The Siwi people or Siwan people (, ), are a
Berber ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
of about 24,000 native to
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
's
Siwa and
Qara oases. They speak the
Siwa language
Siwi (also known as Siwan or Siwa Berber; native name: ''Jlan n isiwan'') is the easternmost Berber language, spoken in the western Egyptian desert by an estimated 15,000''Grammatical Contact in the Sahara: Arabic, Berber, and Songhay in Tabelbal ...
, a
Berber language
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 commun ...
, spoken by about 20,000, along with
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
. The Siwi are the most distant concentration of Berbers.
References
Berber peoples and tribes
Ethnic groups in Egypt
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