-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Are we still talking about Berbers? Now Clyde turns away from europe and turns to Yemen? Clyde how does any of this Prove your point? I don't understand I dont know how someone can be so stubborn to the truth. Clyde, Berbers are African. Why are you trying so hard to cover up this fact? You have provided no evidence that Berbers are non african. Present some evidence so we can discuss. Supercar just showed you proof that Berber is related to other Afrasan languages what more do you need. It is time to wake up. Accept the truth. Berbers are African
Peace
You're full of it below is the discussion of Berber traditions about originating in Yemen found at Answer.com.
It also shows that no one really knows where the Berbers originated. Although this is the case, you and Supercar know more than everybody else about Berber origins. Why don't you face the fact that the Berber people are not native to Africa, they said they came from Yemen. You are misusing genetic data when you claim the Berbers are the ancient Libyans. The genetic data only shows that Berbers have Black African genes--nothing more.
quote:
From Answers.com, we have the following:
While population genetics is a young field still full of controversy, in general the genetic evidence appears to indicate that most Northwest Africans (whether they consider themselves Berber or Arab) are of Berber origin, and that populations ancestral to the Berbers have been in the area since the Upper Paleolithic era. The genetically predominant ancestors of the Berbers appear to have come from the east - from East Africa, the Middle East, or both - but the details of this remain unclear. This genetic predominance lends strength to Berber oral traditions of originating from an ancient Yemeni people that spread eastward from Southern Arabia via the horn of East Africa. However, significant proportions of the Berber gene pool derive from more recent immigration of Arabs, Europeans, and sub-Saharan Africans.
Why do the authors of this passage claim the genetic evidences supports a Yemeni origin for the Berbers, yet you claim the genetic evidence proves the Berbers are the ancient Libyans.[B] You have never stated that you have written a genetics paper , yet in this thread you claim to have more knowledge about genetics than the experts who dispute your claim that the Berbers are native to North Africa.
You are misusing the genetic data to promote a false origin of the Berbers eventhough you claim you want to promote TRUTH.
posted
The Hasaniya Arabic speakers of Mauritania are partially descended from Yemini Arabs. The nobles have written pedigrees tracing their families' points of origin in the Yemen. They arrived in Mauritania just 1000 years ago.
These Yeminis have intermarried with the old Zenaga Tamazight speakers of the region between the Rio Oro and the Senegal and do not claim to be any kind of Berber at all but claim to be Arab, pure and simple, and will fight with intent to injure or kill anyone foolish enough to say anything otherwise to their face.
There is no Amazigh oral tradition of origins from the Yemen.
The Amazigh are a people, not just speakers of a language set. Like all peoples they have an origin story. Theirs is that they spring from an eponymous ancestor, Mazigh. This Mazigh's grandson Berr is thought to be where the onomatopoeiac ethnonym "Berber" originates. The Imazighen classify themselves under two major Berr clans, Beranis or Butr.
The Imazighen can never be understood until one undertakes the whole ethnocultural history of littoral North Africa from the Upper Paleolithic to the Iron Age and especially the epoch between 1500 BCE and 400 CE into serious consideration noting the international politics and cultural nuances of the limited region's peoples and distinct identities and customs.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Below is the discussion of Berber traditions about originating in Yemen
The signature Berber paternal lineage is E3b2. It is 8,000 years old, and is oldest among the dark Egyptian Berber. It isn't found in Yemen, nor is the Berber language, so that isn't where the Berber originate.
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quote:These Yeminis have intermarried with the old Zenaga Tamazight speakers of the region between the Rio Oro and the Senegal and do not claim to be any kind of Berber at all but claim to be Arab, pure and simple, and will fight with intent to injure or kill anyone foolish enough to say anything otherwise to their face.
lol. Perhaps and education tour for Dr. Winters is in order?
Just kidding of course.
The good Doctor is taking quite a beating in this thread, as it is.
He just doesn't know when to quit.
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posted
rasol [Quote] The signature Berber paternal lineage is E3b2. It is 8,000 years old, and is oldest among the dark Egyptian Berber. It isn't found in Yemen, nor is the Berber language, so that isn't where the Berber originate.
[Quote]
What 8000 year old skeleton did scientists obtain the E3b2 sample? The Egyptians came in a variety of colors, how do you know the 8,000 year old skeleton was dark skinned? Finally, how do you know the 8000 year old Dark skinned Egyptian skeleton spoke Berber, instead of Egyptian?
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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There is no Amazigh oral tradition of origins from the Yemen.
The Amazigh are a people, not just speakers of a language set. Like all peoples they have an origin story. Theirs is that they spring from an eponymous ancestor, Mazigh. This Mazigh's grandson Berr is thought to be where the onomatopoeiac ethnonym "Berber" originates. The Imazighen classify themselves under two major Berr clans, Beranis or Butr.
If there is no oral tradition that the Berbers came from Yemen, why do the experts you rely on claim this tradition exist? Moreover, if the Arabs in Mauritania admit they came from Yemen--there is no way they would be confused with the Berbers, who also claim a Yemeni origin.
While population genetics is a young field still full of controversy, in general the genetic evidence appears to indicate that most Northwest Africans (whether they consider themselves Berber or Arab) are of Berber origin, and that populations ancestral to the Berbers have been in the area since the Upper Paleolithic era. The genetically predominant ancestors of the Berbers appear to have come from the east - from East Africa, the Middle East, or both - but the details of this remain unclear. This genetic predominance lends strength to Berber oral traditions of originating from an ancient Yemeni people that spread eastward from Southern Arabia via the horn of East Africa. However, significant proportions of the Berber gene pool derive from more recent immigration of Arabs, Europeans, and sub-Saharan Africans.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- staement originally made by Clyde:
Why do the authors of this passage claim the genetic evidences supports a Yemeni origin for the Berbers, yet you claim the genetic evidence proves the Berbers are the ancient Libyans.[B] You have never stated that you have written a genetics paper , yet in this thread you claim to have more knowledge about genetics than the experts who dispute your claim that the Berbers are native to North Africa.
You are misusing the genetic data to promote a false origin of the Berbers eventhough you claim you want to promote TRUTH.
quote:Why do the authors of this passage claim the genetic evidences supports a Yemeni origin for the Berbers
Because they are not geneticists,
They write:
The genetically predominant ancestors of the Berbers appear to have come from the east - based on genetics - E3b2, that is correct.
from East Africa - based on the fact that the expansion date of E3b2 is earliest in Egypt, that is also correct.
the Middle East - since E3b2 is *not* found in the middle East - nor is Berber langauge - that is *not* correct.
Here's what a geneticist says:
Most men living in the area surronding Carthage before the Phoenicians arrived should probably have carried variations of the M96 (haplogroup E), which is the aboriginal type in North Africa and West Africa.”
“They (Phoenicians) left only a small impact in North Africa…..No more that 20% of the men we sampled had Y Chromsomes that originated in the Middle East. [haplotype J] Most carried the aboriginal North African M96 pattern.[Haplotype E including E3a and E3b]” - Spencer Wells.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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The genetically predominant ancestors of the Berbers appear to have come from the east - based on genetics - E3b2, that is correct.
from East Africa - based on the fact that the expansion date of E3b2 is earliest in Egypt, that is also correct.
the Middle East - since E3b2 is *not* found in the middle East - nor is Berber langauge - that is *not* correct.
What skeletal population did Spencer sample to confirm that E3b2 spread from East Africa, thence to Egypt? What was the date archaeologists assigned the sample skeletal population used by Spencer to make this conclusion.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
^ As we have explained before - DNA is taken from blood samples, not skeletans.
The conclusion on the spread of E3b2 from East Africa is from Luis, 2004:
"E3b2-M81, which is present in relatively high levels in Morocco, dispersed mainly to the west. This proposal is in acordance with a population expansion involving E3b2-M81 believed to have occurred in northwestern Africa ~ 2 KY ago. The considerably older linear expansion estimate of the Egyptian E3b2-M81 (5.4 KY ago)..." - Luis et al. 2004
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Name the experts I rely on that say Imazighen come from Yemen.
Make it a proper citation with 1 author's name, 2 title of work, 3 city, publisher, date, 4 page number(s).
Juba's fragments are the oldest Amazigh history we have. He knows no immigration from Yemen. Nor do any other Greco-Roman or Byzantine ethnographers or historians.
Yemen is not Germany. You posit a Germanic grammatical base for Tamazight for which you've only given one example (plural ending) so weak that it is easily dismissed and shown to actually be a feature of Afrisan languages (Semitic).
And since the Yemini speak a Semitic (in your words, Puntite) language, Yemini origins would only serve to confirm a lingual relation with Afrisan not Germanic.
For lack of any serious contribution to your claims, that dodge from pillar (Germans) to post (Yeminis) grasping at any racial or lingual typological straw, in the face of linguistic, genetic, historic, and archaeological evidence abundantly supporting African origins for linguistic and ethnic bases of North Africa its a waste of time to further respond to you on this matter. The aim is not to convince you but to place the facts before the members of this forum and the surfers who hit these pages. That goal has been reached quite well and satisfactory.
Your false appeal to yourself as authority only holds good for your students. Answer.com or Wikipedia is no substitute for the actual genetic reports none of which supply any frequencies of U6 or M81 in the Yemen. U6 and M81 (NA markers) in combination have been in this geographic locale for >5ky and attain their highest frequencies there.
But all this is repitition which by now bores most of us as we are over familiar with the data. Thus no more halt step weeping round the altar or round and round the cauldron.
No coroborating evidence of claim. Case dismissed!
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: If there is no oral tradition that the Berbers came from Yemen, why do the experts you rely on claim this tradition exist? Moreover, if the Arabs in Mauritania admit they came from Yemen--there is no way they would be confused with the Berbers, who also claim a Yemeni origin.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Good Post AlTakruri. It seems that Dr. Winters is just ignorant to the truth about Berber Origins. The good thing about this thread is that people can view it and learn the real truth about the Berbers. I don't think that anything is going to change Clydes mind he is just too ignorant to the facts about the Berbers. His evidence is weak and many posters have proven that the Berbers are African. Dr. Winters has proven to me he is not looking to learn.
Peace
Posts: 9651 | From: Reace and Love City. | Registered: Oct 2005
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And since the Yemini speak a Semitic (in your words, Puntite) language, Yemini origins would only serve to confirm a lingual relation with Afrisan not Germanic.
I am glad you are finally admiting that the Berber people came from Yemen. It took you a long time but now you finally realize that the Berber are not the ancient Libyans and they did not originate in North Africa.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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I checked francophone debates on this very subject. The head of the Amazigh World Congress says that the Berbers did not come Yemen. But, this idea is a popular Amazigh fable.
Others say the Tuareg came from Yemen. I was wondering about this myself. Because, the word for the veil that the use is very similar to the Amharic word for head-scarf. Also, in a french language book discussing Tuareg origins they have an alternate name for the female slave of Queen Tin Hinan - Tamalek. The Amalekites entered Africa from Yemen.
Posts: 1115 | From: GOD Bless the USA | Registered: May 2006
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And FACT is Berber and Yemeni are related because both are Afrasian and NOT because Berber sprang from Yemeni!
Posts: 26246 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I am glad you are finally admiting that the Berber people came from Yemen. It took you a long time but now you finally realize that the Berber are not the ancient Libyans and they did not originate in North Africa.
Sorry Clyde, but that's not what Takruri meant and you know it!
Silly child pyschological games won't cut it here.
Berber is related to Yemeni in that BOTH are Afrasian. Berber did originate from the east, from east AFRICA to be exact as with most Afrasian languages but NOT from Yemen.
Prove that a Berber migration from Yemen to Northwest Africa took place, specifically 8,000 years ago.
You cannot. The genetic samples used were taken from living people, NOT skeletons. Scientists can measure mutation rates of these lineages and thus calculate the time these lineages diverged.
FACT is there are no M81 markers in Yemen but there are in Egypt and even Ethiopia.
Just admit that you are WRONG, just as you are about the Dravidians and Olmecs but I doubt you are able to do that. Posts: 26246 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Berber is related to Yemeni in that BOTH are Afrasian. Berber did originate from the east, from east AFRICA to be exact as with most Afrasian languages but NOT from Yemen.
Prove that a Berber migration from Yemen to Northwest Africa took place, specifically 8,000 years ago.
You cannot. The genetic samples used were taken from living people, NOT skeletons. Scientists can measure mutation rates of these lineages and thus calculate the time these lineages diver
This is bull. You act as though geneticists can accurately date population migrations and changes this is false.
John Woodmorappe
quote: Molecular clocks don't always tick at the steady, slow rate many evolutionists predicted. This article reports on new evidence that the divergence of molecular structure in mitochondrial DNA can occur many orders of magnitude more rapidly than was earlier supposed. This can bring the time for speciation down from millions of years to only several thousand years, which, of course, is consistent with the biblical time framework.
Evolutionists have long attempted to date the origin of taxonomic groups through the use of molecular clocks. Using two (or more) species, they determine the differences in a given stretch of their DNA molecules, and then see how long ago, according to the fossil record, those taxonomic groups diverged. The rate of divergence over time gives one a "clock" of molecular change. The problem with this approach is that the clocks are often very contradictory.
However, there was thought to have been one ideal molecular "clock" that was largely exempt from these problems. This "clock" is mitochondrial DNA (hereafter abbreviated mtDNA). Most of the cell's DNA resides in the nucleus, and serves as the cell's "government". However, the mitochondria, the organelle in the cell which serves as the cell's power station, also has some DNA (see Figure 1). Evolutionists have long believed that this mtDNA is a relic from the cell's evolutionary past, ostensibly billions of years ago. They imagine that the mitochondria was once a separate living entity, and its DNA served a governing function analogous to the cell's nuclear DNA.
There are a number of reasons why mtDNA was thought to be an ideal molecular "clock." First of all, unlike nuclear DNA, mtDNA is not divided during cell division. It simply gets duplicated through a carbon-copy like duplication when cells divide, with the duplicate going to the daughter cell. During sexual reproduction, mtDNA passes down through the mother's lineage, so there is no complicating addition of paternal mtDNA.
Finally, mtDNA was thought to receive mutations that were predominantly neutral. That is, most mutations in mtDNA would be exempt from natural selection, because those mutations would neither help the organisms out-compete other similar organisms, nor create a disadvantage for organisms in competition with others. Therefore, so it was reasoned, one only had to count the number of mutants in the mtDNA between any taxonomic groups, and one could approximate how long ago they diverged.
Not surprisingly, given standard geological dating, the figures were on the order of millions of years. A sequence- divergence rate of only 2% per million years has been quoted (MacRae and Anderson 1988, p. 485).
Now comes new evidence, however, that mtDNA is subject to natural selection. Moreover, not only does this occur within a species, but also within a relatively small, well-defined population. To top it all off, the variation also occurs in a short period of time.
Contrary to conventional evolutionary wisdom, some earlier evidence indicated that mtDNA is not subject only to neutral mutations (Fos et. al. 1990, MacRae and Anderson 1988). However, much of this evidence was ignored because it did not fit the reigning evolutionary belief in the primacy of neutral mutations (Malhotra and Thorpe 1994, p. 37).
The new field evidence indicates, however, that mtDNA is subject to natural selection. Malhotra and Thorpe (1994) studied the sequence of mtDNA among certain lizards in islands of the Caribbean Sea. They found morphological (i.e., anatomical) variation in these lizards, following moisture gradients on the islands: the animals' coloration, number of scales, and body proportions varied with local ecological conditions.
What is really surprising, however, is the fact that the mtDNA of the lizards also follows these ecological gradients! This strikes at the very heart of the prevalent belief that mtDNA is very stable, and only changes slowly through the accumulation of neutral mutations over many millions of years.
The implications of this finding are significant. Instead of accumulating mutation-by-mutation over millions of years, mutations in mtDNA can become rapidly fixed in a population. Major divergences in the mtDNA could have occurred in thousands, instead of millions of years. This is in line with the biblical time frame.
Recently an attempt was made to estimate the age of the human race using mitochondrial DNA. This material is inherited always from mother to children only. By measuring the difference in mitochondrial DNA among many individuals, the age of the common maternal ancestor of humanity was estimated at about 200,000 years. A problem is that rates of mutation are not known by direct measurement, and are often computed based on assumed evolutionary time scales. Thus all of these age estimates could be greatly in error. In fact, many different rates of mutation are quoted by different biologists.
It shouldn't be very hard explicitly to measure the rate of mutation of mitochondrial DNA to get a better estimate on this age. From royal lineages, for example, one could find two individuals whose most recent common maternal ancestor was, say, 1000 years ago. One could then measure the differences in the mitochondrial DNA of these individuals to bound its mutation rate. This scheme is attractive because it does not depend on radiometric dating or other assumptions about evolution or mutation rates. It is possible that in 1000 years there would be too little difference to measure. At least this would still give us some useful information.
(A project for creation scientists!)
Along this line, some work has recently been done to measure explictly the rate of substitution in mitochondrial DNA. The reference is Parsons, Thomas J., et al., A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial DNA control region, Nature Genetics vol. 15, April 1997, pp. 363-367. The summary follows:
"The rate and pattern of sequence substitutions in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region (CR) is of central importance to studies of human evolution and to forensic identity testing. Here, we report a direct measurement of the intergenerational substitution rate in the human CR. We compared DNA sequences of two CR hypervariable segments from close maternal relatives, from 134 independent mtDNA lineages spanning 327 generational events. Ten subsitutions were observed, resulting in an empirical rate of 1/33 generations, or 2.5/site/Myr. This is roughly twenty-fold higher than estimates derived from phylogenetic analyses. This disparity cannot be accounted for simply by substitutions at mutational hot spots, suggesting additional factors that produce the discrepancy between very near-term and long-term apparent rates of sequence divergence. The data also indicate that extremely rapid segregation of CR sequence variants between generations is common in humans, with a very small mtDNA bottleneck. These results have implications for forensic applications and studies of human evolution." (op. cit. p. 363).
The article also contains this section: "The observed substitution rate reported here is very high compared to rates inferred from evolutionary studies. A wide range of CR substitution rates have been derived from phylogenetic studies, spanning roughly 0.025-0.26/site/Myr, including confidence intervals. A study yielding one of the faster estimates gave the substitution rate of the CR hypervariable regions as 0.118 +- 0.031/site/Myr. Assuming a generation time of 20 years, this corresponds to ~1/600 generations and an age for the mtDNA MRCA of 133,000 y.a. Thus, our observation of the substitution rate, 2.5/site/Myr, is roughly 20-fold higher than would be predicted from phylogenetic analyses. Using our empirical rate to calibrate the mtDNA molecular clock would result in an age of the mtDNA MRCA of only ~6,500 y.a., clearly incompatible with the known age of modern humans. Even acknowledging that the MRCA of mtDNA may be younger than the MRCA of modern humans, it remains implausible to explain the known geographic distribution of mtDNA sequence variation by human migration that occurred only in the last ~6,500 years.
One biologist explained the young age estimate by assuming essentially that 19/20 of the mutations in this control region are slightly harmful and eventually will be eliminated from the population. This seems unlikely, because this region tends to vary a lot and therefore probably has little function. In addition, the selective disadvantage of these 19/20 of the mutations would have to be about 1/300 or higher in order to avoid producing more of a divergence in sequences than observed in longer than 6000 years. This means that one in 300 individuals would have to die from having mutations in this region. This seems like a high figure for a region that appears to be largely without function. It is interesting that this same biologist feels that 9/10 of the mutations to coding regions of DNA are neutral. This makes the coding regions of DNA less constrained than the apparently functionless control region of the mitochondrial DNA!
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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I checked francophone debates on this very subject. The head of the Amazigh World Congress says that the Berbers did not come Yemen. But, this idea is a popular Amazigh fable.
It does not matter what the head of the Amazigh says, this tradition was recorded for many years and I don't believe these people made it up.The Berbers say they came from Yemen and I accept their tradition just like Diop and other scholars.
I also accept the fact that the modern Berber language was influenced by Europeans, this is supported by the European genes they are alleged to carry (probably of Germanic or People of the Sea origin) and Germanic grammatical elements in their language , probably due to the Vandals .
In this forum you try to deny the relevance of Diop and any of the social sciences in studying the past. You are wrong DNA can not tell us anything except that people are related. It can not tell us when groups originated or expanded to other parts of the world because measuring mutation rates is not an exact science.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Clyde Winters: You are wrong DNA can not tell us anything except that people are related. It can not tell us when groups originated or expanded to other parts of the world because measuring mutation rates is not an exact science.
Dr. Winters, of the disciplines you rely on, viz: linguistics, archaeology, folklore, etc., - genetics is THE most EXACT science among them. It's the one that you really can't toss out.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: It is said that from their home in Yemen, (the Tubba's) used to raid Ifriqiyah and the Berbers of the Maghrib. Afriqus b. Qays b. Sayfi, one of their great early kings who lived in the time of Moses or somewhat earlier, is said to have raided Ifriqiyah. He caused a great slaughter among the Berbers. He gave them the name Berbers when he heard their jargon and asked what that "barbarah" was. This gave them the name which has remained with them since that time. When he left the Maghrib, he is said to have cncentrated some Himyar tribes there. They remained there and mixed with the native population. Their (descendents) are the Sinhajah and the Kutamah. This led at~Tabari, al~Jujani, al~Masudi, ibn al~Kalbi, and al~Bayhaqi to make the statement that the Sinhaja and the Kutamah belong to the Himyar. The Berber genealogists do not admit this, and they are right.
... All this information is remote from the truth. It is rooted in baseless and erroneous assumptions. It is more like the fiction of storytellers. ... There is no way from Yemen to the Maghrib except via Suez. The distance between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean is two day's journey or less. It is unlikely that the distance could be traversed by a great ruler with a large army unless he controlled the region. This, as a rule, is impossible. In that region there were the Amalekites and Canaan in Syria... There is, however, no report that the Tubba's ever fought against one of these nations ... Furthermore the distance from the Yemen to the Maghrib is great, and an army requires much food and fodder. ... Again, it would be a most unlikely and impossible assumption that such an army could pass through all those nations without disturbing them, obtaining its provisions by peaceful negotiation. This shows that all such information (about Tubba' expeditions to the Maghrib) is silly or fictitious.
... Assertions to this effect should not be trusted; all such information should be invstigated and checked with sound norms. The result will be that it will most beautifully be demolished.
ibn Khaldun The Muqaddimah Oran, ~1377 Introduction I,14-16
quote:Originally posted by Shango: Al Takruri and Dr. Clyde,
I checked francophone debates on this very subject. The head of the Amazigh World Congress says that the Berbers did not come Yemen. But, this idea is a popular Amazigh fable.
Others say the Tuareg came from Yemen. I was wondering about this myself. Because, the word for the veil that the use is very similar to the Amharic word for head-scarf. Also, in a french language book discussing Tuareg origins they have an alternate name for the female slave of Queen Tin Hinan - Tamalek. The Amalekites entered Africa from Yemen.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:The original North African people probably spoke a semitic language similar to Punic . Some of these earlier North Africans mixed with the Vandals and thus we have the Berber (not including Taureg speakers) speaking population in North Africa.
Actually Berber languages do share plenty of features with other Afrasan languages that are not reconstructable for Proto-Semitic like the final -m of the 2nd person feminine singular personal pronoun found in Chadic, Berber and Kemetic. This kind of evidence shows that Proto-Berber didn't derive from any Semitic language.
Posts: 203 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:The original North African people probably spoke a semitic language similar to Punic . Some of these earlier North Africans mixed with the Vandals and thus we have the Berber (not including Taureg speakers) speaking population in North Africa.
Actually Berber languages do share plenty of features with other Afrasan languages that are not reconstructable for Proto-Semitic like the final -m of the 2nd person feminine singular personal pronoun found in Chadic, Berber and Kemetic. This kind of evidence shows that Proto-Berber didn't derive from any Semitic language.
^ Agreed, It's also important to keep in mind the geography of this language family....
Note that Berber languages diverge from other Afrisan langauges *west* of the nile....hense their historic association with so called "Libyans".
Any effort to move this language origin to "arabia" where no Berber language exists, and no possible proginator exists.. is thus rendered prepostrous.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Here we go. This is the place where this topic now belongs, al takruri. Stop needlessly spamming other threads.
quote:Originally posted by Mystery Solver:
Originally posted by alTakruri:
I provided an abbreviated etymology showing the word Libya, in current English usage, derives from an ancient Greek term Libue (supplied earlier by Midogbe and verified by perusing the Liddell & Scott Greek Lexicon) which in turn derives from the ancient Egyptian usage Libu/Rebu.
You've shown zip about "Libya" being an English word.
quote:al Takruri:
I'm interested in Y O U R etymology of the word Libya and am asking for it the third time. Please provide it if you have one. Thank you.
Not until I have your etymology of "Libya" as an English word.
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri:
BTW grandstanding is a logical fallacy or demagogue tactic of appealing to a crowd for verification and is not evident in the question put to you nor in the comment noting your avoidance in answering said question.
^This juvenile display has gotten you the attention you wanted. Let's stay on-topic now, shall we.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Somehow the point of the derivation of the word Libya came up. I responded with a concise etymology. It was disputed without any contrary evidence.
Now we just get emotional ranting from the one who disputed but cannot backup his accusation.
So please enter something relevant to the etymology of Libya as requested. After all you were the only one to call its derivation into question. Until you present a scholarly countering I will continue to ask for YOUR full etymology of Libya just as YOU have asked others for the same. who
Good 'ol al takruri, if you weren't so emotional, and juvenile at that, how come you haven't answered to the request above?
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
The reason this thread was bumped is so that readers can examine (starting from page 1) an earlier indepth discussion about "Berber" North Africans. Many good points and information is here in this entire thread and is supplemented by its sister thread also bumped up today.
posted
Give me a week or two. It's much much much worse than I thought. The Berbers want it all starting with Ancient Egypt.
Posts: 1115 | From: GOD Bless the USA | Registered: May 2006
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I am an anthropologist, a native of Morocco, and a Kabyle of Algeria.
It is with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation to speak today on the topic of Amazigh (Berber) history and culture. I have been in the US for several decades, and have bemoaned long enough the absence of information about the rich and diverse traditions of the North African indigenous culture. Today is a day of celebration, because the day is devoted to this culture here in Santa Cruz.
The very presence of a Berber population in North Africa has given rise to a lot of imaginative hypotheses as to possible origins. Suffice it to say that today, the Yemen, Asiatic, and European origins have been debunked. The continuous presence of our people in Africa from Paleolithic and Neolithic times has been documented.
We have seen over centuries a number of invasions. Despite the occupation of our lands by the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Turks, the Arabs, the French and the Spanish, we are still here, our language is still spoken, our artists are as prolific as ever, and the survival of our culture a wonder.
Posts: 1115 | From: GOD Bless the USA | Registered: May 2006
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Before I give you a very brief overview of the history of Berbers, I would like to situate the land and the people for you.
The territory where Berbers are found and our language spoken extends from the Oasis of Siwa in Egypt through Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, the Canary islands, Mauritania, the Sahara Desert, Mali, Niger, and Burkina-Faso.
In the Canary islands, the situation is somewhat different. The Spanish invasion of the Islands brought effective death to the language, where only a few survivals remain in the topography of the ground. But the Guanche culture is rich in petroglyphs and other signs of the earlier Amazigh culture, and the ancestral whistled language of the Guanche is still alive as a means of communication. The Guanche of the Canary Islands appear to be closely related to the Imazighen of Morocco.
Statistically, we are the most numerous in Morocco, where we form the majority of the population, and recently even the Ruler of Morocco has acknowledged that the foundations of the Moroccan culture is Amazigh. The Arabic dialect spoken in Morocco, as a matter of fact, is structurally, grammatically that is, Berber, on which was grafted a mixture of Arabic and Berber vocabularies: the dialectal Arabic of Morocco is closer to Berber that it is to classical Arabic, and few Moroccans indeed understand or write classical Arabic.
Our people include the Siwans, the Libyan Imazighen, Tunisian villages, the several groups of the Aures Mountains and Kabyle Mountains in Algeria, with the Mzab and Tuareg population in the south; in Morocco, the Rif Mountains, (Tarifi spoken) the Atlas Mountains, (Tamazight spoken) and the Souss Valley and Anti-Atlas (Tachlhit spoken, commonly referred to as Chlleuh), then the several confederations of Tuareg people in the Sahara, and sub-Sahara regions who speak the Tamashek. The term “tuareg” like the term “Berber” is an appellation imposed from the outside. In Tamasheq, and in Tamazight, “Amazigh” means “Free Human Being” and Imazighen is the plural form of this name.
Modern genetic studies have come to confirm the socio-linguistic findings in isolating “the Berber Gene” and finding it prevalent in the majority of Moroccans.
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The Tifinagh alphabet. The presence of an alphabet linked specifically with the Amazigh culture, the Tifinagh alphabet, is attested from an early age, and even its link to the Phoenician alphabet – which gave rise to the Greek and Roman alphabets of later dates – seems today to be contested. We are finding Tifinagh inscriptions in the Sahara, in regions not occupied by the Phoenicians, and that seem to pre-date the arrival of the Phoenicians on the coast of North Africa. This is a very rich domain of enquiry and scholarly research. Today, a form of neo-Tifinagh is being adopted for writing and publishing, and the role of the Tifinagh – as opposed to the Arab or Latin scripts – in schooling and publication, is being debated. Is this script cumbersome, and adequate? The Royal Academy of Amazigh Studies in Morocco, recently chartered, opted for the Tifinagh script, and has created some stir in doing so....
Prehistory
Rock art, petroglyphs and tumuli (archaic tombs) have yielded a great deal of knowledge about the proto-Berbers, and the beginning of the Berber population of North Africa. The whole region is a vast museum, from the Libyc inscriptions of Tunisia, to the living open air museum of the Tassili and Hoggar regions of southern Algeria, and the human remains and tools found in Morocco of extremely ancient origin testify to the early development of an autochthonous culture in North Africa.
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The hypothesis of an Oriental origin, or Caucasian origin, have been dismissed, and the presence of The Mechtoid type of individual found in earliest burials have created a solid ground for a new look at the local origin and development of a North African indigenous culture from the western bank of the Nile to the Atlantic ocean. For more detailed information, if you are interested in the pre-history of Berbers, you can consult The Berbers” by, or if you read French, “Les premiers Berberes” by Malika Hachid. (Show Book. Only a few copies in the US, hand carried by individuals.)
North Africa was once called “Libya” by Egyptians, and Greeks.
Numerous groups of Eastern Libyans are mentioned by Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, as early as pre-dynastic times (i.e. 3,000 BC) on the Palermo or Libyc Stone, which lists some 50 Libyan rulers before the advent of the First Pharaoh of Egypt.
Greek writers indicate that the origins of several of their gods and Egyptian Gods are in North Africa, particularly the Titans (ancestors to the Greek pantheon of gods) : the Garden of the Hesperides and the story of Atlas gave the name of Atlas Mountains to the Moroccan range of mountains, and in eastern Algeria/western Tunisia, it is said that a prosperous kingdom gave rise to numerous deities, that of Tritonis. The Lake and the River of Triton are in North African territories known today as Tunisia and Algeria. (link to Poseidon, Neptune, and the Triton)
I would be derelict in my account if I did not mention that the original Mother of the Gods in Egypt, the Great He-she Deity who gave birth to all the gods, protected the throne of Egypt, and the soul of all departed in their journey in the beyond, the Most ancient and sacred deity NEITH, was born in Libya and is a North African deity. She was Goddess of Life and Death, and the symbolism accompanying her was the arrows of combat, the weaving loom of civilization, and the Bee. Her symbol of the Bee was associated with the Rule of the Pharaons who all bore the title of “Son of the Bee” giving each of each a real or fictive descendance from the original archaic ancestry of North Africa.
For more on this topic, you can consult my book “The Shining Ones, Etymological Essay on the Amazigh Roots of Ancient Egyptian Civilization.” (2001) I have done additional research in the last four years on the all importance of the bee in Kabyle and Atlas Mountains traditions linked to honey, and the bee.
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The Phoenicians occupied the coast of North Africa and gave rise to a Punic age, with the growth of trade and the commerce center of Carthage. The Romans made it the granary and breadbasket of the Roman Empire. They established forts and communities throughout the region, and the era of Roman rule recognized a number of Amazigh rulers through their Provinces of Numidia in Algeria and Tunisia, and Mauretania in the west.
With the First Treaty of Barca, in Libya, Arabs set up the precedent of exacting 360 heads of women and children as slaves in payment for war tax, annually. This exaction was repeated throughout the conquest of North Africa, insuring an ample supply of slaves that were shipped to Egypt, Syria and the Peninsula of Arabia.
Arabisation did not take place for a long time, but Islamization was immediate, and accomplished by threat or persuasion. Rebelling chiefs of tribes were mutilated publicly to instill fear in others along with warnings that it was useless to resist the invaders.
The most famous resistance is that of The Kahena, a woman from a group of Jewish Berbers of the Aures mountains who led forces of Berbers with the war cry “Onward, Lions of Judah, onward Lions of Africa.” She was in the end betrayed by a young captured Arab she had adopted, who divulged her whereabouts to the Arab leaders. She was captured, beheaded and her head shipped to Arabia.
It was a time of alliances with Berber groups ruled by Massinissa or Jugurtha, and the quelling of numerous rebellions of the large population of the Gaetules to the south of the Roman Limes.. A number of literary figures of the Latin literature are actually Berbers, Terence, and the first novelist of Africa to ever be published, Apuleius of Madauros. See my article, Apuleius of Madauros, published in 2000 in The Amazigh Voice, a scholarly Journal published in the United States. Unfortunately, time constraints do not allow me to go into much detail, but I have brought with me this article on Apuleius as the first Amazigh Philosopher and novelist, and copies are available on this table.
The Arab Invasions of the 7th to the 11th centuries
Upon the decline of the Roman Empire, invasions of hordes of Vandals reached North Africa. Unlike the Romans who left their marks on the culture of that region, the Vandals have left practically no trace. The region was in disarray when the Arab invasions began, invasions which came wave upon wave until the Beni Hillal in the 11th century.
From the Peninsula of Arabia in mid 7th century, forces began to march north to conquer Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and West to conquer Egypt, Libya, and North Africa.
The Arabs distinguished between two types of population: there were the people who followed religions of the book (Christians and Jews who were in fairly large number in North Africa) from whom they exacted the jizya, a special tax which guaranteed their safety as long as they submitted to the Arab rule and Islam: those groups were considered “dhimmis” (second class citizens) The rest of the population, Berbers who were polytheists had the choice of converting or death. They were considered “pagan” and Islamic law allowed the killings and enslavement of such people.
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The most famous resistance is that of The Kahena, a woman from a group of Jewish Berbers of the Aures mountains who led forces of Berbers with the war cry “Onward, Lions of Judah, onward Lions of Africa.” She was in the end betrayed by a young captured Arab she had adopted, who divulged her whereabouts to the Arab leaders. She was captured, beheaded and her head shipped to Arabia.
One of her sons Gibral Tarik converted together with tens of thousands of Berbers, and they reinforced the ranks of the Arabs that crossed the Detroit of Gibraltar into Spain. Gabriel Tarik left to history the name of Gibraltar.
Slavery and booty was the mark of several centuries of Arab invasion and rule throughout North Africa. In Morocco, however, large Berber kingdoms continue to exist, with Berber dynasties favoring the development and the protection of the arts, giving rise to a rich civilization known as Andalusian, that spanned Morocco and Spain and extended as far as Timbuktu, in Mali.
Modern nations
Today, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are considered Arabic countries of “The Maghreb.” The Maghreb is an Arabic term meaning “The Far West.” It is only proper if it refers to Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, as the motherland. It is therefore totally inappropriate for North Africa.
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In North Africa, Judaism took a hold and numerous tribes converted to Judaism. When Christianity developed in the Mediterranean basin, many Berbers converted to Christianity and gave Christendom a number of important bishops and Saint Augustine, one of the most outstanding Fathers of the Catholic Church. Jewish Berbers and their Moslem neighbors share many aspects of the pre-Islamic marabout - or saint – worship and rituals around maraboutic sacred spots. As a matter of fact, the word “Chleuh” which has come to designate a whole group of Berbers from the Souss Valley is originally a Judeo-Berber term. Shilah, and remote villages of the anti-Atlas such as Tioute or Ifrane of the anti-Atlas testify to Jewish traditions millennia old. The Judeo-Berber culture is a topic of its own, attracting recent scholarship, after almost complete neglect in the past century.
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Hagan is an activist of half Kabyle half European descent but she is no expert on North African history, language, or population genetics. Her old booklet is generally ignored by academia.
Dr. Winters, myself, and I think Ausar, all corresponded with Hagan a good six or seven years ago on an Amazigh activist e-list which has since become super-private.
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^ This seems to be tactic of some ethnocentric propaganda cultists.
I think Medi-centrist Deniekes has also gone 'underground'.
Interesting strategy: Preach to the converted, or easily convert-able. Allow no opposition. Problem is people pay less attention to you, once you've got a closed shop.
Except for those who like RedCow, make the mistake of inadvertintly trumpheting their cause.
In this case, they get the benefits of a closed shop, plus free advertising.
I'm certain that this is exactly what they hope for.
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Yup. Hagan is a danger to African causes because she divides the continent dislikes blacks (in my opinion) and falsely touts that her iMazighen are in no way related to blacks and blacks have never been in, much less native to, taMazgha. Not stopping there, she appropriates all civilization north of 12 degrees of latitude for her biologically determinant iMazighen.
But get this, she denies being the primier and founder of NorthAfrocentricism!
Heaven forfend and help us, she has access and is part of the organization that controls many of the manuscripts in Timbuktu.
Oh, the reason that Amazigh Activist list went super-private is because of the literally lethal violent nature of the Amazigh cause in the Maghreb.
Extremme political views expressed by some members were placing themselves, their families, even their friends and associates in danger of retaliatory physical attack from anti-Amazigh forces.
Due to the more than 1000 year old suppression of Amazighity, Mughrebi have a shattered psyche and as a people don't know if they're Arab, Berber, Amazigh, or European (Spanish, French, Italian).
I know a North African who has a typical Tamazight family name. The person's grand parents are 'Touansi', yet this person once exclaimed the person's own parents were 'Black Feet.' The person is a citizen of France by birth and so proclaims to be French. The person also has no problem identifying as an African.
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quote:Due to the more than 1000 year old suppression of Amazighity, Mughrebi have a shattered psyche and as a people don't know if they're Arab, Berber, Amazigh, or European (Spanish, French, Italian).
Personal Identity crisis as instigator of anti Black racism.
So common it should be a formalised psychological 'condition'. Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Given the exemplified latent and the not-so-latent biases, and as can be seen from tamazight dedicated websites popping up here and there, it is safe to assume that sections of Tamazights have a strong sense of the Tamazight identity, and undoubtedly sections of those who are activists for promoting Tamazight conservatism, also have a vision for some sort of Pan-amazighan cohesion.
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^ Wow, these peoples really got some serious issues. So these are the folks that have self proclaimed 'Berber pride' yet deny Berber identity to other Berber speakers just because they are black. Has anything similar happened to or is happening with Semitic speakers where Semitic speakers of Arabia deny the Semitic identity of those in Ethiopia??
quote:Originally posted by rasol: Personal Identity crisis as instigator of anti Black racism.
So common it should be a formalised psychological 'condition'.
LOL Yes, a pyschological phenomenon we are all to familiar with via the likes of persons such as AMR and Jaimie. Posts: 26246 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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For whatever it's worth, my personal experience is that the indigenee Muslims in Libya, Algeria, and Morocco have little if any problem seeing their ages old relationship to the darker and "non- berber" Africans south of them (but note that economic immigration problems are breeding "anti-black" de facto discrimination in Libya).
The fervent denial of any kind of relationship at all to "Black Africa/Africans" is a product of the new militant Amazigh activists and the invention of such 21st century identity vs the historic Amazigh identity known in writing since the 12th century in ibn Khaldun.
And yes, while I meet "Arab" and "Berber" Mughrebi, who themselves are quite light, tell of dark or black relatives, the dark and/or curly/low wavy/bushy/ kinky/nappy haired North Africans are more disinclined to admit the same.
The reasons are due to the lower esteem of individuals bearing those characteristics as being of slave/Gnawa descent (more of a country cousin than a racist type thing in NA societies.)
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If the original inhabitants of North Africa were Black, then how there any non-Black person claim that they are native and the Black elements in their modern populations are the descendants of slaves?
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quote:Originally posted by Neith-Athena: If the original inhabitants of North Africa were Black, then how there any non-Black person claim that they are native and the Black elements in their modern populations are the descendants of slaves?
Skin color is not race.
Skin color is not lineage.
Senegalese are native Africans and they are Francophones, but language is not race, langauge is not lineage.
Until this lesson is learned, history...not just African, but world history, can never be understood.
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He only supports genetics when he thinks it supports his claims, but when he realizes it doesn't, he goes against it.
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