Maghreb Maghreb The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in northwest Africa extending about 2400 km (1500 miles) through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and including The Rock of Gibraltar. The highest peak is Jbel Toubkal, with an elevation of 4167 m (13,665 feet) located at in southwestern Morocco. The Atlas ranges separate the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara Desert. The population of the Atlas mountains are mainly Berber in Morocco and Arab in Algeria. ...more on Wikipedia about "Atlas Mountains"
The Barbary Macaque (Macaca sylvanus) is a tail-less macaque. Found in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria and Morocco with a small, possibly introduced, population in Gibraltar, Barbary Macaques are among the best-known monkeys. Besides humans, they are the only primates that live freely in Europe. Although the species is commonly referred to as the "Barbary Ape", Barbary Macaques are true monkeys, not apes. ...more on Wikipedia about "Barbary Macaque"
The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. A very sparse population extends into the whole Sahara and the northern part of the Sahel. They belong to the Afro-Asiatic languages phylum. There is a strong movement among Berbers to unify the closely related northern Berber languages into a single standard, Tamazight. ...more on Wikipedia about "Berber languages"
The Berbers (also called Imazighen, "free men", singular Amazigh) are an ethnic group indigenous to Northwest Africa, speaking the Berber languages of the Afroasiatic family. There are between 14 and 25 million speakers of Berber languages in North Africa (see population estimation), principally concentrated in Morocco and Algeria but with smaller communities as far east as Egypt and as far south as Burkina Faso. ...more on Wikipedia about "Berber people"
The Casbah (French) or more correctly Qasbah (from Arabic qasbah, قصبة, 'citadel') is specifically the citadel of Algiers and the traditional quarter clustered round it. More generally, kasbah denotes the walled citadel of many North African cities and towns. The word made its way into English from French in the late 19th century (the O.E.D. says 1895), hence its conventional English spelling. ...more on Wikipedia about "Casbah"
Ceuta is a Spanish exclave in North Africa, located on a northern tip of the Maghreb, on the Mediterranean coast near the Strait of Gibraltar. It is known in Arabic as سبتة (Sabtah in Standard Arabic, Sebta in Morocco). Its area is approximately 28 km². ...more on Wikipedia about "Ceuta"
Couscous (from Maghreb Arabic kuskusu, which is from Tamazight seksu) is a food which consists of grains made from semolina which are about 1 mm or 1/16th inch in diameter (after cooking). ...more on Wikipedia about "Couscous"
Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya. ...more on Wikipedia about "Cyrenaica"
The kasbah is a unique kind of medina, or Islamic city. ...more on Wikipedia about "Kasbah"
Kel Ahaggar (trans: "People of Ahaggar") is a Tuareg confederation in the Ahaggar Mountains in Algeria. The confederation is believed to have been founded by Tin Hinan, with the "official" founding being arround 1750. It has been largely defunct since 1977, when it was terminated by the Algerian government. ...more on Wikipedia about "Kel Ahaggar"
Kel Ajjer (also Kel Azjar, Kel Azjer) is a Tuareg confederation in western Libya and eastern Algeria. Their main stronghold was Ghat, with Ubari coming second. They speak the language Tamahaq. ...more on Wikipedia about "Kel Ajjer"
A ksar is a village consisting of generally attached houses, often having collective granaries and other structures ( mosque, bath, oven, shops) widespread among the oasis populations of the Maghreb (northern Africa.) Ksars are sometimes situated in mountain locations to make defense easier; they often are entirely within a single, continuous wall. The building material of the entire structure is normally adobe, or cut stone and adobe. The idea of the ksar as a granary is a confused notion of two things, the granary itself, found within a ksar, and the ksar, which is a village, normally, with granaries within it. "Ksar" is the normal form in which the Arabic word (more correctly transliterated as "qsar," singular, and qsur, plural) is found. Berber (amazigh) equivalent is aghrem or ighrem. Ksar is generally translated as "Castle" in English, although the simplest rendering might be "fortified village," with the word sometimes taking on the meaning of "fort" depending on its specific function. Particularly prevalent as a place name across the map of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia -- the Maghreb; and particularly prevalent in the Saharan side of the various ranges of the Atlas Mountains. ...more on Wikipedia about "Ksar"
Following Egypt's first negotiations with Israel in 1973, Libya became hostile to Egypt. In 1977, not long after demonstrators in the two countries attacked each other's consulates, the two countries fought a four-day war ( July 21- July 24) during which several Libyan aircraft were destroyed on the ground. The war ended with no change to the status quo ante. ...more on Wikipedia about "List of conflicts in the Maghreb"
The Maghreb (المغرب العربي ; sometimes also rendered Moghreb), meaning "western" in Arabic, is the region of the continent of Africa north of the Sahara desert and west of the Nile — specifically, the modern countries of Morocco, Western Sahara ( annexed and occupied by Morocco), Algeria, Tunisia, Libya — and to a much lesser extent Mauritania. ...more on Wikipedia about "Maghreb" Connect with shortopedia.
Maghreb Arabic is a cover term for the dialects of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. Speakers of Maghreb Arabic call their language Derija or Darija, which means "dialect." It is primarily used as a spoken language; written communication is primarily done in in Modern Standard Arabic, along with news broadcasting. Derija is used for almost all spoken communication, as well as in TV dramas and on advertising boards in Morocco and Tunisia. Derija is characterized by many borrowings from the languages of the colonizers of North Africa, including France and Spain, as well as independent developments, some of which are most probably due to a Berber substratum. Maghrebi dialects all use n- as the first person singular prefix on verbs, distinguishing them from Middle Eastern dialects and Standard Arabic. They frequently combine French and Spanish roots with Arabic endings to form words; since it is not written, there is no standard and it is free to change quickly and to rapidly pick up new vocabulary from neighboring languages. This is similar to what happened in England when the Normans invaded: Middle English was free to evolve since it did not have a written standard, and it was not the language of the aristocracy but rather of the people. ...more on Wikipedia about "Maghreb Arabic"
The place names of the Maghreb come from a variety of origins, mostly Arabic and Berber, but including a few derived from Phoenician, Latin, and several other languages. This is well illustrated by the three largest cities of Algeria, for instance: Algiers from Arabic al-jazâ'ir "the islands", Oran from Wahran from Berber wa-iharan "place of lions", and Constantine (Arabic Qasantina قسنطينة) from the Latin name of the emperor Constantine. For a Phoenician name, one has to look a little harder, but take, for instance, Jijel, shortened from Latin Igilgili, from Phoenician i gilgilt, "Island of the Skull" (according to Lipinski.) ...more on Wikipedia about "Maghreb toponymy"
The Maghrebim are the Jews who traditionally lived in the Arab-Berber Maghreb region of North Africa (al-Maghrib, i.e. the west, in Arabic), established Jewish communities long before the arrival of Jews expelled from Spain (see Alhambra decree), mainly in the Sherifian kingdom of Morocco . ...more on Wikipedia about "Maghrebim"
A marabout is a personal spiritual leader in the Islam faith as practiced in West Africa, and still to a limited extent in the Maghreb. The marabout is often a scholar of the Qur'an, and many make amulets for good luck, preside at various ceremonies, and in some cases actively guide the life of the follower. ...more on Wikipedia about "Marabout"
A medina quarter is a distinct city section found in many North African cities. The medina is typically walled, contains many narrow and maze-like streets, and was built by Arabs as far back as the 9th century CE. ...more on Wikipedia about "Medina quarter"
(Rulers of Kel Ahaggar) Amenokal = Ruler ...more on Wikipedia about "Rulers of Kel Ahaggar"
Sidi is a title of respect in Western Arabic language ( sayyid in other dialects) equivalent to Mr.. ...more on Wikipedia about "Sidi"
Tamazgha is a recent Tamazight neologism for the area more often known as the Maghreb or North Africa, covering the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Niger River, from the west bank of the Nile river to the Atlantic Ocean. The main inhabited areas are northern Libya, Tunisia and the Atlas Mountains chain from Algeria to Western Sahara. It corresponds roughly to Herodotus' Libya, and to the medieval European term Barbary. ...more on Wikipedia about "Tamazgha"
Tuareg or Tamasheq/Tamajaq/Tamahaq is a Berber language or family of closely related languages spoken by the Tuareg, in parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso (with a few speakers, the Kinnin, even in Chad ** .) They are quite mutually comprehensible, and are commonly regarded as a single language (as for instance by Karl Prasse); they are distinguished mainly by a few sound shifts (notably affecting the pronunciation of original z and h.) They are unusually conservative in some respects; they retain two short vowels where northern Berber languages have one or none, and have a much lower proportion of Arabic loanwords than most Berber languages. They are traditionally written in the indigenous Tifinagh alphabet; however, the Arabic alphabet is commonly used in some areas (and has been since medieval times), while the Latin alphabet is official in Mali and Niger. ...more on Wikipedia about "Tuareg languages"
Zaouia (Arabic زاوية "corner"), also spelled zawiya or zawiyah, is a Maghrebi and West African term for an Islamic religious school cum monastery, roughly corresponding to the Eastern term " madrassa". In precolonial times, these were the primary sources for education in the area, and taught basic literacy to a large proportion of children even in quite remote mountainous areas - leading to a 40% literacy rate in Algeria in 1830, for instance, which was actually higher than after the French left. Their curriculum began with memorization of the Arabic alphabet and the later, shorter suras of the Qur'an; if a student was sufficiently interested or apt, it progressed to law ( fiqh), theology, Arabic grammar (usually taught with al-Ajurrumi's famous summary), mathematics (mainly as it pertained to inheritance law), and sometimes astronomy. These are still operational throughout the Maghreb, and continue to be a major educational resource in the Sahel of West Africa, from Mauritania to Nigeria. ...more on Wikipedia about "Zaouia"
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