Amazigh New Year: Who are the Berbers who celebrate the advent of the year 2971?

Amazigh New Year: Who are the Berbers who celebrate the advent of the year 2971?

On January 12th (there are those who celebrate the 13th of the same month) the Amazigh New Year of the year 2971 is celebrated by the Amazighs, called the "Nair", and the Amazigh calendar is preceded by the Gregorian calendar (Gregorian) by 950 years.

The origin of the celebration

Historians are divided about the origin of the celebration of the Amazigh New Year into two groups. The first believes that choosing this date from January symbolizes the peasants ’celebrations of land and agriculture, which made it known as the" agricultural year. "

The second party believes that this January day is the anniversary of the victory of the Berber king "Shashnak" over the Egyptian pharaoh "Ramses II" in Egypt in the battle that took place on the banks of the Nile in the year 950 BC.

In Algeria, for example, revelers roam the residential neighborhoods on January 12th (New Year), wearing masks on their faces and singing songs accompanied by traditional dances in an annual traditional carnival called "Irad".

The celebrations also include giving lectures and various academic activities aimed at introducing the Amazigh civilization and its history, and also discussing issues related to the Berbers, their concerns, their culture and their place in their societies.

As for Moroccan Berbers, they celebrate it on January 13th and place reeds in the fields, optimistic of a good crop. Their demands to make this day an official holiday are still an unresolved issue by the relevant authorities in Morocco.

On this day, Eid celebrants wear new clothes, cook special dishes, and sometimes shave their heads.

The Berbers live in North Africa, and we can say that they are the original inhabitants of that region, as they date back to at least the era of the Roman Empire. They have remained there ever since, and are still preserving their language, identity and culture, which is different from Arabic.

The Berbers are spread in the geographical area extending from Morocco in the west to Egypt in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Niger River in the south. The religion of most of them is Islam, and their language is Tamazight, with multiple local dialects.

Moroccan Berbers are celebrating the arrival

The number of Berbers in North Africa is estimated between 20 to 50 million people, and most of them are concentrated in Morocco and Algeria. In addition to the expatriates residing in Europe, whose numbers range between 2 to 4 million.

The language spoken by the Berbers is called "Tamazight", and it has many Amazigh dialects that differ from each other significantly in terms of vocabulary and grammar pronunciation, and these dialects are not written except for those spoken by the Tuareg.

But the University of Tizi Ouzou in northern Algeria is trying to revive the written language using Latin and Arabic letters, in addition to the ancient Berber letters called "Tifinagh".

What are the regions and cities distributed by Berbers

The Berbers are spread in Morocco (the north of the country, the Rif region and the Atlas Mountains), Algeria (the Kabylie region, the east of the country and the northern Sahara desert), Tunisia (Djerba, Tataouine, and East Gafsa), and in Libya (Nafusa Mountain and Zuwara), and in Egypt (Siwa Oasis), and in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania whose borders the Tuareg tribes move across their borders.

They are also called "Berbers" and there are several theories related to this word, one of which says that the word is derived from the word barbaros, meaning strangers in Greek. The Berbers also call Morocco Tamazgha or Land of the Berbers.

Tamazight language belongs to the Afro-Asiatic family of languages ​​and has a link to the ancient Egyptian and Ethiopian languages.

The Berber origin is historically missing, as there are experts who say that they came from ancient Yemen and traveled to Africa by sea. Another opinion is that they may have come from Europe or the ancient Mediterranean regions.

The only certainty is that Berbers existed in the north of the African continent before any other people mentioned in the history books. For hundreds of years, the Berbers have resisted the complete Arabization of their language and culture.x