Berber languages

“ In religion the Berbers are nominally Mohammedan. A few tribes have adopted the Arabic, and so have a few Arabs adopted Berber dialects. The Berber languages are often called Libyan. They number at least 7,000,000 in Morocco and Algeria and 500,000 in Tunis and Tripoli.
Bulgarians (bul-gā ́ri-anz) .—The people of Bulgaria are supposed to be Finnic (Mongolian) in origin, are also the most numerous people in European Turkey. The Bulgarians and their neighbors on the north, the Roumanians, are among the rare races that are physically of one stock and linguistically of another. ”

“ Undoubtedly the strongest argument in favour of a Primitive Language arises from the phenomenon of several languages which appear to occupy an anomalous position on the frontier of the great kingdoms of speech, and to present a lexicographical affinity with one family, and a grammatical affinity with another family. Such languages are the Egyptian, the Berber, the Touareg, and generally the languages of Northern and Eastern Africa, which resemble the Semitic tongues, in some parts of their vocabulary, but differ widely from them in all the rest. ”

“ It was not until men such as the archæologist Tissot and the well-known Duveyrier had broken the ground, and in later years the famous anthropologists, Doctors Collignon and Bertholon, had succeeded in throwing light on the native languages, that a way was opened which led to a correct solution of the origin of the Berber peoples, and their division into groups. ”

“ In publishing this translation he made use of the standard alphabet which he had himself invented and which has been previously mentioned. Indeed it was on this account that he first began the difficult task of preparing the universal alphabet, which he was afterwards asked to extend to a great number of languages for various special purposes. During the journey he prepared a grammar and dictionary of three dialects; the Nuba language{155} spoken by the Nuba or Berber tribe, the Kungara language of the negroes of Dar-Fur, and the Béga language of the Bischarin inhabiting the eastern Sudan. ”

“ The Irish and Welsh languages, although drawing their vocabulary from Celtic or Aryan sources, have a syntax paralleled in Berber and Egyptian. No one who has seen them can fail to perceive the remarkable similarity between the physiognomy of the Berber peoples of northern Africa and the prevailing type of South Wales Welshman. (2) There is identity of culture and of religion not only between the Neolithic inhabitants of Britain and those of North Africa, but also between them and the people of Egypt and Babylon. A high stage of civilization was attained by these people. ”

“ By many it is considered the purest of the Berber forms of speech. Although related to such dialects as Siwi and Ghadamsi, and to western forms like Shillugh or the Atlas languages, Temajegh is distinct; it was not derived from them but developed independently, and probably preserved more of the original characteristics. ”

“ The Berbers, unlike the Arabs, do not admire fat women. Among the Kabyles the adulteress is put to death, as are those women who have illegitimate children, the latter suffering with their mothers.
Though Arabic has to a considerable extent displaced the Berber language, the latter is still spoken by millions of people from Egypt to the Atlantic and from the Mediterranean to the Sudan. It is spoken nowhere else, though, as Language. has been said, place-names in the Canary Islands and other remains of the aboriginal language there prove it to have been the native tongue. ”

“ There is, of course, also the pure Berber spoken by the people of the Kabyle and Aurès Mountains, of the Mzab and the Hoggar; and, though Berbers are often found who can not speak anything else, it is almost a general rule to find them bilinguists, while the majority talk French too. It is interesting to note that when the Sultan of Zanzibar came to North Africa the only people with whom he could speak fluently were the Berbers of the Mzab.
The Jews speak both Arab and French fluently; their Arab is often purer than that of the actual natives. A great number speak Hebrew among themselves. ”

“ The invaders who have most affected the Berber race are the Arabs, but the two races, with a common religion, often a common government, with the same tribal groupings, have failed to amalgamate to any great extent. This fact has been emphasized by Dr R. G. Latham, who writes: “All that is not Arabic in the kingdom of Morocco, all that is not Arabic in the French provinces of Algeria, and all that is not Arabic in Tunis, Tripoli and Fezzan, is Berber.” The explanation lies in a profound distinction of character. The Arab is a herdsman and a nomad; the Berber is an agriculturist and a townsman. ”

“ Under the name of Berbers are included populations varying very much in type and manners and customs, speaking either Arabic (Semitic language) or Berberese (Hamitic language) . Three-fourths of the “Arabs” of Northern Africa are only Berbers speaking Arabic, and are the more “Arabised” in regard to manners and customs as they are nearer to Asia. The nomads of the Libyan desert and Tripoli have preserved fairly well the Berber type, but they have become Arabs in language and usages. In Tunis and Algeria the Arab influence is still very much felt in the south; in Morocco it is very trifling. ”

“ At present the proportion of Berbers is estimated at about two-thirds of the whole population, and especially in the highland districts, remote from the town and seaboard, they form the almost exclusive element At the same time this general expression, Berber, applied collectively to all the inhabitants not of distinctly Semitic or Negro descent, by no means implies a community of origin. ”

“ On the other hand, those who clearly recog- nise the great contrast between the two races, might easily fall into the opposite error of regarding all the non-Arab elements as forming a single ethnical group usuall}' known by the name of Berbers. But these also present different types, and a closer inspection soon shows that many peoples of diverse origin have con- tributed to form the so-called Berber population. ”

“ I have been used to consider this as a very curious document, even when I believed it to apply only to the western coast of Africa, but its importance will be much increased, if we should find, as there is ground to presume, that the Shilha or Berber extends across the whole continent, in a [192] direction between the Negro dialects on the southern side, and the Moorish or Arabic of the Mediterranean coasts, and that it was the general language of all Northern Africa before the period of the Mahometan conquests. ”

“ Hence great uncertainty prevails regarding the classification of the Algerian races, and while some writers estimate the Berber population at upwards of two millions, of whom nearly nine hundred thousand still speak a Libyan dialect, others, with Pimel, reduce the whole number to no more than a million, The diversities and contrasts caused by language and pursuits, by voluntary or forced displacements, render any general description impossible, so that each lowland or highland group must be studied apart. ”

“ The most implacable of Mohammedans now under French rule in Algiers speak, and have spoken for centuries, not Arabic in any form, but Berber; and the same speech reappears beyond a wide belt of Arabic in the far desert to the south.
The Irish, a people in permanent contrast to the English, yet talk in the main the English tongue.
The French-Canadians, accepting political unity with Britain, retain their tongue and reject English.
Look where we will, we discover in regard to language something as incalculable as the human will, and as various as human instinct. ”

“ In the class of the Berrebbers, we include all those, who appear to be descendants of the original inhabitants of the country before the Arabian conquest, and who speak several languages, or dialects of the same language, totally different from the Arabic. ”

“ However, to progress comfortably through the country, French is essential, and Arabo-Berber is a great help and inspires confidence among the people. Grammatically, it is a simple language, but the pronunciation is difficult and the number of words which mean the same thing requires one to have command over a large vocabulary. It is a language that can be learned only with a teacher. ”

“ But no one who regards with the least attention the character of the present population of the town can doubt for a moment that a considerable number of the Berber population remained behind, and in course of time mixed with the Sónghay colonists; for, even if we set aside the consideration of the language (which is greatly intermixed with Berber words) , there is evidently much Berber blood in the population even at the present day, a fact which is more evident in the females than in the males.
It is a pity that Leo says nothing about the language spoken in Ágades ”

“ The aborigines of the Canary Islands, the Guanches, would seem almost certainly, from the remains of their language, to have been Berbers. But the problem of the actual origin of the Berber race has not yet been solved. Perhaps the most satisfactory theory is that of Sergi, who includes the Berbers in the “Mediterranean Race.” General L. L. C. Faidherbe regards them as indigenous Libyans mingled with a fair-skinned people of European origin. ”

“ It is there that the Berber type, though it is still everywhere what we ourselves are, has maintained itself least mixed with the foreigner: it is even, perhaps, allied in these hills with a people older than we or the Berber can be. ”

“ As it is an axiom of modern etymology to ignore any statements which cannot be squared with historical documents it is hardly a matter of surprise that Col. MacPherson’s statements have hitherto received no consideration. But apart from the fact that certain Berber tribes still speak Gaelic, the Berbers are a highly interesting people: they extend all over the North of Africa, and the country between Upper Egypt and Abyssinia is known as Barbara or Barba. ”

“ The Berbers, short, squat figures, high cheekbones, small eyes, square frames, great walkers, only becoming horsemen by necessity, as when the Arabs have forced them to the desert; as fond of mountains as the Arabs are of plains; in general agriculturists, whereas the Arab in his true sphere prefers a pastoral life; the Berbers, little known outside their mountains, look rather Scottish in appearance, that is, Scotch as ordinary mortals see that race, and not as seen through “kailyard” spectacles. ”

“ The Arabizing of the Berbers is indeed limited to little beyond the conversion of the latter to Islam. The Arab, transported to a soil which does not always suit him, so far from thriving, tends to disappear, whereas the Berber becomes more and more aggressive, and yearly increases in numbers. ”

“ All these peoples are thought to belong to one great human type, which we may call Berber, and of which numerous representatives still exist. Anterior to all Asiatic migration, and from the time of the stone age, this race seems to have occupied the south of Gaul and Spain, the Canary Isles, and Northern Africa. At the present day the most important epigonic groups of the Berber race are the Kabyles and the Touaregs of the Sahara. ”

“ Roughly speaking, therefore, it can be said that the groups of pure Berbers are located in the high mountains, in the Mzab and in the Hoggar; that the Berber influence is predominant among the people who inhabit the country immediately south of Algiers, as far as the southern slopes of the Atlas, the department of Constantine, and an arm of the southern territories running from Biskra down to Ouargla and the great belt of desert running right across the Sahara from the Atlantic to Tripoli on a latitude just south of El Golea. ”

“ The people were of a darker color than those they had seen farther down the river. Three-fourths of them were Nubians and Ethiopians of various tribes and kinds, and the remainder included Arabs from the desert, soldiers from Cairo and Alexandria, a few Copts and native Egyptians, and a small number of individuals whom it was very difficult to classify. Berber is the centre of a considerable trade with the Lower Nile and the coast of the Red Sea on one hand, and the Upper Nile and Central Africa on the other ”

“ The hiatus or gap which was once supposed to exist between palæolithic and neolithic culture in France has been bridged over by numerous observations, showing that the same race continued to live and grow there.52 As for language, every linguist recognizes the agglutinative type of the Basque, and the semi-agglutinative character of the Berber as more antique forms than the inflectional caste of Aryan or Semitic tongues. Nowhere else do white tribes speak an agglutinative tongue, except a few in the Caucasus, where we know they settled at a comparatively recent period. ”

“ These Berber peoples seem to be allied to the ancient Egyptians. The whole of North Africa and Southern Europe may have even been peopled from one ethnical source in prehistoric times, the populations, like the animal and vegetable species, thus radiating from a common centre. The oases and upland valleys in the Sahara have also been occupied by the Berbers, some of whose tribes, designated by the name of "Moors," dwell even south of the desert along the right bank of the Senegal. ”

“ In 1885 the Arabs and Berbers appear to have been six times more numerous than the European immigrants, the Berbers alone representing probably one-half of the total population. They also receive some increase through immigration, the labourers from Marocco being for the most part of Kabyle or Shellala race. By crossing with the natives, the Negroes also contribute to strengthen the Berber element, for they are settled chiefly amongst the Ruaghas of the Saharian districts. ”