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
Berber flag Berber flag The Berber flag () is a flag that has been adopted for the Berbers. It is currently used by Berber activists in 10 African countries. The flag was inaugurated in Ouadhia, a town of Kabylia situated in Tizi Ouzou, a wilaya of Algeria, by an elder Algerian Kabylian "veteran" named Mohand Arav Bessaoud. He was considered a spiritual father of Berberism and was also a writer and an activist of the Algerian Revolution. In the 1970s the Berber Academy ("Agraw Imazighen") proposed the first Berber flag. In 1998 the World Amazigh Congress made the flag official at Tafira