The Berbers History: Life & Who they are

In historical times, the Berbers expanded south into the Sahara (displacing earlier populations such as the Azer and Bafour), and have in turn been mainly culturally assimilated in much of North Africa by Arabs, particularly following the arrival of the Banu Hilal in the eleventh century. However much of Berber culture is still celebrated among the cultural elite in Morocco, and Algeria, a precedent set as early as Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century.

The areas of North Africa that have retained the Berber language and traditions best have been, in general, Morocco and the highlands of Algeria (Kabylie, Aurès et cetera), most of which in Roman and Ottoman times remained largely independent. The Ottomans did penetrate the Kabylie area; Turkish influence can be seen in food, clothes and music, and to places the Phoenicians never penetrated, far beyond the coast. These areas have been affected by some of the many invasions of North Africa, most recently that of the French