Mozabite people Mozabite people are characterized by a very high level of North African haplogroups E1b1b1b (M81) (86%) and U6 (28%). Mozabite people The Mozabite people are a Berber ethnic group inhabiting the M'zab natural region in the northern Sahara in Algeria. They speak Mozabite ("Tumẓabt"), one of the Zenati languages in the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. Many also speak Maghrebi Arabic as a second language. Mozabites are primarily Ibadi Muslims, but there was a small populations of Jews as well. Mozabites live in five oases; namely, Ghardaïa, Beni Isguen, El Atteuf, Melika and Bounoura, as well as two other
Proto-Berber language Proto-Berber language Proto-Berber is the reconstructed proto-language from which the modern Berber languages stem. Proto-Berber was an Afroasiatic language, and as such, its descendant Berber languages are cousins to the Egyptian language, Cushitic languages, Semitic languages, Chadic languages, and the Omotic languages. Proto-Berber shows features that clearly distinguish it from all other branches of Afroasiatic, but modern Berber languages are relatively homogeneous. Whereas the split from the other known Afroasiatic branches was very ancient, on the order of 10,000~9,000 years ago, according to glottochronological studies, Proto-Berber might be as recent as 3,000 years ago. Louali & Philippson (2003) propose, on