Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland (Volume 3)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1836 Excerpt: ... 106 Art. V.--Remarks on the Language of the Amazirghs, commonly called Berebbers, by Jacob Graberg, of Hemsv, M.A., sometime Swedish and Norwegian Consul for Morocco and Tripoli, Knight of the Royal Sardinian Order of St. Mauritius aod St. Lazarus. T (-?-, - rt v-TT-r;--Lucian. The original inhabitants of Mount Atlas, and of nearly all the provinces of Maghrib-ul-Aksa, or the present empire of Marocco, arc usually divided into two tribes--namely, the Berebbers and the Shelluhhs, both descended from the ancient Mauritanians and Gffitulians; perhaps even from the Libyes of Sallust. These two tribes differ essentially from each other; and it is not without reason, that those travellers and geographers, to whom we are indebted for the best information with respect to Marocco, have asserted that the Shelluhhs are not Berebbers. The Moors, or Arabian inhabitants of the country, consider them as two nations of a different origin; as well on account of their manners and the diversity of their natural dispositions, as from the entirely distinct profile of the face, and from their dialects, which differ so much, that they cannot converse together without the aid of an interpreter. Mr. James Grey Jackson, in his Account of the Empire of Marocco, and of the District ofSus, confirms this assertion by a list of words of common use in both languages; and, most certainly, they prove nothing less than a common origin. But such differences, radical or accidental, may be met with in almost all the sister languages. It is, for instance, a curious fact, that the very leading Shelluhh words, which Mr. Jackson quotes as altogether differing from the Berebber, as woman, wife, boy, girl, Ac. differ just as much, if not more, in the Swedish, Danish, German, ...