Amazigh language
| Berber | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵗⵜ / Tamaziɣt / Tamazight | |||
| Ethnicity | Berbers (Imaziɣen) | ||
| Geographic distribution |
North Africa, mainly Morocco, Algeria, Libya, northern Mali and northern Niger; smaller Berber-speaking populations in Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Mauritania and the Spanish city of Melilla. Berber-speaking Moroccan and Algerian immigrants of about 2 million in: France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, Canada and USA. |
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| Linguistic classification |
Afro-Asiatic
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| Proto-language | Proto-Berber | ||
| Subdivisions | |||
| ISO 639-2 / 5 | |||
| Glottolog | berb1260 | ||
Berber-speaking populations are dominant in the colored areas of modern-day North Africa. The other areas of North Africa contain minority Berber-speaking populations.
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Berber or the Berber languages or the Amazigh language (Berber name: Tamaziɣt, Tamazight, ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵗⵜ, pronounced [tæmæˈzɪɣt] or [θæmæˈzɪɣθ]) are a family of similar and closely related languages and dialects indigenous to North Africa.
Berber is spoken by large populations of Algeria, Morocco and Libya; and by smaller populations Tunisia, northern Mali, western and northern Niger, northern Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and in the Siwa Oasis of Egypt.
Large Berber-speaking migrant communities, numbering today about 4 million, have been living in Western Europe, spanning over three generations, since the 1950s. About half of this population was born in Europe.
In 2001, Berber became a constitutional national language of Algeria, and in 2011 Berber became a constitutionally official language of Morocco, and in 2016 Berber became a constitutionally official language of Algeria, after years of persecution.
Berber constitutes a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, and has been attested since ancient times. The number of Berbers is much higher than the number of Berber speakers. The bulk of the populations of the Maghreb countries are considered to have Berber ancestors. In Algeria, for example, a majority of the population consists of Arabized Berbers.
There is a cultural and political movement among speakers of the closely related varieties of Northern Berber to promote and unify them under a written standard language, called: Tamaziɣt. The name Tamaziɣt (Tamazight) is the current native name of the Berber language in the Moroccan Middle-Atlas region, the Rif regions and the Libyan Zuara region. In other Berber-speaking area this name was lost. There is historical evidence, from medieval Berber manusctipts, that all native North Africans from Libya to Morocco have called their language: "Tamaziɣt". The name "Tamaziɣt" is currently being increasingly used by educated Berbers to refer to the written Berber language, and even to Berber as a whole, including Tuareg-Berber.
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Wikipedia