Berber flag on Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, which were formerly inhabited by the Guanches, an ancient Berber people. The flag is composed of blue, green, and yellow horizontal bands of the same height, and a Tifinagh letter "yaz" or "aza". Each colour corresponds to an aspect of Tamazgha, the territory inhabited by Berbers in North Africa: The "yaz" (ⵣ) symbolizes the "free man", which is the meaning of the Berber word "amazigh", the Berbers' own name for themselves (endonym). It is in red, the colour of life, and also the colour of resistance. The Berber flag thus symbolizes the entire
Proto-Berber language the use of a lingua franca which became Proto-Berber. Reconstructions of the ancient stages of this language are based on comparisons with other Afro-Asiatic languages in various stages and on the comparisons between the varieties of modern Berber languages or with Touareg, considered by some authors like Prasse to be the variety that best preserved proto-Berber. Some authors have criticised the reconstructed Proto-Berber phonological systems as being too close to those of modern Berber varieties because the common elements derived from the comparisons project modern phonology onto the Proto-Berber stage. Some earlier attempts to derive the phonemic inventory of Proto-Berber