Berber flag on Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, which were formerly inhabited by the Guanches, an ancient Berber people. The flag is composed of blue, green, and yellow horizontal bands of the same height, and a Tifinagh letter "yaz" or "aza". Each colour corresponds to an aspect of Tamazgha, the territory inhabited by Berbers in North Africa: The "yaz" (ⵣ) symbolizes the "free man", which is the meaning of the Berber word "amazigh", the Berbers' own name for themselves (endonym). It is in red, the colour of life, and also the colour of resistance. The Berber flag thus symbolizes the entire
Berber languages European languages distinguish between the words "Berber" and "barbarian", while Arabic has the same word "al-Barbari" for both meanings. Some other Berber writers, especially in Morocco, prefer to refer to Berber with "Amazigh" when writing about it in French or English. Traditionally, the term "Tamazight" (in various forms: "Thamazighth", "Tamasheq", "Tamajaq", "Tamahaq") was used by many Berber groups to refer to the language they spoke, including the Middle Atlas, the Riffians, the Sened in Tunisia and the Tuareg. However, other terms were used by other groups; for instance, some Berber populations of Algeria called their language "Taznatit" (Zenati) or "Shelha",