Use | ethnic flag |
---|---|
Proportion | 2:3 |
Adopted | 1970 (by Berber Academy) 1997 (by World Amazigh Congress) |
The Berber flag or Amazigh flag is an ethnic flag used as a common symbol of related ethnic groups in North Africa. The flag was created to symbolize culture, but with the rise of Berberism it also began to be used in political contexts. [1] [2]
The flag was inaugurated in Wadya, a town of Kabylia situated in Tizi Ouzou, a province of Algeria, by an elder Algerian Kabylian veteran, Youcef Medkour. [3]
The flag is composed of blue, green, and yellow horizontal bands of the same height, and a Tifinagh letter yaz or aza. [1] [2] Each colour corresponds to an aspect of Tamazgha, the territory inhabited by the Berbers in North Africa: [2]
The letter z represents the word Amazigh, the root of which it is taken from. [1]
Mohand Arav Bessaoud, Algerian activist and founder of Berber Academy, designed the flag in 1970. [4] [2] It was used in demonstrations in the 1980s, and in 1997, the World Amazigh Congress at Tafira on Las Palmas in the Canary Islands made the flag official. [1] During the Hirak movement in 2019, the Amazigh flag was banned from use in Algeria. [5] [6]
Tifinagh is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifinagh, is still favored by the Tuareg Berbers of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria, northeastern Mali, northern Niger, and northern Burkina Faso for writing the Tuareg Berber language. Neo-Tifinagh is an alphabet developed by the Berber Academy to be a system of writing for the Amazigh language; it has been since modified for use across North Africa.
Tchintabaraden is a town and commune located in the Azawagh area of Niger, in the north of the Tahoua Region. It is the capital of the region's Tchintabaraden Department. It is the market center for the Iwellemmedan Tuareg. The first insurrectionist movement for the autonomy of Tenere, the Tuareg region in central-north and western Niger, began here and in nearby Abalagh in 1985. In the neighboring oasis of In-Gall, the Cure Salee, or "the festival of the nomads", is held annually.
Tamazgha is a fictitious entity and neologism in the Berber languages denoting the lands traditionally inhabited by the Berber peoples within the Maghreb. The term was coined in the 1970s by the Berber Academy in France and, since the late 1990s, has gained particular significance among speakers of Berber languages. Although Berberists see Tamazgha as the geographic embodiment of a Berber imaginary of a once unified language and culture that had its own territory, it has never been a single political entity, and Berbers across the Maghreb did not see themselves as a single cultural or linguistic unit, nor was there a greater "Berber community" due to their differing cultures and languages. Despite this, certain Berberists such as members of the Algerian separatist Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia use the term to imagine and describe a hypothetical federation spanning between the Canary Islands and the Siwa Oasis, a large swathe of territory including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Egypt, the Western Sahara, Burkina Faso and Senegal.
Kabyle or Kabylian is a Berber language (tamazight) spoken by the Kabyle people in the north and northeast of Algeria. It is spoken primarily in Kabylia, east of the capital Algiers and in Algiers itself, but also by various groups near Blida, such as the Beni Salah and Beni Bou Yaqob.
Berber music refers to the musical traditions of the Berbers, a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arabs in the Arab migration to the Maghreb. Their main connections are identified by their usage of the mostly mutually unintelligible Berber languages. Berber music varies widely across North Africa. It is stylistically diverse, with songs being predominantly African rhythms and a stock of oral literature.
The Aftasid dynasty was an Arabized Iberian-Berber dynasty that ruled the Taifa of Badajoz in Al-Andalus.
Si Mohand ou-Mhand n At Hmadouch, also known as Si Mhand, was a widely known Berber poet from Kabylie in Algeria. Called the "Kabyle Verlaine" by French scholars, his works were translated by fellow Algerians Mouloud Feraoun, Mouloud Mammeri and Boulifa and one of the translations was Les poémes de Si-Mohand (1960). Due to difference of information and sources, some details of his life are not clearly known.
The Kabyle people are a Berber ethnic group indigenous to Kabylia in the north of Algeria, spread across the Atlas Mountains, 160 kilometres (100 mi) east of Algiers. They represent the largest Berber population of Algeria and the second largest in North Africa.
The Berber Latin alphabet is the version of the Latin alphabet used to write the Berber languages. It was adopted in the 19th century, using varieties of letters.
The indigenous population of the Maghreb region of North Africa encompass a diverse grouping of several heterogenous ethnic groups who predate the arrival of Arabs in the Arab migration to the Maghreb. They are collectively known as Berbers or Amazigh in English. The native plural form Imazighen is sometimes also used in English. While "Berber" is more widely known among English-speakers, its usage is a subject of debate, due to its historical background as an exonym and present equivalence with the Arabic word for "barbarian." When speaking English, indigenous North Africans typically refer to themselves as "Amazigh."
Riffians or Rifians are a Berber ethnic group originally from the Rif region of northeastern Morocco. Communities of Riffian immigrants are also found in southern Spain, Netherlands and Belgium as well as elsewhere in Western Europe. They are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims, but retain their pre-Islamic traditions such as high status for Riffian women.
Mohand Arav Bessaoud was a Kabyle Algerian writer and activist. He was described as the spiritual father of Berberism, and a strong supporter of the Amazigh culture.
Académie Berbère d'Échange et de Recherches Culturels, usually shortened to Académie Berbère or the Berber Academy was a Paris-based Berber cultural association formed in 1966 and officially authorized in March 1967 with the objective of raising Berber consciousness. The association was renamed Agraw Imazighen in Tamazight in 1969.
Beni Snous is a Berber variety close to Zenati languages spoken near Tlemcen in Algeria.
Berber orthography is the writing system(s) used to transcribe the Berber languages.
The Tin Hinan Tomb is a monumental tomb located at Abalessa in the Sahara, in the Hoggar Mountains of southern Algeria. The sepulchre was built for Tin Hinan, the Tuareg ancient Queen of the Hoggar (Ahaggar).
Brahim Akhiat was a Moroccan author and poet, and a Berber activist.
al-Baranis, spelled sometimes as Barnès or Branes, are one of the two major groups to which Berbers (Amazigh) in the Maghreb and al-Andalus were divided by mediaeval genealogists and in some mediaeval Arabic sources, the other being called al-Butr.
Ammar Negadi, was an Algerian Berber linguist and writer known for his fervent advocacy for the Tifinagh script.