Arab-Berber of the Arab conquest of North Africa, and the intermarriage between the Arabian and Persian people who immigrated to those regions and local mainly Roman Africans and other Berber people; in addition, Banu Hilal and Sulaym Arab tribes originating in the Arabian Peninsula invaded the region and intermarried with the local rural mainly Berber populations, and were a major factor in the linguistic, cultural and ethnic Arabization of the Maghreb. Alongside Berber speakers, arabized Berbers form the core of the native populations of the Maghreb, namely Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. Arab-Berbers primarily speak variants of Maghrebi Arabic, also known
Northern Berber languages perfect. Northern Berber languages The Northern Berber languages are a dialect continuum spoken across the Maghreb, constituting a subgroup of the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. Their continuity has been broken by the spread of Arabic, and to a lesser extent by the Zenati group of Northern Berber. The Zenati idioms share certain innovations not found in the surrounding languages; notably a softening of "k" to "sh" and an absence of "a-" in certain words, such as "hand" ("afus" vs. "fus".) Northern Berber languages spoken by over a million people include Shilha, Central Morocco Tamazight, Riff, Shawiya and Kabyle.