Beni Ḥassan is a Bedouin Arab tribe which inhabits Western Sahara, Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria. It is one of the four sub-tribes of the Banu Maqil who emigrated in the 11th century from South Arabia to the Maghreb with the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym Arab tribes. In the 13th century, they took the Sanhaja territories in the southwest of the Sahara. In Morocco, they first settled, alongside their Maqil relatives, in the area between Tadla and the Moulouya River. The Sous Almohad governor called upon them for help against a rebellion in the Sous, and they resettled in and around that region. They later moved to what is today Mauritania, and from the 16th century onwards, they managed to push back all black peoples southwards to the Senegal Valley river. The Beni Hassan and other warrior Arab tribes dominated the Sanhaja Berber tribes of the area after the Char Bouba war of the 17th century. As a result, Arabs became the dominant ethnic group in Western Sahara and Mauretania. The Bani Hassan dialect of Arabic became used in the region and is still spoken, in the form of Hassaniya Arabic. The hierarchy established by the Beni Hassan tribe gave Mauritania much of its sociological character. That ideology has led to oppression, discrimination and even enslavement of other groups in Mauritania.
The Sahrawis, or Sahrawi people, are an ethnic group native to the western part of the Sahara desert, which includes the Western Sahara, southern Morocco, much of Mauritania, and along the southwestern border of Algeria. They are of mixed Hassani Arab and Sanhaji Berber descent, as well as West African and other indigenous populations.
The Zenati languages are a branch of the Northern Berber language family of North Africa. They were named after the medieval Zenata Berber tribal confederation. They were first proposed in the works of French linguist Edmond Destaing (1915) (1920–23). Zenata dialects are distributed across the central Berber world (Maghreb), from northeastern Morocco to just west of Algiers, and the northern Sahara, from southwestern Algeria around Bechar to Zuwara in Libya. The most widely spoken Zenati languages are Tmazight of the Rif in northern Morocco and Tashawit Berber in northeastern Algeria, each of which have over 3 million speakers.
Senhaja de Srair is a Northern Berber language. It is spoken by the Sanhaja Berbers inhabiting the central part of the Moroccan Rif. It is spoken in the Ketama area west of the Tarifit speaking area in eastern Rif.
Tarifit, also known as Riffian or locally as Tamazight is a Zenati Berber language spoken in the Rif region in northern Morocco. It is spoken natively by some 1,271,000 Rifians primarily in the Rif provinces of Nador, Al Hoceima and Driouch.
The Ghomara are a group of tribes in northern Morocco belonging to the Berbers. They live in the western Rif, in the area of Chefchaouen and Tetouan.
The Mozabite people or Banu Mzab are a Berber ethnic group inhabiting the M'zab natural region in the northern Sahara in Algeria, numbering about 150,000 to 300,000 people. They speak primarily the Mozabite language, one of the Zenati languages in the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. Mozabites are primarily Ibadi Muslims, but there was a small population of Jews as well.
Mzab is a tribal confederation south of Casablanca in Morocco, part of the Chaouia. The bulk of Mzab are of Arabized Berber origins while the rest are of Hilalian Arab origins. The Moroccan Mzab are not to be confused with the Algerian Berber tribe that has the same name. Mzab is Arabic for the Mozabite people.
The Oulad Tidrarin is a Sahrawi tribe of Arab origin. They speak Hassaniya Arabic. They are Muslims, belonging to the Maliki school of Sunni Islam. They live mainly in Western Sahara but also in Morocco and Mauritania.
Arabic, particularly the Moroccan Arabic dialect, is the most widely spoken language in Morocco, but a number of regional and foreign languages are also spoken. The official languages of Morocco are Modern Standard Arabic and Standard Moroccan Berber. Moroccan Arabic is by far the primary spoken vernacular and lingua franca, whereas Berber languages serve as vernaculars for significant portions of the country. According to the 2024 Moroccan census, 92.7% of the population spoke Arabic, whereas 24.8% spoke Berber languages.
Beni Snous is a Berber variety close to Zenati languages spoken near Tlemcen in Algeria.
South Oran Berber, or Tachelhit, is a cluster of the Zenati languages, which belong to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. It is spoken in a number of oases of southwestern Algeria and across the border in Morocco.
Ait Seghrouchen Berber, or Seghroucheni (Seghrusheni), is a Zenati Berber language of the Eastern Middle Atlas Berber cluster. It is spoken by the Ait Seghrouchen tribe inhabiting east-central Morocco.
Maghrebi Arabs or North African Arabs are the inhabitants of the Maghreb region of North Africa whose ethnic identity is Arab, whose native language is Arabic and trace their ancestry to the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. This ethnic identity is a product of the centuries-long Arab migration to the Maghreb since the 7th century, which changed the demographic scope of the Maghreb and was a major factor in the ethnic, linguistic and cultural Arabization of the Maghreb region. The descendants of the original Arab settlers who continue to speak Arabic as a first language currently form the single largest population group in North Africa.
The Hilalian dialects are a continuum of Arabic dialects of the Maghreb, which were introduced during the Hilalian invasions between the 11th and 12th centuries, as well as the migration of Arab Hilalian tribes to the Western Maghreb. These dialects played a great role in the emergence of the Egyptian and Maghrebi dialects. The Bani Hilal tribes settled in the region of Casablanca-Settat in Morocco, parts of Libya, central Algeria, and Tunisia.
Eastern Middle Atlas Berber is a cluster of Berber dialects spoken in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the Middle Atlas, in Morocco. These dialects are those of the tribes of Ait Seghrouchen, Ait Warayn, Marmoucha, Ait Alaham, Ait Youb and Ait Mourghi.
The Western Algerian Zenatic dialects are a diffuse set of Zenati Berber dialects spoken in north-western Algeria, west of the capital Algiers.
Znassia or Taznassit is a Berber language, belonging to the Zenati group. It is spoken in the extreme northeast of Morocco, in a speech area near the border of western Algeria.
Edmond Destaing was a French orientalist Arabist, Berberologist, and first holder of the Chair of Berber at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales.
Eastern Morocco Arabic or Oujda Darija is a dialectal continuum of Hilalian Arabic, mainly spoken in Oujda area and in a part of Oriental region of Morocco.
