Tamazgha[a] is a fictitious entity[1][2] and neologism in the Berber languages denoting the lands traditionally inhabited by the Berber peoples within the Maghreb.[3] The term was coined in the 1970s by the Berber Academy in France[4] and, since the late 1990s, has gained particular significance among speakers of Berber languages.[5] Although Berberists see Tamazgha as the geographic embodiment of a Berber imaginary of a once unified language and culture that had its own territory,[6][7] it has never been a single political entity,[8] 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.[9] Despite this, certain (but not all[10]) 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.[11][12][13]
Overview
Historically, Berbers did not see themselves as a single cultural or linguistic unit,[9] and there was no singular endonym for the speakers of the languages descended from what is now called Proto-Libyan nor was there a term for their land. Instead, more specific terms for each subgroup were employed such as the Kabyle term Leqbayel or the Shawi term Ishawiyen.[14] Berber peoples did not refer to themselves as Berbers/Amazigh but had their own terms to refer to their own groups and communities.[15]
The earliest known reference to the Berber people as one group comes in the form of Arabic بربر (barbar), as borrowed from Ancient Greek βᾰ́ρβᾰρος (bárbaros, 'barbarian'). The Arabic word barbar was applied to the people whose language seemed very strange, hence the name "Berber".[16] Berbers started being referred to collectively as Berbers following the Arab Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th century. This word referred mostly to groups in northwest Africa.[17] By the medieval period, Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun elevated the "Berbers" into a "race" or "nation", granting them equal status with the nations of the world.[16] This was then solidified during French colonization when the Kabyle myth developed and 'Berbère' became a relatively common term of self-identification.[18]
In an attempt to reclaim the identity from the history of colonization, the Agraw Imazighen (a Paris-based Kabyle activist association that dissolved in 1978 and was known as the Berber Academy before 1969) coined the term Tamazɣa using the pre-existing triconsonantal root M-Z-Ɣ[19] in the 1970s to refer to the lands where the different Berber languages were spoken.[20]
The term has been translated into Spanish as Mazigia, abbreviated as MZG and used as an alternative international license plate code for some people.[21]