Arabized Berber
Encyclopedia
Arabized Berber is a term to denote an inhabitant of the North Africa
n Maghreb
of Berber
origin whose native language is a dialect of Arabic. According to these persons, the Arab identity in North Africa
is a myth coming from the Arabization
of the official institutions after French rule.
They indeed maintain that North Africa
, including Morocco
, Algeria
, Tunisia
, and Libya
, is mainly Berber from a sociological, historical and more importantly, genealogical standpoint, despite the widespread language shift
from Berber to Arabic and an accompanying shift from a Berber ethnic identity
to an Arab
ethnic identity. This shift happened, at least partially, due to the privileged status that the Arabic language has generally been given in the states of North Africa, from the Arab conquest
in 652, up until the European conquest
in the twentieth century. Post independence, states have also consistently favoured the Arabic language
over the Berber languages
.
) as Bilad Al Barbar or 'Land of the Berbers
' (Arabic: بلاد البربر) prior to the Arab conquests of the Maghreb. This designation may have given rise to the term Barbary Coast
which was used by European
s until the 19th century to refer to coastal Northwest Africa. Since the populations were affiliated and assimilated to the Arab conquerors, North Africa was referred as Al-Maġrib (meaning "The West") since it was considered as the western part of the world. For historical references, medieval Arab historians and geographers used to refer to Morocco as Al-Maghrib al Aqşá ("The Farthest West"), disambiguating it from neighboring historical regions called al-Maghrib al Awsat ("The Middle West", Algeria
) and al-Maghrib al Adna ("The Nearest West", Tunisia
).
The notion that Arabs were slow to colonize non-Arab lands is attested by the low number of cities they founded. Unlike most of the great conquering nations, the Arabs did not have an urban tradition and did not feel at home in an urban environment. None of the Moroccan cities have been built by the Arab rulers, with most of them having been built and settled by Berbers, either before or after the arrival of Islam. Even though many of these cities have often been linguistically Arabized, from a historic point of view it is accepted that the core population is Berber. More than rural areas, the cities were a melting pot of different ethnicities, so that the city dwellers are more likeliy to have non-Berber blood (Black African, Punic, European, Arab).
By tracing the history of certain Maghreb
ian areas, historians are able to make assertions about its inhabitants. For instance, even though Casablanca
(Anfa) and Rabat were both built and originally settled by Berbers, we know that the area's original inhabitants were ousted by the Almohads and subsequently resettled with nomadic Banu Hilal
Arabs. Other, traditionally Berber, cities like Tangiers, Tetouan
(Tittawin), Meknes
and Marrakesh have never had such a drastic repopulation, so that we can assume that its inhabitants today are of Berber stock. It should be noted that although these cities have for centuries now been linguistically Arabized, their culture and identity often have not been through that process. The cities of Tangiers, Tetouan
, Meknes
and Marrakesh still have a strong Berber aspect to them and their inhabitants do not necessarily consider themselves to be ethnically Arab, even though their language might be today's Moroccan-Arabic.
It is a response from Berber activists to Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians and Libyans who self-identify as "Arab
" just because of their Arabic tongue. North Africa was gradually Arabized by Islam with its liturgical language: Arabic, which was the remnant of the Arab conquerors from the 7th century AD, but the identity of western North Africa remained Berber for a long time thereafter. Additionally, even though the process of Arabization
began with these early invasions, many large parts of North Africa were only recently Arabized like the Aurès (Awras) mountains in the 19th and 20th centuries. Alhough, the fertile plains of North Africa seem to have been (at least partly) Arabized in the 11th century with the emigration of the Banu Hilal
tribes from Arabia. The mass education and promotion of Arabic language and culture through schools and mass media, during the 20th century, by the Arabist governments of North Africa, is regarded as the strongest Arabization process in North Africa ever.
studies along with historians such as Gabriel Camps and Charles-André Julien lend support to the idea that the bulk of the gene pool of modern Northwest Africans, irrespective of linguistic group, is derived from the Berber
populations of the pre-Islamic period.
A 2006 study showed that even though North African Arabic-speakers are genetically much closer to Berber-speakers than they are to Middle-Eastern Arabs, there can still be found a genetic difference between the Berber speaking population and the Arabic speaking population in North Africa, where the latter "probably correspond to a heterogeneous group representing various ethnicities".
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
n Maghreb
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
of Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
origin whose native language is a dialect of Arabic. According to these persons, the Arab identity in North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
is a myth coming from the Arabization
Arabization
Arabization or Arabisation describes a growing cultural influence on a non-Arab area that gradually changes into one that speaks Arabic and/or incorporates Arab culture...
of the official institutions after French rule.
They indeed maintain that North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
, including Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
, and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
, is mainly Berber from a sociological, historical and more importantly, genealogical standpoint, despite the widespread language shift
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
from Berber to Arabic and an accompanying shift from a Berber ethnic identity
Identity (social science)
Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...
to an Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
ethnic identity. This shift happened, at least partially, due to the privileged status that the Arabic language has generally been given in the states of North Africa, from the Arab conquest
Muslim conquests
Muslim conquests also referred to as the Islamic conquests or Arab conquests, began with the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He established a new unified polity in the Arabian Peninsula which under the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates saw a century of rapid expansion of Muslim power.They...
in 652, up until the European conquest
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
in the twentieth century. Post independence, states have also consistently favoured the Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
over the Berber languages
Berber languages
The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...
.
Historical perspective
Medieval Arabic sources frequently refer to North Africa (excluding EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
) as Bilad Al Barbar or 'Land of the Berbers
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
' (Arabic: بلاد البربر) prior to the Arab conquests of the Maghreb. This designation may have given rise to the term Barbary Coast
Barbary Coast
The Barbary Coast, or Barbary, was the term used by Europeans from the 16th until the 19th century to refer to much of the collective land of the Berber people. Today, the terms Maghreb and "Tamazgha" correspond roughly to "Barbary"...
which was used by European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
s until the 19th century to refer to coastal Northwest Africa. Since the populations were affiliated and assimilated to the Arab conquerors, North Africa was referred as Al-Maġrib (meaning "The West") since it was considered as the western part of the world. For historical references, medieval Arab historians and geographers used to refer to Morocco as Al-Maghrib al Aqşá ("The Farthest West"), disambiguating it from neighboring historical regions called al-Maghrib al Awsat ("The Middle West", Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
) and al-Maghrib al Adna ("The Nearest West", Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
).
The notion that Arabs were slow to colonize non-Arab lands is attested by the low number of cities they founded. Unlike most of the great conquering nations, the Arabs did not have an urban tradition and did not feel at home in an urban environment. None of the Moroccan cities have been built by the Arab rulers, with most of them having been built and settled by Berbers, either before or after the arrival of Islam. Even though many of these cities have often been linguistically Arabized, from a historic point of view it is accepted that the core population is Berber. More than rural areas, the cities were a melting pot of different ethnicities, so that the city dwellers are more likeliy to have non-Berber blood (Black African, Punic, European, Arab).
By tracing the history of certain Maghreb
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
ian areas, historians are able to make assertions about its inhabitants. For instance, even though Casablanca
Casablanca
Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...
(Anfa) and Rabat were both built and originally settled by Berbers, we know that the area's original inhabitants were ousted by the Almohads and subsequently resettled with nomadic Banu Hilal
Banu Hilal
The Banu Hilal were a confederation of Arabian Bedouin tribes that migrated from Upper Egypt into North Africa in the 11th century, having been sent by the Fatimids to punish the Zirids for abandoning Shiism. Other authors suggest that the tribes left the grasslands on the upper Nile because of...
Arabs. Other, traditionally Berber, cities like Tangiers, Tetouan
Tétouan
Tetouan is a city in northern Morocco. The Berber name means literally "the eyes" and figuratively "the water springs". Tetouan is one of the two major ports of Morocco on the Mediterranean Sea. It lies a few miles south of the Strait of Gibraltar, and about 40 mi E.S.E. of Tangier...
(Tittawin), Meknes
Meknes
Meknes is a city in northern Morocco, located from the capital Rabat and from Fes. It is served by the A2 expressway between those two cities and by the corresponding railway. Meknes was the capital of Morocco under the reign of Moulay Ismail , before it was relocated to Marrakech. The...
and Marrakesh have never had such a drastic repopulation, so that we can assume that its inhabitants today are of Berber stock. It should be noted that although these cities have for centuries now been linguistically Arabized, their culture and identity often have not been through that process. The cities of Tangiers, Tetouan
Tétouan
Tetouan is a city in northern Morocco. The Berber name means literally "the eyes" and figuratively "the water springs". Tetouan is one of the two major ports of Morocco on the Mediterranean Sea. It lies a few miles south of the Strait of Gibraltar, and about 40 mi E.S.E. of Tangier...
, Meknes
Meknes
Meknes is a city in northern Morocco, located from the capital Rabat and from Fes. It is served by the A2 expressway between those two cities and by the corresponding railway. Meknes was the capital of Morocco under the reign of Moulay Ismail , before it was relocated to Marrakech. The...
and Marrakesh still have a strong Berber aspect to them and their inhabitants do not necessarily consider themselves to be ethnically Arab, even though their language might be today's Moroccan-Arabic.
Berberists and linguistic Arabization
According to many Berber nationalists, even though a North Africa inhabitant may only speak Maghrebi Arabic as opposed to the Berber language, this person remains essentially a Berber, because he or she belongs historically and geographically (and not necessarily, racially) to the "land of the Berbers".It is a response from Berber activists to Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians and Libyans who self-identify as "Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
" just because of their Arabic tongue. North Africa was gradually Arabized by Islam with its liturgical language: Arabic, which was the remnant of the Arab conquerors from the 7th century AD, but the identity of western North Africa remained Berber for a long time thereafter. Additionally, even though the process of Arabization
Arabization
Arabization or Arabisation describes a growing cultural influence on a non-Arab area that gradually changes into one that speaks Arabic and/or incorporates Arab culture...
began with these early invasions, many large parts of North Africa were only recently Arabized like the Aurès (Awras) mountains in the 19th and 20th centuries. Alhough, the fertile plains of North Africa seem to have been (at least partly) Arabized in the 11th century with the emigration of the Banu Hilal
Banu Hilal
The Banu Hilal were a confederation of Arabian Bedouin tribes that migrated from Upper Egypt into North Africa in the 11th century, having been sent by the Fatimids to punish the Zirids for abandoning Shiism. Other authors suggest that the tribes left the grasslands on the upper Nile because of...
tribes from Arabia. The mass education and promotion of Arabic language and culture through schools and mass media, during the 20th century, by the Arabist governments of North Africa, is regarded as the strongest Arabization process in North Africa ever.
Population genetics
Various population geneticsPopulation genetics
Population genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population...
studies along with historians such as Gabriel Camps and Charles-André Julien lend support to the idea that the bulk of the gene pool of modern Northwest Africans, irrespective of linguistic group, is derived from the Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
populations of the pre-Islamic period.
A 2006 study showed that even though North African Arabic-speakers are genetically much closer to Berber-speakers than they are to Middle-Eastern Arabs, there can still be found a genetic difference between the Berber speaking population and the Arabic speaking population in North Africa, where the latter "probably correspond to a heterogeneous group representing various ethnicities".
See also
- BerbersBerber peopleBerbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
- Arabs
- North AfricaNorth AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
- MaghrebMaghrebThe Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
- TamazghaTamazghaTamazgha is a Berber word employed for the area more often known as the Maghreb or North Africa, covering the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Niger River, from Siwa Oasis to the Canary Islands....