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Neo-Tifinagh
Tifinagh ( Tuareg Berber language: or , ) 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 Berbers of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria, northeastern Mali, northern Niger and northern Burkina Faso for use writing the Tuareg Berber language. Neo-Tifinagh () is an alphabet developed by Berber Academy to adopt Tuareg Tifinagh for use with 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 script. Tifinagh is the official script for Tamazight, an official language of Morocco. However, outside of symbolic cultural uses, Latin remains the dominant script for writing Berber languages both in Morocco and throughout North Africa. The ancient Libyco-Berber script (or the Libyc script) was used by the an ...
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Tifinagh Alphabet
Tifinagh ( Tuareg Berber language: or , ) 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 Berbers of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria, northeastern Mali, northern Niger and northern Burkina Faso for use writing the Tuareg Berber language. Neo-Tifinagh () is an alphabet developed by Berber Academy to adopt Tuareg Tifinagh for use with 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 script. Tifinagh is the official script for Tamazight, an official language of Morocco. However, outside of symbolic cultural uses, Latin remains the dominant script for writing Berber languages both in Morocco and throughout North Africa. The ancient Libyco-Berber script (or the Libyc script) was used by the an ...
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Tifinagh Abjad
Tifinagh (Tuareg languages, Tuareg Berber language: or , ) 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, Tuareg Berbers of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria, northeastern Mali, northern Niger and northern Tuareg in Burkina Faso, Burkina Faso for use writing the Tuareg languages, Tuareg Berber language. Neo-Tifinagh () is an alphabet developed by Berber Academy to adopt Tuareg Tifinagh for use with Kabyle people, Kabyle; it has been since modified for use across North Africa. Tifinagh is one of three major competing Berber orthography, Berber orthographies alongside the Berber Latin alphabet and the Arabic script. Tifinagh is the official script for Tamazight, an official language of Morocco. However, outside of symbolic cultural uses, Latin remains the dominant script for writing Berber languages both in Morocco ...
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Berber Academy
''Académie Berbère d'Échange et de Recherches Culturels'', usually shortened to ''Académie Berbère'' or the Berber Academy was a Paris-based Kabyle cultural association formed in 1966 and officially authorized in March 1967 with the objective of raising Berber consciousness. The association was renamed Agraw Imazighen (English: Assembly of the Imazighen) in Tamazight in 1969. History Berber Academy is primarily associated with Algerian activist Mohand Arav Bessaoud, who formed the group with a small group of "Kabyle luminaries from the worlds of scholarships, arts, and politics," including Ramdane Haifi, Mouloud Mammeri, Mohand Saïd Hanouz, and singer Taos Amrouche, who hosted their first meeting in her home in Paris. The association faced internal disagreement as to whether to have an intellectual or grassroots activist focus. The association relaunched in 1969 as Agraw Imazighen with the first Berber concert. The relaunch and Tamazight-language name change "marked a ...
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Berber Orthography
Berber orthography is the writing system(s) used to transcribe the Berber languages. In antiquity, the Libyco-Berber script (Tifinagh) was utilized to write Berber. Early uses of the script have been found on rock art and in various sepulchres. Following the spread of Islam, some Berber scholars also utilized the Arabic script. There are now three writing systems in use for Berber languages: Tifinagh (Libyco-Berber), the Arabic script, and the Berber Latin alphabet. Different groups in North Africa have different preferences of writing system, often motivated by ideology and politics. Tifinagh Neo-Tifinagh,Linguists and historians tend to be specific in distinguishing between the millennia-old Berber abjad used by the Tuareg to a limited extent and found in some historical engravings and which is 'Tifinagh'; and the 'Neo-Tifinagh' alphabet which is based on the abjad but marks vowels and distinguishes more consonants. The Neo-Tifinagh script was developed and computerized in th ...
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Berber Languages
The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber communities, who are indigenous to North Africa.Hayward, Richard J., chapter ''Afroasiatic'' in Heine, Bernd & Nurse, Derek, editors, ''African Languages: An Introduction'' Cambridge 2000. . The languages were traditionally written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which now exists in the form of Tifinagh. Today, they may also be written in the Berber Latin alphabet or the Arabic script, with Latin being the most pervasive. Berber languages are spoken by large populations of Morocco, Algeria and Libya, by smaller populations of Tunisia, northern Mali, western and northern Niger, northern Burkina Faso and Mauritania and in the Siwa Oasis of Egypt. Large Berber-speaking migrant communities, today numbering about 4 million, have been livin ...
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Tuareg People
The Tuareg people (; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym: ''Imuhaɣ/Imušaɣ/Imašeɣăn/Imajeɣăn'') are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Traditionally nomadic pastoralists, small groups of Tuareg are also found in northern Nigeria. The Tuareg speak languages of the same name (also known as ''Tamasheq''), which belong to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. The Tuaregs have been called the "blue people" for the indigo dye coloured clothes they traditionally wear and which stains their skin. They are a semi-nomadic people who practice Islam, and are descended from the indigenous Berber communities of Northern Africa, which have been described as a mosaic of local Northern African (Taforalt), Middle Eastern, European (Early European Farmers), and Sub-Saharan African-related ancestries, prior to the Arab expansion. Tuareg peopl ...
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Kabyle People
The Kabyle people ( kab, Izwawen or ''Leqbayel'' or ''Iqbayliyen'', ) are a Berber ethnic group indigenous to Kabylia in the north of Algeria, spread across the Atlas Mountains, east of Algiers. They represent the largest Berber-speaking population of Algeria and the second largest in North Africa. Many of the Kabyles have emigrated from Algeria, influenced by factors such as the Algerian Civil War, cultural repression by the central Algerian government, and overall industrial decline. Their diaspora has resulted in Kabyle people living in numerous countries. Large populations of Kabyle people settled in France and, to a lesser extent, Canada (mainly Québec) and United States. The Kabyle people speak Kabyle, a Berber language. Since the Berber Spring of 1980, they have been at the forefront of the fight for the official recognition of Berber languages in Algeria. History Fatimid Caliphate Between 902 and 909 the Fatimid state had been founded by the Kutama Berbers from L ...
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Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocco. They are the southernmost of the autonomous communities of Spain. The islands have a population of 2.2 million people and they are the most populous 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 archipelago includes many smaller islands and islets, including La Graciosa, Alegranza, Isla de Lobos, Montaña Clara, Roque del Oeste, and Roque del Este. It also includes a number of rocks, including those of Salmor, Fasnia, Bonanza, Garachico, and Anaga. In ancient times, the island chain was often referred to as "the Fortunate Isles". The Canary Islands are the southernmost region of Spain, and ...
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Libyco-Berber Inscriptions In Oukaimeden, Morocco
The Libyco-Berber alphabet or the Libyc alphabet (modern Berber name: ''Agemmay Alibu-Maziɣ'') 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 in ancient North Africa. The Libyco-Berber script is found in thousands of stone inscriptions and engravings throughout Morocco, northern Algeria, Tunisia, northern Libya and the Canary Islands. Apart from thousands of small inscriptions, some of the best known and significant Libyco-Berber inscriptions are in the Massinissa Temple (discovered in 1904) and the Prince Ateban Mausoleum in Dougga / Thugga (TBGG), northern Tunisia. Other significant Libyco-Berber inscription are the Azib N'Ikkis and the Oukaimeden, both found in the High-Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The use of the Libyco-Berber alphabet died out in northern areas during or after the reign of the Roman and Byz ...
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Mauretania
Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, seminomadic pastoralists of 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 people. In the early 1st century Strabo recorded ''Maûroi'' (Μαῦροι in greek) as the native name of a people opposite the Iberian Peninsula. This appellation was adopted into Latin, whereas the Greek name for t ...
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Numidia
Numidia ( Berber: ''Inumiden''; 202–40 BC) was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia, Libya, and some parts of Morocco. The polity was originally divided between the Massylii in the east and the Masaesyli in the west. During the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), Masinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into one kingdom. The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state. Numidia, at its largest extent, was bordered by Mauretania to the west, at the Moulouya River, Africa Proconsularis to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Sahara to the south. It was one of the first major states in the history of Algeria and the Berbers. History Independence The Greek historians referred to these peoples as ...
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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.
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