Berber languages
| Berber | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ / 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 and Mauritania. Berber-speaking Moroccan and Algerian immigrants of about 2 million in: France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, Canada and USA. |
||
| Linguistic classification: |
Afro-Asiatic
|
||
| 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.
|
|||
The Berber language or Amazigh languages (Berber name: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ, Tamaziɣt, Tamazight, 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 in Algeria and Morocco, and by smaller populations in Libya, Tunisia, northern Mali, western and northern Niger, northern Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and in the Siwa Oasis of Egypt. Large Berber-speaking migrant communities have been living in Western Europe since the 1950s. In 2001, Berber became a constitutional national language of Algeria, and in 2011 Berber became a constitutionally official language of Morocco, 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 movement among speakers of the closely related varieties of Northern Berber to unite them under a standard language. The name Tamazight, originally the self-name in the Atlas and the Rif regions, is being increasingly used for this Standardized Berber, and even for Berber as a whole, including Tuareg-Berber.
Around 90 percent of the Berber-speaking population speak one of six major varieties of Berber, each with at least two million speakers. They are, in the order of demographic weight: Tashelhit (Tacelḥit), Kabyle (Taqbaylit), Atlas Tamazight (Tamaziɣt), Riffian (Tamaziɣt/Tarifit), Shawi (Tacawit) and Tuareg (Tamahaq/Tamaceq). Additionally, the extinct Guanche language spoken on the Canary Islands by the Guanches as well as the languages of the ancient C-Group Culture in present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan are believed to have belonged to the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family.
...
Wikipedia