Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Berber

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Nowadays, we know what the African continent represents, but do we really know what the origin of this term ‘Africa’ & why this continent is called Africa?
The first use of the term Africa is dated from the Roman Empire with Roman Africa (Africa Romana) and designated the north of the continent, but where does this word "Africa" ​​come from etymologically?
Read 12 tweets
1/ Er is een #probleem—wat níet met ras te maken heeft an sich—en het oplossen daarvan zal niet makkelijk zijn, maar er is een lange termijn #oplossing op het zogenoemde "#Marokkanenprobleem".
2/ De fundamentele vraag die ik zou stellen is: Waarom hebben #Marokkanen een slecht #imago?

En is het terecht? Zo ja, komt het ómdat ze #Marokkaans zijn? Is het een rassenprobleem of een cultuurprobleem? Komt het ómdat ze een moslimachtergrond hebben? Wat is de oorzaak?
3/ Allereerst denk ik dat we moeten erkennen dat er geen "#Marokkanenprobleem" is, maar wel een probleem bíȷ́ de #Marokkaanse #gemeenschap.

Het verschil is enorm: het voormalige impliceert namelijk dat zíȷ́ het probleem zijn. En dat zijn #Marokkanen niet.
Read 19 tweets
It's been a while since I wrote on #Tamazight/#Berber, so I thought it would be nice to do a thread on its plural formation. Much like Arabic (and Semitic more generally), Berber has 'sound plurals' and 'broken plurals'. Let's have a look at how these are reconstructed.
The 'sound plural' is simply formed by a suffix: *-ăn for the masculine, *-en for the feminine. For example:
*a-maziɣ pl. i-maziɣ-ăn "Berber man"
*ta-maziɣ-t pl. *ti-maziɣ-en "Berber woman"

In most dialect *-ăn > -ən and *-en > -in, but some retain the contrast.
If a sound plural suffix is added to a word-final vowel, usually an epenthetic *-t- is infixed to avoid the meeting of two vowels. Perhaps this is due to historical loss of *t (there is some weird stuff with disappearing *t's elsewhere in morphology).

*anu pl. *anu-t-ăn 'well'
Read 19 tweets
1/ This morning's Islamic History lecture @UniofOxford was on the Islamic West. We talked a lot about the #Berber "false prophets," incl. Salih ibn Tarif (ca. 8th c.), a mysterious figure from #Morocco who founded his own religion and possessed a Berber scripture (a "#Quran")
2/ Salih seems to have understood prophecy in vaguely Islamic terms, even though he was not a Muslim (or at least a conventional one). He claimed that #Quran 66:4 referred to him when it speaks of "the righteous of the faithful" (salih al-mu'minin) quran.com/66/4
3/ Salih seems to have inverted or altered several Islamic practices: his followers fasted in the month of Rajab but ate in #Ramadan; they prayed five times a day and five at night; and they were given to crying out, "Maggar yakush" in Berber ("God is great," الله أكبر)
Read 8 tweets

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