingdom began as a sovereign state and an ally of Roman Empire, Rome and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state. Numidia, at its foundation, was bordered by the Moulouya River to the west, Africa (Roman province), Africa Proconsularis and Cyrenaica to the east. the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Sahara to the south so that Numidia entirely surrounded Carthage except towards the sea. befor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the continent being 100 kilometres (62 miles) away. The islands have a population of 2.25 million people and are the most populous overseas Special member state territories and the European Union, special territory of the European Union. The seven main islands are from largest to smallest in area, Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera, and El Hierro. The only other populated island is Graciosa, Canary Islands, La Graciosa, which administratively is dependent on Lanzarote. The archipelago includes many smaller islands and islets, including Alegranza, Islote de Lobos, Isla de Lobos, Montaña Clara, Roque del Oeste, and Roque del Este. It includes a number of rocks, including Roque de Garachico, Garachico and Roques de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauri
Mauri (from which derives the English term "Moors") was the Latin designation for the Berber population of Mauretania, located in the west side of North Africa on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis, in the North of present-day Morocco and north western Algeria. Name ''Mauri'' (Μαῦροι) by Strabo, who wrote in the early 1st century, as the native name, which was also adopted into Latin, while he cites the Greek name for the same people as ''Maurusii'' (Μαυρούσιοι). The name ''Mauri'' as a tribal confederation or generic ethnic designator thus seems to roughly correspond to the people known as Numidians in earlier ethnography; both terms presumably group early Berber-speaking populations (the earliest Libyco-Berber epigraph dates to about the third century BC). Roman period In 44 AD, the Roman Empire incorporated the region as the province of Mauretania, later divided into Mauretania Caesariensis and Maureta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afri
(singular ) was a Latin name for the inhabitants of Africa, referring in its widest sense to all the lands south of the Mediterranean (Ancient Libya). Latin speakers at first used as an adjective, meaning "of Africa". As a substantive, it denoted a native of ; i.e., an African. Etymology The etymology of the term remains uncertain. It may derive from a Punic term for an indigenous population of the area surrounding Carthage. (See Terence for discussion.) The name is usually connected with Phoenician ''ʿafar'' "dust" (also found in other Semitic languages), but a 1981 hypothesis asserted that it stems from the Berber '' ifri'' (plural ''ifran'') "cave", in reference to cave dwellers.Geo. Babington Michell, "The Berbers" ''Journal of the Royal African Society'', Vol. 2, No. 6 (January 1903), pp. 161–194. (See [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numidians
The Numidians were the Berber population of Numidia (present-day Algeria). The Numidians were originally a semi-nomadic people, they migrated frequently as nomads usually do, but during certain seasons of the year, they would return to the same camp. The Numidians soon became more than pastoralists and started to engage in more urban professions. The Numidians were one of the earliest Berber tribes to trade with Carthaginian settlers. As Carthage grew, the relationship with the Numidians blossomed. Carthage's military used the Numidian cavalry as mercenaries. Numidia provided some of the highest quality cavalry of the Second Punic War, and the Numidian cavalry played a key role in several battles, both early on in support of Hannibal and later in the war after switching allegiance to the Roman Republic. Numidian culture flourished between the end of the Second Punic War and around the Roman conquest, with Masinissa as the first king of a unified Numidia. History Reign of Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mazices
The Mazices were Berbers of North Africa who appear in classical and late antique Greek and Latin sources. Many variants of the name are known: Maxyes in Herodotus; Mazyes in Hecataeus; Mazaces; Mazikes; Mazazaces; etc. They are all derived from the Berber autoethnonym ''Imazighen'' (singular ''Amazigh''). These terms were used both for Berbers in general and for certain Berber tribes. It is not clear if the original Berber term was used to refer to all Berbers or only a tribe or other subset.Salem Chaker (1986)"Amaziɣ (le/un Berbère)" ''Encyclopédie berbère'', 4, pp. 562–568, retrieved 25 January 2020. The Egyptian term ''Meshwesh'' for a tribe of ancient Libyans is probably a cognate.Anthony Leahy (2001)"Libya" in Donald B. Redford (ed.), ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt'' (Oxford University Press), retrieved 25 January 2020. In the 1st century AD, Lucan uses Mazax, the singular form of Mazaces, as a collective noun for the people. In the 3rd century, the ''Chr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Languages Of Algeria
Arabic, particularly the Algerian Arabic dialect, is the most widely spoken language in Algeria, but a number of regional and foreign languages are also spoken. The official languages of Algeria are Modern Standard Arabic, Arabic and Standard Algerian Berber, Berber, as specified in its constitution since 1963 for the former and since 2016 for the latter. Berber languages, Berber has been recognized as a "national language" by constitutional amendment since 8 May 2002. In February 2016, a constitutional resolution was passed making Berber an official language alongside Arabic. Arabic is spoken by about 81% of Algerians, while Berber languages are spoken by 27%."Aujourd'hui, la majorité des Algériens sont arabophones dans une proportion de 72 %. Parmi les Arabophones, c'est l'arabe algérien qui dominent nettement avec 60 % de la population totale et 83,2 % des arabophones. Les autres arabophones parlent le hassaniyya (11,3 %), l'arabe marocain (0,4 %), l'arabe du Sahara (0,1 %), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
