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16 - The Archaeological and Genetic Correlates of Amazigh Linguistics

from Part VI - Linguistic Aspects of Migration and Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2019

By
Elizabeth Fentress
Edited by
M. C. Gatto ,
D. J. Mattingly ,
N. Ray  and
M. Sterry
M. C. Gatto
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
D. J. Mattingly
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
N. Ray
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
M. Sterry
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

This chapter is written in response to that of Christopher Ehret in this volume, aiming to show how the linguistic ‘family tree’ he sketches for the Tamazight, or Berber, language family might relate to the history of Amazigh peoples. This is, of course, a tall order. Any more than an impressionistic correlation between historical linguistics and archaeological evidence is going to fall straight into a series of perfectly well-known pitfalls: that language change does not necessarily imply massive invasions has been constantly repeated, not least by Colin Renfrew, while the various processes by which new languages or their variants may be diffused have been thoroughly theorised, a subset of the diffusion versus acculturation debate.

Type
Chapter
Information
Burials, Migration and Identity in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond , pp. 495 - 524
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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