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Concept
Tuareg people
Summary
The Tuareg people (ˈtwɑɹɛɡ; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym: Imuhaɣ/Imušaɣ/Imašeɣăn/Imajeɣăn) are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Traditionally nomadic pastoralists, small groups of Tuareg are also found in northern Nigeria.
The Tuareg speak languages of the same name (also known as Tamasheq), which belong to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family.
They are a semi-nomadic people who practice Islam, and are descended from the indigenous Berber communities of Northern Africa, which have been described as a mosaic of local Northern African (Taforalt), Middle Eastern, European (Early European Farmers), and Sub-Saharan African-related ancestries, prior to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. Tuareg people are credited with the spreading of Islam in North Africa and the adjacent Sahel region.
Tuareg society has traditionally featured clan membership, social status and caste hierarchies within each political confederation. The Tuareg have controlled several trans-Saharan trade routes and have been an important party to the conflicts in the Saharan region during the colonial and post-colonial era. Some researchers have tied the ethnogenesis of the Tuareg with the fall of the Garamantes who inhabited the Fezzan (Libya) from the 1st millennium BC to 5th century AD.
The origins and meanings of the name Tuareg have long been debated. It would appear that Twārəg is derived from the broken plural of Tārgi, a name whose former meaning was "inhabitant of Targa", the Tuareg name of the Libyan region commonly known as Fezzan. Targa in Berber means "(drainage) channel". Another theory is that Tuareg is derived from Tuwariq, the plural of the Arabic exonym Tariqi.
The term for a Tuareg man is Amajagh (variants: Amashegh, Amahagh), the term for a woman Tamajaq (variants: Tamasheq, Tamahaq, Timajaghen). Spellings of the appellation vary by Tuareg dialect.
Official source
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