Tamazgha

Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Protection padlock TamazghaTemplate:Efn is a fictitious entity<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and neologism in the Berber languages denoting the lands traditionally inhabited by the Berber peoples within the Maghreb.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The term was coined in the 1970s by the Berber Academy in France<ref name="Brahim El Guabli 2023">Template:Cite web</ref> and, since the late 1990s, has gained particular significance among speakers of Berber languages.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Although Berberists see Tamazgha as the geographic embodiment of an imaginary once-unified Berber language and culture that had its own territory,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> it has never been a single political entity,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Berbers across the Maghreb did not see themselves as a single cultural or linguistic unit, nor was there a greater "Berber community" due to their differing cultures and languages.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> Despite this, certain (but not all<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>) Berberists such as members of the Algerian separatist Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia use the term to imagine and describe a hypothetical federation spanning between the Canary Islands and the Siwa Oasis, a large swathe of territory including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Egypt, the Western Sahara, Burkina Faso and Senegal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Overview

Historically, Berbers did not see themselves as a single cultural or linguistic unit,<ref name=":0" /> and there was no singular endonym for the speakers of the languages descended from what is now called Proto-Libyan nor was there a term for their land. Instead, more specific terms for each subgroup were employed such as the Kabyle term Template:Lang or the Shawi term Template:Lang.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Berber peoples did not refer to themselves as Berbers/Amazigh but had their own terms to refer to their own groups and communities.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite book</ref>

The earliest known reference to the Berber people as one group comes in the form of Arabic Template:Lang (Template:Lang), as borrowed from Ancient Greek Template:Lang (Template:Lang, 'barbarian'). The Arabic word barbar was applied to the people whose language seemed very strange, hence the name "Berber".<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> Berbers started being referred to collectively as Berbers following the Arab Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th century. This word referred mostly to groups in northwest Africa.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> By the medieval period, Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun elevated the "Berbers" into a "race" or "nation", granting them equal status with the nations of the world.<ref name=":1" /> This was then solidified during French colonization when the Kabyle myth developed and 'Berbère' became a relatively common term of self-identification.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In an attempt to reclaim the identity from the history of colonization, the Agraw Imazighen (a Paris-based Kabyle activist association that dissolved in 1978 and was known as the Berber Academy before 1969) coined the term Template:Lang using the pre-existing triconsonantal root M-Z-Ɣ<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in the 1970s to refer to the lands where the different Berber languages were spoken.<ref name="Brahim El Guabli 2023"/>

The term has been translated into Spanish as Mazigia, abbreviated as MZG and used as an alternative international license plate code for some people.<ref>Canarian Nationalist Flags (Spain). (2006, May 27). In Flags of the World. https://web.archive.org/web/20100818221014/http://www.atlasgeo.net/fotw/flags/es}ic.html</ref>