Proto-Berber language reached the stage where these different branches of this language family evolved. From that perspective, Proto-Berber was the first Berber stage to depart from Proto-Afrosiatic in the eighth millennium. It was restructured several times during the almost 10,000 years that separated it from its modern shape, which has preserved few relics. Roger Blench (2018) suggests that Proto-Berber speakers experienced intense language leveling about 2,000 years ago as the Roman Empire was expanding in North Africa. Hence, although Berber had split off from Afroasiatic several thousand years ago, Proto-Berber itself can only be reconstructed to a period as late as 200
Matmata Berber region, showing lexical variation, while Penchoen (1968) offers a general discussion of Tunisian Berber and the effects of schooling. Collins (1981) discusses its verbal morphology along with that of other Tunisian Berber varieties. The only general grammatical sketch and vocabulary available is the website put together by Larbi Ben Mamou, a native speaker of the language. "Ethnologue" treats it as part of the Nafusi language spoken in northwestern Libya, although the two belong to different subgroups of Berber according to Kossmann (1999). Matmata Berber Matmata Berber is a Zenati Berber dialect spoken around the town of Matmâta in southern Tunisia,