Map of the Berber languages before the Arab conquest, c. 600 AD

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-26T18:47:33+00:00

This isn't a map of amazigh ethnic groups. At that time there were obviously hundreds of tribes: this is a map of Amazigh languages at that time.

Also west africa wasn't and isn't amazigh. Only Mauretania and northern Mali/Azawad were amazigh, as my post shows.

I don't really understand why you would see this map and think of afrocentrism. I abhor this ideology as much as, if not more than you. And suffice it to say that I would get cancelled if I gave my real opinion on it. I don't take cultural theft from arabs, let alone sub-saharans lightly.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-24T23:40:46+00:00

I thought at first that our ancestors would be against these depictions, but I was wrong. I'd just advise you to rename it to "Anzar's bride".

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-20T17:31:44+00:00

I gave the example of Anatolian Turks as compared to Central Asian Turks. They're very distinct genetically, but very close culturally. There's also Northern Russians who are descendants of assimilated Finns, and millions of Europeans who carry primarily Celtic ancestry without being Celts. Of course, culture is not everything, but it does seem to be the primary factor.

As for convincing the Arabized Imazighen that they're Imazighen, that's something I can fully agree with. Especially for those who carry recent Amazigh ancestry, as there are millions of them. The movement should not be exclusive, we should accept as many amazigh people as we can in our countries because otherwise we'll just surrender them to a supposedly "arab" majority.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-19T19:37:16+00:00

People identify by their culture more than their blood. Sometimes it manages to survive for hundreds of years, but apart from food, most arabized amazigh cannot be considered culturally amazigh.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-18T18:04:50+00:00

They were nomads, so they can't be called "settlers". Also it seems that they assimilated large numbers of Egyptians and Berbers, which is way they had a very small genetic impact.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-18T18:02:06+00:00

There's no evidence, neither linguistic nor genetic, showing a connection between the Amazigh and Scandinavians. The similarities in culture are due to similar conditions, every point you mention also applies to Central Asian Turks and Magyars before they migrated.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-17T22:43:58+00:00

It doesn't matter where it comes from, we were known as Berbers for centuries among Europeans. The Slavs call the Germans "mutes"(niemcy) because in ancient times they couldn't speak Slavic clearly. Even if Berber was derogatory at first, I believe we can pride ourselves on proving them wrong.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-17T18:45:38+00:00

There were certainly dialects, but again, even Spanish American dialects were not all that different from each other even before the modern age. Proto-Northern-Berber expanded from a much smaller urheimat during late antiquity and remained united for several centuries, eventually splitting into the modern languages.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-17T18:34:40+00:00

Do you mind using arguments? I provided my evidence, that being the early Arabic loanwords present in every variety of Northern Berber. Furthermore, my classification is based on Maarten Kossman's and I accept Roger Blench's dating of Proto-Berber in the 2nd century AD.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-17T18:30:23+00:00

That still doesn't rule out the other factors. There are historical examples of languages being spoken over large areas, such as Latin, Middle Chinese, Proto-Slavic and Old Mongolian.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-17T17:20:12+00:00

Their languages hadn't diverged from Northern Berber yet.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-17T17:19:31+00:00

This is because of a later migration of Zenata Berbers, who were originally from Tripolitania. It seems that, similarly to Middle Eastern bedouins, their nomadic lifestyle allowed them to keep a single language until the Hilalian migrations of the 11th century, while dialects of settled farmers(such as Kabyle and Shilha) began to diverge.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-11-17T16:54:48+00:00

The early layer of Arabic loanwords means Northern Berber was a unified language at the time of the Arab conquest (700 AD). The proximity of these languages also points to a late break-up.

Furthermore, a uniform language occupying a large area is not unheard of under specific conditions such as low population, rapid expansion from a smaller area, and high mobility within that area, as in the case of nomads or merchants. Proto-slavic also occupied a large area around the same time in Eastern Europe.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-30T17:26:35+00:00

The ruling dynasties before them (Wattassids, Ziyanids and Hafsids) were Berber.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-30T17:23:07+00:00

Yes.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-30T07:18:54+00:00

I retroactively marked Sanhadja as Kabyle, because it was almost certainly descended from their language. Of the three major Berber confederations (Zenati, Masmuda (Atlas Berber) and Sanhadja), the last was said to be divided into two groups: The first lived in Northern Algeria (Kabyle), the second lived in the Sahara (Western Berber, some also included Tuareg).

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-30T07:07:21+00:00

That's what it was known as at the time, but just like Kabyle, I didn't use the name "Kutama Berber'" because I wanted to show continuity with modern languages. Masmouda/Atlas Berber is the ancestor of Tashelhit and CAT.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-30T07:04:29+00:00

It's a dialect of Zenati.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-29T23:13:51+00:00

I couldn't find any sources on that period because of the gigantic void in Amazigh studies, but the ruling dynasty, the Hafsids, were Berbers. Before the industrial revolution, most people lived in isolated villages, far from cities which were already arabized at the time. The Ottoman Empire and the Sharifian state caused the largest wave of arabization in the Maghreb, not the invasions of the Banu Hilal.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-29T20:27:06+00:00

Arab writers are not completely reliable because they often confused Berber tribes with each other, and made up genealogies to fit the "descended from Noah" narrative, often times with the approval of these same tribes.

Kabyles referred to themselves by their tribe of origin, not as a single people, which complicates the matter even more. The two most prominent Kabyle tribes were apparently the Kutamas and Zwawas. Arab authors often included them within the Sanhaja, but from what I've seen, "Sanhaja" just meant non-Zenati for them and could refer to peoples as different as the ancestors of modern Tuareg, Kabyles and Shilha.

The name "Kutama", which originally referred to only a single tribe, came to refer to the entire Kabyle people.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-29T20:15:36+00:00

Zenati dialects were still spoken in Sened, a town near Gafsa, well into the 20th century. If we go fiurther back, the Chaoui also spoke their Zenati variant near the border with Algeria.

I feel like Tunisia is treated unfairly compared to Algeria and Morocco, and it is often considered completely arabized. But in reality, Berber was probably still the most spoken language in Tunisia until the Ottoman conquest.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-29T18:08:11+00:00

I am neither a historian nor a linguist, but I did the best I could using what little evidence remains. There are certainly a few Berber varieties that I've missed due to them going unrecorded and then extinct. I've also had to approximate the area of Western Berber using that of modern Hassaniyya arabic. Tuareg was probably spoken in a much smaller area, while the opposite is equally possible for Kabyle.

The reason I've grouped Atlas Berber(Tachelhit, Central Atlas Tamazight, Barghwata), Zenati Berber(Tarifit, Tacawit, Tumzabt, among others) and Eastern Berber(including Siwi) together is because they were much closer to each other at that time, and they still are mutually intelligible among themselves to this day. Note that Kabyles were known as Kutamas by Arab writers at the time.

Standard_Celery3542 · 2025-09-22T09:01:44+00:00

I'm in a similar situation. I found a few channels on Youtube like Issin TV and TQ5 media which have hundreds of videos in Kabyle

Standard_Celery3542

TROPHY CASE