History of Amazigh People

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The term Berber comes from the Greek meaning 'barbarian'. The Romans also used the word to refer to their neighbours to the north, in Germania (roughly the area that is Germany today), as well as to Celts, Iberians, Gauls, Goths, and Thracians. Among the oldest written attestations of the word Berber is its use as an ethnonym in a document from the 1st century AD Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.

In ancient and medieval times, the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines all used words similar to "Berber" to refer to various tribes that inhabited “Greater Libya" (that is, what is now called North Africa), in areas where Berbers were later to be found. Although the following tribal names differ from the names used in those classical sources, they are nevertheless probably related to the modern Amazigh. The Meshwesh tribe was the first of these tribes to be identified by researchers. Scholars believe it is the same tribe that was called Mazyes by the ancient Greek writer Hektaios and Maxyes by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. In Latin sources, the tribe was called Mazaces and Mazax, and was related to the later Massylii and Masaesyli. Late antiquity Roman and Coptic language sources record that a tribe referred to as Mazices  conducted multiple raids against Egypt. All these names are similar to the names used by the Berbers to refer to themselves, and are perhaps foreign renditions of that name: Imazighen or i-Mazigh-en (singular: a-Mazigh).

Despite the evidence in these early manuscripts, certain modern scholars have argued that the term only emerged around 900 AD, in the writings of Arab genealogists. For example, Maurice Lenoir posited that the term first appeared in the 8th or 9th century. Ramzi Rouighi argues that the use of Berber to refer to the people of North Africa appeared only after the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. Latin and Greek sources describe Moors, Africans, and even barbarians, but never Berbers (al-Barbar).[37] The English term was introduced in the 19th century, replacing the earlier Barbary.