Berber languages Berber languages The Berber languages, also known as Berber or the Amazigh languages (Berber name: , ; Neo-Tifinagh: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ, Tuareg Tifinagh: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵗⵜ, ⵝⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵗⵝ, , ), are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related dialects spoken by the Berbers, who are indigenous to North Africa. The languages were traditionally written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which now exists in the form of Tifinagh. Berber is spoken by large populations of Morocco, Algeria and Libya, by smaller populations of Tunisia, northern Mali, western and northern Niger, northern Burkina Faso and Mauritania and in the Siwa
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