Arabized Berber is derived from the Berber populations of the pre-Islamic period. Arabized Berber Arabized Berber denotes an inhabitant of the Maghreb region in northwestern Africa, whose native language is a local dialect of Arabic and whose origins are Berber. The expression holds that most populations in North Africa are of Berber heritage, including those inhabiting Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Western Sahara, and Mauritania. The widespread language shift from Berber to Arabic happened, at least partially, due to the privileged status that the Arabic language has generally been given in the states of North Africa, from the Arab conquest in 652 up
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,