Talk:Berbers

Omar AL Mukhtar

Omar AL Mukhtar belongs to an Arab tribe that has roots in Quaraish's. It's mentioned here also on wikipedia, so it seems to me a wikipedian conradiction. Being a North African that doesn't mean you're automatically Berber, and in such a place like Libya, tribe is a part of personal identity, so people usually know what origin you are from only from the tribe/family name. More precise documentation please!!!

Coins as pictures?

Can User:Rarevogel/84.83.145.241 (talk · contribs) explain why he wants to use pictures of coins, as opposed to pictures of actual people, in the infobox? Jayjg ^(talk) 00:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, can you explain why you are using these odd, unclear files:

• 
  A coin of Masinissa that is so dark and primitively rendered that almost nothing can be made of his features except that he may have a beard
• 
  A primitive black-and-white profile drawing of Apuleius
• An image of Tariq ibn Ziyad, in which the face is tiny, crudely drawn, and possibly damaged
  An image of Tariq ibn Ziyad, in which the face is tiny, crudely drawn, and possibly damaged
• 
  A statue of Kahina whose head is so tiny compared to the rest of the image that no features can be discerned

Each image has serious issues, and is inappropriate for an infobox, which should try to restrict itself to clear photographs of well-rendered heads, or at least upper-torsos. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Clearly not appropriate for infobox. Plot Spoiler (talk) 23:36, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Rarevogel, there's no objection to including these in the body of the article, but they clearly don't belong in the infobox, which is mostly for clear faces or upper torsos. Could you please express yourself here on the Talk: page? Thanks. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:13, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Rarevogel, could you please express your views on the images here, rather than simply reverting. In addition to the objections raised earlier, most of the images you are adding to the infobox are already in the article in other, more logical places where the subjects are discussed. Please don't duplicate them. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I have reverted yet another attempt to add a poor quality image to the infobox, as it contains one image completely rejected above and others that are completely distorted. There is no consensus for the use of this image. 15:36, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Infobox pictures again

Omar-Toons (talk · contribs) has removed a couple of pictures from the infobox, on the grounds that they are not that well known. I am fine with removing one of them, as he's just a young soccer-player and not that famous. But the other is Massinissa Guermah - his arrest and killing triggered the Black Spring (Kabylie), which resulted in over 100 deaths and over 5,000 casualties, not to mention arrests, tortures, etc. On what grounds could one claim that this person is "not-so-famous"? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:55, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Omar-Toons, I'm going to assume, based on your lack of response here, that you now agree with my reasoning, and that there's consensus to restore these images. Please let me know if you disagree. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:27, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

O.K., since you haven't objected, I've restored the picture of Massinissa Guermah, replacing the picture of Driss Jettou, as another editor claimed that Jettou wasn't actually Berber. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:56, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Amazigh2011, 15 January 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} Please change "almost universally" to "by the vast majority of"

Source: Personal research and 26 years experience. I am a professor of North African History, Politics and Culture, and I teach segments of my courses Berber populations, history, politics, and cultural production. I have met with Berber-speakers in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, and Senegal, and have met native Berber speakers from the remaining countries, and who live all over North America and Europe (in at least 10 countries there I have visited), and while it is true that the vast majority of Berber-speakers speak Arabic for religous, cultural and historic reasons, many don't, particularly older people and children, but also some adults and teenagers in isolate areas. I have even translated for non-Arabic speakers in various situations through my career. "almost universally" is not far from the truth, but is clearly an overstatement and more the case in certain countries (like Libya and parts of Morocco), than other places (like in more remote parts of Morocco, Algeria or France where a berber might speak french more than Arabic, and more importantly among segments of the populations more removed from the state, the education systems, and from contact with Arabic speakers. Many times in many places I have sat in rooms full of people who did speak Arabic, and I have interviewed many thousands of Berber speakers over the years in a variety of languages.)

Please delete "along with Darija." Darija is an undisputed dialect of Arabic.

Source: Wikipedia itself, clicking on the link to Darija. While I am big fan of darija and certified translator of it, and know its variation from MSA and other Arabid dialects, it is a dialect of Arabic as much as Iraqi, or the Shemi dialects or Hassaniya, or anything else.

Please change "Today most Berber-speaking people live in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Mali and Niger.[1][2]" to "Today non-immigrant Berber-speaking people live in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso."

Source: This page further down the page, and may other wikipedia pages on Berbers. Your sentence is misleading, because, for example, there are roughly as many (or more) Berber speakers in Tunisia as Libya, and only a few less in Egypt. Why put in Libya, and not Tunisia, or Egypt? There are native speakers in northwestern Mauritania and some eastern parts, the latter from the same groups that circulate in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Why list some Twareg concentrations, and not others. (Touareg activity in othes Sahelian and sub-Saharan countries is ignficant.) The only thing I am not 100% sure about is whether there are indigenous Berbers in the Canary islands. I suspect that the native language of the Canary islands is a Berber or part-Berber dialiect. If true, then those Spanish citizens from the Canary islands that speak that language speak Berber, and should be listed as the 10th country in this list.

Please add to the "Regions with Significant populations" on the page on the right hand side, which includes Mauritania, Tunisia and Egypt already (supporting the information above, "Burkina Faso."

Source: Wikipedia --this page further down the page under modern day berbers--and other online information about where nomadic, semi-nomadic, and other Touaregs live. And discussions with Berber speakers from each of these countries over a 26-year career.

Please change "The modern English term, Berber, is probably borrowed from Italian or Arabic," to "The modern English term, Berber, is borrowed from Italian and Arabic, and derived from the Latin term used by the Romans for "barbarian",....

Source: The wikipedia "Berber" etymology link. It is undisputed that the Romans called the Berbers "barbar"--barbarian, but what is unknown, is whether this comes from any of a variety historical moments, including when the Vandals had occupied eastern Algeria and western Tunisia and were fighting (presumably with Berber speakers) against the Romans, or from many other various theories on where the deeper etymology lies. Its all covered on your Wikipedia etymology page.

Please add at the end of the first paragraph, "Whether or not they speak Berber, most people in North Africa have patrilineal and matrileanal Berber ancestry."

Source: Undisputed and referenced on this page under "Modern Day Berbrs." The numbers of Arabs and Turks and other groups that settled in North Africa were never signficant. Virtually all North Africans west of the Nile Valley have Berber heritage (ancestors, culturally), but this is poorly understood in the west (for historical and political reasons) and even poorly understood by most people; but all academics and educated North Afrians know and acknowledge this. Part of the confusion comes from patrileanal descendenc (if my grandfather 10 generations back was a Turk (and all my other ancesters aren't but are North African--99%), I'm a Turk, and not an Arab or a Berber). Descendence from the Prophet Mohamed is also determined in this patrilineal sense.

Please change: "Berbers represent the major ethnic origin in North Africa, although up to perhaps a certain extent interbred with other elements (Arab, Subsaharian, Iberian , Punic...), but only about half of the Moroccan population and a third of the Algerian can be identified nowadays as Berber" to "Berbers represent the major ethnic origin in North Africa, although almost entirely interbred with other signficantly less represented elments (Arab, subsaharan, Turk, Iberian, Punic...), but only about a third of the Moroccan population and a quarter of the Algerian can be identified nowadays as Berber"

Source: Many wikipedia pages linked here and common knowledge. No expert anywhere can claim half of Morocco and a third of Algeria speak Berber--anyone who has travelled in these countries knows it since the majority urban and rural clearly do not speak Berber even when their parents or a parent, or their grandparents do or did. But optimistic estimates put this at a third and a quarter respectively, and with education in Berber for the new generation, this may recover.

Please replace "and the Shilha or Chleuh (French, from Arabic Shalh and Shilha ašəlḥi) of south Morocco" with "and the Shleuh or Chleuh (Arabic and French, from Tamazight ašəlḥi) of central and southern Morocco"

Source: Decades of travel throughout these regions and various Wikipedia pages. "Shleuh" in Arabic (and french derived to Chleuh) is used for the south and parts of central Morocco. "Shilha" in Arabic refers to the language, or less commonly to a Berber speaking woman. ašəlḥi is the term in Tamazight (or Berber).

Please "Shilha" to "Shleuh" under Ethnic groups as well for same reasons.

The genetic information in this article also supports what I said above.

I'll stop there. I also have some problems with some of the photographs and how the genetic section is written with a eurocentric slant, but I do not have the data in front of me right now to offer you alternative language. There are also various mispellings and alternate spellings for things on this page which could improve and enrichen it.

That said, it is an excellent page. Most of what I am doing here is making the page slightly more accurate and more importantly better written and consistent with itself. Amazigh2011 (talk) 17:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC) Sources referenced above.

 Not done: Sorry, but the sources you mention do not meet Wikipedia's policy of Verifiability. You cannot use your own personal experience as a reference for an article (see "No original research"), and you also cannot use Wikipedia itself as a reference (see "WP:CIRCULAR"). Please take a minute to look through the links I left on your talk page to familiarize yourself with Wikipedia policies and practices. --Darkwind (talk) 20:20, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Named Berbers may be BLP offenses

At the risk of opening up something I cannot finish, what is the basis for claiming, for example (and in the lede) that Zinedine Zidane (born in France of Algerian parents), and Ibrahim Afellay (born in Holland of Moroccan descent) are Berbers? There is no cite, and there is nothing in either article to back this claim. Unless there is evidence that these men self-identify as Berber, I suggest that the names and photos be removed. Bielle (talk) 03:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The vast majority of photographs in this article should be removed, but it has been remarkably hard to do so in the past. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

If there are the usual verifiable, reliable sources for calling these people "Berbers" then, of course, the names and photos should stay. I did a quick check, but could find nothing. If we can find a source, well and good. If not, then they should go. I'll start with a cite request for the names in the lede. What is the basis, I wonder, on including them in the first place? Bielle (talk) 04:28, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I only just noticed that the article is protected. What ought we to do next? Bielle (talk) 04:34, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

File:Berbers2788.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Berbers2788.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Copyright violations What should I do?

Speedy deletions at commons tend to take longer than they do on Wikipedia, so there is no rush to respond. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise consider finding a replacement image before deletion occurs. A further notification will be placed when/if the image is deleted. This notification is provided by a Bot, currently under trial --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 16:45, 19 May 2011 (UTC)