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<harrow@pilot.msu.edu>
It has been a convention in maghrebian studies for a long
time to use the term berber without any implication that
Berbers were barbarians. The origins of a word can become
irrelevant, and may be evoked only to serve a newly
nationalist sentiment.
I checked on Amrouche's first title: it was _Chants berbers
du Kabyle_. The problem with the Kabylian term, like
Amazigh, is that it doesn't define all Berbers, and
therefore has a different meaning. It is applied to folks
from the desert, like Tuaregs (who have another name for
themselves), from Chleuh, and many other places.
I am not arguing for the use of the term, and I do agree
that people should be referred to in ways they find to be
respectful. The etymology of the word will not provide that
in any meaningful way.
A propos, the Webster's unabridged cites Arabic as the
origin for the word, not Latin. The OED has more
interesting info: Berber is derived from Barbary, about
which the following is said: From OF, from Latin, from
Arabic, applied by Arab geographers from ancient times to
the natives of N Africa, west and south of Egypt. According
to some native lexicographers of native origin from Arabic
"barbara" meaning to talk noisily and confusedly (which is
not derived from Greek barbarous); according to others, a
foreign word, African, Egyptian or perhaps Greek. The
actual relations (if any) of the Arabic and Greek words
cannot be settled; but in European languages Barbaria,
barbaric, Barbary have from the first been treated as
identical with L. barbaria, Byzantine Greek, land of
barbarians. Interestingly there is no connotation of
barbarian in the English definition of Berber. A comparable
term in French that I always found fascinating is
charabia.... It is a term one finds in francophone African
literature often in referring to what French people hear
when Africans speak French, whereas the language of the
toubabs is described as the noise of birds. As for me
(whiteman with a long nose), I'm not sure whether I'd rather
be called a Tuareg, toubab or Tamachek. . . What I find
objectionable is the reading in of insult when none was
implied, for nationalistic reasons. That said, one must
recognize that this whole issue is probably derived from the
prejudices against Berbers that have persisted in various
parts of the Maghreb. KenHarrow
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