berber
Noun: 1. A member of an indigenous people of North Africa: A Berber is a person belonging to any of the various indigenous ethnic groups primarily inhabiting regions of North Africa west of Egypt, such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mali, and Niger. 2. A language family of North Africa: Berber refers to a group of closely related languages and dialects (also known collectively as Tamazight) that form a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. These languages are spoken by the Berber peoples.
Noun (referring to a person):
- The guide was a Berber from the Atlas Mountains.
- Many Berbers have maintained their traditional culture and languages.
Noun (referring to the language):
- She is conducting research on the grammar of Berber.
- Although Arabic is dominant, Berber is still spoken in many rural communities.
- As an adjective: The term is also used attributively to describe things related to the Berber people or their languages and culture.
- We bought a beautiful Berber rug.
- Berber linguistics is a specialized field of study.
- Amazigh: The preferred endonym (name a group uses for itself) for the Berber people. The plural is .
- Tamazight: The preferred endonym for the Berber language family. It is also the name of specific standardized Berber languages.
- Berberism: Advocacy for or study of Berber cultural and political rights.
- Amazigh (when referring to the people or culture; this is the native term).
- There is no direct single-word synonym for the language family, though Tamazight is the equivalent native term.
The two primary meanings (the people and the language) are intrinsically linked. The term "Berber" is an exonym (a name given by outsiders, derived from Latin/Greek via Arabic). In academic and modern contexts, the native terms Amazigh (people) and Tamazight (language) are increasingly used and are often preferred for their accuracy and respect for self-identification.
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a cluster of related dialects that were once the major language of northern Africa west of Egypt; now spoken mostly in Morocco
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a member of an indigenous people of northern Africa
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