Berbers

Imazighen

Last modified: 2004-02-28 by ivan sache
Keywords: berber | amazigh | imazighen |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors

• Geography
• Flag proposed by the Amazigh World Congress (1997)
• Variants with a red symbol
• Variant with vertical stripes and a red symbol

See also:

• Kabylia
• Berber political parties and movements
  • Union for Culture and Democracy (Political party, Algeria)
  • Tuareg Liberation Front (AZAWAD)
  • Revolutionary Movement of the Blue Men (MOHOREB)
  • Movement for Self-Determination and Independence of the Canary Archipelago / Canary National Congress

Geography

Courrier International #549 (10 May 2001) has a series of articles on the recent riots in Kabylia (Algeria) and gives additional information on Berber peoples

The Berbers are a group of peoples who have been living in Northern Africa since 3000 BP and speak different dialects related to a common Chamito-Semitic language, Berber, or Tamazight.
The Berbers call themselves Imazighen (Free Men). The name Berber was derived from Barbarian during the Greco-Roman period. The Tuaregs have kept the original Berber alphabet, the tifinagh. Other Berbers use either Latin or Arabic alphabet to write Tamazight.

According to a map from the Dictionnaire des Peuples (Larousse), reproduced in Courrier International, there are more than 20 millions of Berber-speaking people scattered over Northern Africa:

• Morocco: 12 millions (40% of the country population). Rifains live on the northern coast, Imazighens and Chleuhs in the center and south of the country.
• Mauritania: 12 to 25,000 Zenagas, living south of Nouakchott, close to the border with Senegal.
• Algeria: 6 millions (20-25% of the country population). Kabyles live in the north of the country close to Algiers, Chaouis close to the border with Tunisia, Zenets and Mozabits more in the south. Tuaregs are nomadic Berbers.
• Tunisia: 60 to 90,000 people.
• Libya: 300 to 550,000 people.
• Egypt: 10 to 20,000 people, living in the oasis of Siwa and speaking Tasiwit (including 40% of the words taken from Egyptian dialects).
• Another 2 millions of Tuaregs are scattered over Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Ivan Sache, 29 May 2001

Flag proposed by the Amazigh World Congress (1997)

by Jorge Candeias

Here is what I got from the Amazigh World Congress (Congrès Mondial Amazigh):

"En ce qui concerne le(s) drapeau(x) amazigh(s), il en existe quelques uns mais celui qui semble faire l'unanimité est c