Berber, emic vs. etic
My mental image of Berbers is one of brave, noble people of the Maghreb (western and central North Africa, comprising Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia) who were there before the advent of the Arabs, whose migration into the region took place largely in the 7th and later centuries. As happened in Southeast Asia (including Taiwan) with the Han people from the north pushing the indigenes into the mountainous areas from the lowlands to become montagnards, the Berbers also substantially retreated into the mountains of northern Africa.
When my Uber driver told me last Sunday in Philadelphia that he was a Berber, I told him that he must be proud of his heritage, he responded, "Actually, we don't like that name. It was imposed on us by Arabs, and it means the same thing as 'barbarian'. We prefer to call ourselves 'Amazigh'."
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