ABSTRACT
The first known inhabitants of North Africa were the Berbers. However, very little information exists about their origin except that their language is derived from Hamito-Semitic. The controversy about whether they immigrated from Europe or from the Arabian peninsula is still not settled. It is true that they do not constitute a racially homogeneous group. Their blending of European, African, and Middle-Eastern peoples makes it difficult for the Maghreb1
Berbers to claim a racial identity of their own. Anthropologists classify the Berbers into several distinct groupings: Mediterranean, Kurd-type, European, Nordic, and Negroid. This racial diversity, a logical consequence of migrations as well as a tumultuous history of conquest and occupation, has given rise to a situation in which language, and not race, is the Berbers’ major ethnic marker.
