写真

Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. They speak various Berber languages, which together form a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Between fourteen and twenty-five million Berber speakers live within this region, most densely in Algeria and Morocco and becoming generally scarcer eastward through the rest of the Maghreb and beyond.

Many Berbers call themselves some variant of the word Imazighen (singular Amazigh), meaning "free men".This is common in Morocco, but elsewhere within the Berber homeland a local, more particular term, such as Kabyle or Chaoui, is more often used instead. Historically Berbers have been variously known, for instance as Libyans by the ancient Greeks, as Numidians and Mauri by the Romans, and as Moors by medieval and early modern Europeans. The modern English term is borrowed from Arabic, but the deeper etymology of "Berber" is not certain.

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Almost 50 degrees Celsius...outside the village of Tataouine in Tunisia...climbing on the rocks...it is hot like hell...we're getting to the Berber village, where we are supposed to meet this old lady, who will introduce us their culture...Finally we arrive in her stone dwelling...she is sitting outside dressed in their typical outfit and has tattoos on her face (they are painted on woman's face when she gets married)...she is telling us her story... After the marriage she had the role of the leading woman (you can say alpha female) in the family and her status gave her the right and the privilege to educate young women and give them advice about sexual intercourse. Interesting, isn't it?