Back Berbers Afrikaans Pueblos berbers AN أمازيغ Arabic أمازيغ ARY امازيغ ARZ Bereberes AST Bərbərlər Azerbaijani بربرلر AZB Берберҙар Bashkir Берберы Byelorussian

Berbers

For other uses, see Berbers (disambiguation).

  • Berbers
  • Amazighs
  • بربر
  • Imaziɣen
  • ⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖ
  • أمازيغ
The Berber ethnic flag
Total population
25 million[1] to 36 million[2][3][4][5]
Regions with significant populations
Morocco14 million[9] to 15 million[14]
Algeria7 million[15] to 13 million[16][17]
Niger2.6 million[18]
France2 million[19]
Mali850,000[20]
Libya600,000[21]
Belgium500,000[22]
Netherlands467,455[citation needed]
Burkina Faso406,271[23]
Tunisia100,000[24]
Canada37,060[25]
Egypt30,000[26]
Mauritania10,000[27]
Norway4,500[citation needed]
Israel3,500[28]
United States1,325[29]
Languages
Berber languages (Tamazight) and Arabic
Religion
Predominantly Sunni Islam
Minorities Ibadi Islam, Shia Islam and, Christianity (chiefly Catholicism),[30][31] Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Arabs and other Afro-Asiatic speaking Mediterranean peoples[32][33][34][35][36][37]
This article contains Tifinagh text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Tifinagh letters.

Berbers, or the Berber peoples,[a] also known as Amazigh[b] or Imazighen,[c] are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arabs in the Maghreb.[38][39][40][41] Their main connections are identified by their usage of Berber languages, most of them mutually unintelligible,[40][42] which are part of the Afroasiatic language family.

They are indigenous to the Maghreb region of North Africa, where they live in scattered communities across parts of Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and to a lesser extent Tunisia, Mauritania, northern Mali and northern Niger.[41][43][44] Smaller Berber communities are also found in Burkina Faso and Egypt's Siwa Oasis.[45][46][47]

Descended from Stone Age tribes of North Africa, accounts of the Imazighen were first mentioned in Ancient Egyptian writings.[48][49] From about 2000 BC, Berber languages spread westward from the Nile Valley across the northern Sahara into the Maghreb. A series of Berber peoples such as the Mauri, Masaesyli, Massyli, Musulamii, Gaetuli, and Garamantes gave rise to Berber kingdoms, such as Numidia and Mauretania. Other kingdoms appeared in late antiquity, such as Altava, Aurès, Ouarsenis, and Hodna.[50] Berber kingdoms were eventually suppressed by the Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries AD. This started a process of cultural and linguistic assimilation known as Arabization, which influenced the Berber population. Arabization involved the spread of Arabic language and Arab culture among the Berbers, leading to the adoption of Arabic as the primary language and conversion to Islam. Notably, the Arab migrations to the Maghreb from the 7th century to the 17th century accelerated this process.[51] Berber tribes remained powerful political forces and founded new ruling dynasties in the 10th and 11th centuries, such as the Zirids, Hammadids, various Zenata principalities in the western Maghreb, and several Taifa kingdoms in al-Andalus, and empires of the Almoravids and Almohads. Their Berber successors – the Marinids, the Zayyanids, and the Hafsids – continued to rule until the 16th century. From the 16th century onward, the process continued in the absence of Berber dynasties; in Morocco, they were replaced by Arabs claiming descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad.[50]

Berbers are divided into several diverse ethnic groups and Berber languages, such as Kabyles, Chaouis and Rifians. Historically, Berbers across the region did not see themselves as a single cultural or linguistic unit, nor was there a greater "Berber community", due to their differing cultures.[52] They also did not refer to themselves as Berbers/Amazigh but had their own terms to refer to their own groups and communities.[53] They started being referred to collectively as Berbers after the Arab conquests of the 7th century and this distinction was revived by French colonial administrators in the 19th century. Today, the term "Berber" is viewed as pejorative by many who prefer the term "Amazigh".[54] Since the late 20th century, a trans-national movement – known as Berberism or the Berber Culture Movement – has emerged among various parts of the Berber populations of North Africa to promote a collective Amazigh ethnic identity and to militate for greater linguistic rights and cultural recognition.[55]

  1. ^ Williams, Victoria R. (24 February 2020). Indigenous Peoples: An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to Survival [4 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 979-8-216-10219-9. However, there may be around twenty-five million Berbers in total, with fifteen million Berbers living in Morocco; six million in Algeria; one million each in Libya, Mali, and Niger; thirty thousand in Egypt; one hundred thousand in Tunisia; and ten thousand in Mauritania.
  2. ^ Steven L. Danver (2015). Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues. Routledge. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-317-46400-6. The Berber population numbers approximately 36 million people.
  3. ^ "Berber people". Retrieved 17 August 2016.
  4. ^ "North Africa's Berbers get boost from Arab Spring". Fox News. 5 May 2012. Retrieved 8 December 2013.
  5. ^ Bhatia, Tej K.; Ritchie, William C. (2006). The Handbook of Bilingualism. John Wiley & Sons. p. 860. ISBN 0631227350. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  6. ^ Rubin, Barry (17 March 2015). The Middle East: A Guide to Politics, Economics, Society and Culture. Routledge. p. 554. ISBN 978-1-317-45578-3.
  7. ^ "Berber Marginalization in North Africa Fuels Identity Movements". The MENA Chronicle | Fanack. Retrieved 11 February 2025.
  8. ^ "Berber | people | Britannica.com". 4 July 2018. Archived from the original on 4 July 2018. Retrieved 15 December 2022.
  9. ^ [6][7][8]
  10. ^ Rosen, Lawrence (2 December 2015). Two Arabs, a Berber, and a Jew: Entangled Lives in Morocco. University of Chicago Press. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-226-31751-9. He accepts the undocumented estimate that nearly half the Moroccan population—perhaps as many as fifteen million people—identify themselves as Berber...
  11. ^ Williams, Victoria R. (24 February 2020). Indigenous Peoples: An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to Survival [4 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 979-8-216-10219-9. However, there may be around twenty-five million Berbers in total, with fifteen million Berbers living in Morocco; six million in Algeria; one million each in Libya, Mali, and Niger; thirty thousand in Egypt; one hundred thousand in Tunisia; and ten thousand in Mauritania.
  12. ^ "AP PHOTOS: Berbers live on in Morocco's Atlas Mountains". AP News. 3 March 2016. Retrieved 11 February 2025. At least 15 million Moroccans are Amazigh, divided into different groups according to their dialects.
  13. ^ Ennaji, Moha (20 January 2005). Multilingualism, Cultural Identity, and Education in Morocco. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-387-23979-8.
  14. ^ [10][11][12][13]
  15. ^ Rubin, Barry (17 March 2015). The Middle East: A Guide to Politics, Economics, Society and Culture. Routledge. p. 554. ISBN 978-1-317-45578-3.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference axl.cefan.ulaval.ca was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ "Algeria reinstates term limit and recognises Berber language". BBC News. 7 February 2016.
  18. ^ "The World Factbook". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 8 October 2016., Niger: 11% of 23.6 million
  19. ^ Les langues de France: un patrimoine méconnu, une réalité vivante Archived 2014-09-29 at the Wayback Machine, originally published by CultureComm unication.gouv.fr.
  20. ^ "Mali". The World Factbook. 5 November 2021.
  21. ^ Zurutuza, Karlos, Libya's Berbers fear ethnic conflict, Aljazeera, retrieved 11 November 2021
  22. ^ Truong, Nicolas (23 March 2016). "Au cœur des réseaux djihadistes européens, le passé douloureux du Rif marocain". Le Monde.fr (in French). ISSN 1950-6244. Retrieved 16 November 2016.
  23. ^ "The World Factbook". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 12 October 2021., Burkina Faso: 1.9% of 21.4 million
  24. ^ Williams, Victoria R. (24 February 2020). Indigenous Peoples: An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to Survival [4 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 979-8-216-10219-9. However, there may be around twenty-five million Berbers in total, with fifteen million Berbers living in Morocco; six million in Algeria; one million each in Libya, Mali, and Niger; thirty thousand in Egypt; one hundred thousand in Tunisia; and ten thousand in Mauritania.
  25. ^ Government of Canada, Statistics Canada (8 February 2017). "Census Profile, 2016 Census – Canada". www12.statcan.gc.ca.
  26. ^ Williams, Victoria R. (24 February 2020). Indigenous Peoples: An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to Survival [4 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 979-8-216-10219-9. However, there may be around twenty-five million Berbers in total, with fifteen million Berbers living in Morocco; six million in Algeria; one million each in Libya, Mali, and Niger; thirty thousand in Egypt; one hundred thousand in Tunisia; and ten thousand in Mauritania.
  27. ^ Williams, Victoria R. (24 February 2020). Indigenous Peoples: An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to Survival [4 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 979-8-216-10219-9. However, there may be around twenty-five million Berbers in total, with fifteen million Berbers living in Morocco; six million in Algeria; one million each in Libya, Mali, and Niger; thirty thousand in Egypt; one hundred thousand in Tunisia; and ten thousand in Mauritania.
  28. ^ Moshe Shokeid: The Dual Heritage: Immigrants from the Atlas Mountains in an Israeli Village. Manchester University Press, 1971.
  29. ^ US Census Bureau. "The Arab Population: 2000" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 January 2004. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  30. ^ Miller, Duane Alexander; Johnstone, Patrick (2015). "Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census". Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. 11 (10). ISSN 1556-3723. Retrieved 27 March 2016 – via academia.edu.
  31. ^ (in French) Sadek Lekdja: Christianity in Kabylie, Radio France Internationale, 7 mai 2001 Archived 2017-10-18 at the Wayback Machine.
  32. ^ Blench, Roger (2006). Archaeology, Language, and the African Past. African Archaeology Series. AltaMira Press. ISBN 978-0759104662.
  33. ^ Diakonoff, Igor (1 October 1998). "The Earliest Semitic Society: Linguistic Data". Journal of Semitic Studies. XLIII (2): 209–219. doi:10.1093/jss/XLIII.2.209. ISSN 0022-4480.
  34. ^ Shirai, Noriyuki. The Archaeology of the First Farmer-Herders in Egypt: New Insights into the Fayum Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic. Leiden University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-9087280796.
  35. ^ Ehret, C; Keita, SOY; Newman, P (2004). "The Origins of Afroasiatic a response to Diamond and Bellwood (2003)". Science. 306 (5702): 1680. doi:10.1126/science.306.5702.1680c. PMID 15576591. S2CID 8057990.
  36. ^ Bender ML (1997), Upside Down Afrasian, Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 50, pp. 19–34
  37. ^ "Militarev A (2005) Once more about glottochronology and comparative method: the Omotic-Afrasian case, Аспекты компаративистики – 1 (Aspects of comparative linguistics – 1). FS S. Starostin. Orientalia et Classica II" (PDF). Moscow. pp. 339–408.
  38. ^ Andrews, Jonathan (2019). The Missiology behind the Story: Voices from the Arab World. Langham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78368-599-8. Berber: A collective term for the indigenous peoples of North Africa who predate the arrival of Arabs during the expansion of the Arab empire in the seventeenth century.
  39. ^ Skutsch, Carl (2013). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. p. 211. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1. Berber is a generic name given to numerous heterogenous ethnic groups that share similar cultural, political, and economic practices.
  40. ^ a b Fields, Nic (2011). Roman Conquests: North Africa. Casemate Publishers. ISBN 978-1-84884-704-0. It must be said that modern Berbers are a very diverse group of peoples whose main connections are linguistic.
  41. ^ a b "Berber | Definition, People, Languages, & Facts". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  42. ^ Baldauf, Richard B.; Kaplan, Robert B. (2007). Language Planning and Policy in Africa. Multilingual Matters. p. 49. ISBN 978-1-84769-011-1. Most languages of the Berber branch are mutually unintelligible.
  43. ^ Aïtel, Fazia (2014). We are Imazigen : the development of Algerian Berber identity in twentieth-century literature and culture. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press. ISBN 978-0-8130-4895-6. OCLC 895334326.
  44. ^ Vourlias, Christopher (25 January 2010). "Moroccan minority's net gain". Variety. Vol. 417, no. 10. Penske Business Media, LLC.
  45. ^ "Berber". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
  46. ^ Project, Joshua. "Berber, Siwa in Egypt". joshuaproject.net. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  47. ^ Margaret M. Vale (2015). Siwa: Jewelry, Costume, and Life in an Egyptian Oasis. American University in Cairo Press.
  48. ^ History of the Amazigh People study.com
  49. ^ Fischer-Lichte, Erika; Sugiera, Małgorzata; Jost, Torsten; Hartung, Holger; Soltani, Omid (2022). Entangled Performance Histories: New Approaches to Theater Historiography. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1000825923.
  50. ^ a b "Berber | Definition, People, Languages, & Facts | Britannica". 23 May 2023.
  51. ^ Holes, Clive (2018). Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches. Oxford University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-19-100506-0.
  52. ^ Probst, Peter; Spittler, Gerd (2004). Between Resistance and Expansion: Explorations of Local Vitality in Africa. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 71. ISBN 978-3-8258-6980-9. It is difficult to speak of any cultural unity among the Berbers. Historically the indigenous Berbers of Morocco did not see themselves as a single linguistic unit, nor was there any greater "Berber community".
  53. ^ Goodman, Jane E. (2005). Berber Culture on the World Stage: From Village to Video. Indiana University Press. pp. 7 and 11. ISBN 978-0-253-21784-4.
  54. ^ Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce (2011). The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States. University of Texas Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-292-74505-6.
  55. ^ Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce (2011). The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States. University of Texas Press. pp. 7–9. ISBN 978-0-292-74505-6.


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