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 fall into three groups: The eastern boundaries of the North Berber varieties are uncertain. Some linguists include the Nafusi and Ghadames languages, while others do not. Most regard Ghadamès as lying outside of Northern Berber, but the "Ethnologue" does not. There is no authoritative answer as to whether the Northern Berber varieties constitute a language rather than a dialect. Some academics believe that not only Northern Berber but all the Berber languages are dialects of a single language, whereas others come up with much higher counts. At any rate, mutual comprehensibility among the Northern Berber varieties is high, though not