Yennayer: Happy Amazigh New Year, 2015/2965! Aseggas Amagaaz!

I've said before that despite the disappointments of "Arab Spring," the enthusiasm of "Amazigh Spring" has not dissipated. The Amazigh or "Berber" peoples of North Africa have been enjoying a cultural recrudescence. Though the large Amazigh populations in Morocco and Algeria were always politically active, the Amazigh peoples of Libya were long repressed, with Qadhafi denying their very existence and their language banned. They, and he small Amazigh population of Tunisia, have gone through a conscienceless-raising of sorts. One indication of this has been more widespread celebration of the traditional Amazigh New Year, known as Yennayer (January), on January 14. (Or, among many Algerian Imazighen, on January 12.)

January 14 is simply the date January 1 in the Julian calendar, now running 13 days behind the Gregorian, and it is the traditional New Year for North African agriculturalists, Arab as well as Amazigh. Since the Islamic calendar is purely lunar, it is of little relevance for planting or harvest as it moves around the solar calendar from year to year. Just as in Egypt the fellahin, Muslim or Copic, use the Coptic months as their agricultural calendar,o do North Africans use the old Roman months (Yennayer=Januarius) for planting. (The Coptic calendar is also Julian, but their New Year is in September.) Amazigh in particular have embraced Yennayer as a particularly Amazigh holiday.

Since the Amazigh Spring began I've posted several background pieces on the New Year. My 2012 posting went into the background in some detail. That post also addressed the modern creation of an Amazigh "era," the source of that 2965 date above. While the Julian agricultural calendar is real and ancient, that 2965 date is what the late historian Eric Hobsbawm called "the invention of tradition," a modern creation pretending to antiquity. The Academie Berbere in Paris in the 1960s introduced a "Berber" era based on the accession to the throne of Egypt of the Pharaoh Shoshenq I (also Sheshonq) in 950 BC (roughly). Shoshenq came from Libya, so they identified him as Berber (still the most common usage at the time. (The modern Kurdish calendar era, which dates from the rise of the Medes in about 612 BC, is a parallel case.)

My 2013 (or 2963 if you prefer) New year's post dealt mainly with the big blowout concert held at a stadium in Tripoli (which will clearly not be repeated this year, but was equally unthinkable under Qadhafi.

And last year I dealt with the discrepancy between those Algerian Imazighen who observe the New Year on January 12 while everyone else marks it on January 14.

I would urge the curious to read these previous posts.

The Tamazight New Year's Greeting is spelled many different ways in English (Assegas Amagaaz, Asegas Amegaz), or as below, which also shows it in the Tifinagh script. (The link is to my 2011 post on Tifinagh. And remember "Berber" is not a single dialect/language, and Tifinagh is usually back-spelled from French, Arabic, or English transcriptions.)

Ramadan Greetings in Tamazight, in Tifinagh Script

Having posted a Ramadan greeting with a graphic in Arabic yesterday, and given our frequent postings over the past year and a half about the revival of Amazigh ("Berber") consciousness and the Tamazight languages throughout North Africa, it seems appropriate to send you off for this first weekend in Ramadan with greetings in Tamazight, written in the ancient Tifinagh script, via Libyan Amazigh: Ramadan Ameggaz.

The Guardian on Libyan Imazighen

In yet another report on the emerging consciousness of the Amazigh (pl. Imazighen, also "Berber") people in Libya since the fall of Qadhafi, The Guardian has this report.. [Note: Link wasn't working; should be fixed now.]

One quibble: before the fall of Qadhafi, "anyone who spoke Tifinagh in public could be arrested." The author means Tamazight, Tifinagh is the ancient script, still used by the Tuareg and revived anong North African Imazighen. Speaking a script is indeed a challenge (do you speak any Cyrilllic, or how about Kufic?)  Otherwise, a useful article.

Happy New Year 2962 to Any Amazigh Readers!

We talk a lot about "Arab Spring" or the "Arab Awakening," but not all those who have awakened are Arab. In both Libya and Tunisia, Amazigh (so-called "Berber")  populations have made their feelings known, and have won support from their brethren in Morocco and Algeria, where they constitute a larger proportion of the population. Especially in Libya, where Qadhafi forced the Amazigh to take Arab names and famously claimed the Tamazight languages are just "dialects of Arabic," the Amazigh heartland in the Jebel Nefusa became a major center of resistance. A glance back at my earlier posts on Berbers, Imazighen, and the Tamazight languages tags, will trace many of the events of the past year, with links to Amazigh videos, websites, etc.

Amazigh Flag

Many Amazigh nationalists or those seeking to reclaim a distinct identity in their own nations have taken to marking the "Amazigh New Year." Because the Islamic calendar is purely lunar and dates move around the year, agricultural societies need a solar calendar as well, to determine times to plant and harvest; in the Levant the old Semitic month names are used; in Egypt, the names of the Coptic months, and in North Africa, the names are derived from the Roman names, and the older Julian calendar is still used. Tomorrow is the first of January (Yennayer) in the Amazigh and North African agricultural calendars.

Shoshenq I (Wikipedia)

As for the era, with tomorrow as the first day of 2962, this stems from what historian Eric Hobsbawm called the invention of tradition,, a modern innovation which purports to be, and ultimately comes to be  seen as, ancient. In the 1960s, the Academie Berbere in Paris introduced a "Berber era" dating from 950 BC, the approximate date when the Pharaoh Shoshenq I (or Sheshonq I) ascended the throne of Egypt. Shoshenq was of Libyan origin, so they identified him as the first identifiable Berber in history. (They also promoted the use of Tifinagh script, which has gained some traction with Berber activists.) While not an actual historical era in the usual sense, it's a symbol of awakening Amazigh idenity.

The Amazigh are major contributors to the history and culture of North Africa, though the Arab nationalist regimes that have been in charge have underplayed their role. Algerian blogger Lameen Souag has a recent post about his hometown of Dellys, and his first anecdote (but read the whole post) depends on a bilingual pun: whereas aman means "safety" in Arabic it means "water" in Berber, and the local custom was to sprinkle water on newlyweds. But it only works if one knows both languages. North Africa is inextricably a product of Arab and Amazigh both, and to any Imazighen who may be reading this, a happy 2962 or whatever date you want.

Time for the Periodic Obscure Linguistics Post

It seems like over the last couple of months we've spent so much time talking about Egyptian elections, Tunisian governments, Naguib Mahfouz' centenary, Bashar with Barbara Walters, banning bikinis (and in counterpoint, the "nude Egyptian blogger" affair and its aftermath and imitators), that I've really neglected to post very much on extremely obscure linguistic points about Middle Eastern languages you've never heard of, for which I apologize. I realize of course that profound historical change, literary genius, and revolution, all interest some of my readers, but for the frustrated pedants among you, relax: I've got links on two languages from two completely distinct language families on different continents: Libyco-Berber (Afro-Asiatic) and Hazaragi (Indo-European). Happy now?

Though these links (which are other people's work of course, not mine) do not quite reach the sublime obscurity of my post on (possible) Punic and Berber influences on Etruscan last June, those of you who need a respite from the contemporary may find them useful.

For Libyco-Berber, the linguist/blogger Lameen Souag, he of the Jabal al-Lughat blog, has posted two pieces on Libyco-Berber at the MNAMON website, one on the writing system, and the other on the language itself. It's obvious not much is known of the latter.(If the second and third links act up, as they're doing for me, you can access them via Jabal al-Lughat.)

Hazaragi lies at the other end of our region, where it is spoken by the Hazaras of Afghanistan. Closely related to Persian, Dari, and Tajik, though it has other influences, including Turkic and Mongolian loanwords, in keeping with the tradition that the Hazara are of Mongol origin. (They're also Shi‘ites in heavily Sunni Afghanistan. This post discusses both their language and their history.

An Aside on Tifinagh

Yesterday was unusual given the current high level of politics and revolution in that two of the posts — one on Morocco and one on Libya — touched on Tamazight ("Berber") language issues. In the second of these I reproduced the flag used by some Tamazight-speakers as an international flag of the Amazigh (pl., Imazighen) people, and noted simply that "The character is in the ancient Tifinagh script." (It's actually the letter "Z" in Tifinagh.)

Now it says here (actually it says it up there under the masthead) that I'm supposedly "Putting Middle Eastern events in cultural and historical context." I'm reasonably well aware that for many of my readers who aren't specialists in things North African, "the ancient Tifinagh script" may not mean very much. (As a test case I asked my wife, who has an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and she was unfamiliar with the term.) So let's take a brief break from ongoing revolutions and talk Tifinagh for a bit.

Now I've never studied any of the "Berber" languages (these days a somewhat politically incorrect term, since it comes from the same Greek root as "barbarian"), and therefore everything I say here is derivative of other people's expertise. The Wikipedia article isn't bad as an introduction.

Tifinagh (ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ in Tifinagh: don't blame me if the font doesn't display properly on your browser) is the name used in modern North African languages to refer to an ancient script known to classical historians as "Libyco-Berber" script. It is an alphabetic writing system seemingly ultimately derived from Phoenician, and presumably adapted by Berber-speaking peoples from the script of their Carthaginian neighbors. In fact, and this is one of the most intriguing things about it, "Tifinagh" is apparently formed from the Berber feminine prefix with the root "Punic," from the Latin word for Carthaginians, itself of course derived from the Greek name for the Phoenicians. (But it must have come through the Latin: the Carthaginians, like the Phoenicians and the early Hebrews as well, all referred to their own language as kan‘ani, "Canaanite.") So the name may mean "Punic characters" or "Phoenician characters," though the derivations are not always obvious. As with the Greek and Roman alphabets, both derived ultimately from the Phoenician, the shapes have changed noticeably. (There are other theories of origin; there's rarely unanimity on these kinds of issues.)

The original "proto-Tifinagh" or Libyco-Berber script was used in North Africa from roughly the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD. Variants were used as far afield as the Canary islands, where ancient inscriptions have been found and the indigenous language of the pre-colonial people known as Guanches shows affinities to Berber.

A form of Tifinagh survived the ancient world and the disappearance of other writing systems such as Punic. The Tuaregs of the Sahara, who speak a Berber language, retained a form of Tifinagh as their own writing system.

In recent decades, "Neo-Tifinagh" was adapted for the writing of other Tamazight languages besides Tuareg. Most publications in Tamazight, however, appear in Latin script, or sometimes in Arabic. In 2003, however, Morocco began to favor Neo-Tifinagh over either Latin or Arabic character, and the number of publications are increasing. In Algeria, I understand Latin script is most common in the Kabyle areas, Arabic among the Shawi (Chaoui), and Tifinagh in the deep Sahara. Many Imazighen see it as a "native" script (even if Punic was an import from the east a long time ago), an alternative to either copying the colonial powers by using Latin script, or adaptimg to the Arabic-speakers who have long suppressed Tamazight by using Arabic script for Tamazight.

For the truly interested, here's a French introduction to the pan-Berber alphabet in both Tifinagh and Latin from YouTube via a website devoted to the Shawi language (spoken in eastern Algeria), that via a website devoted to all things Shawi, and ultimately via Lameen Souag: