Quote:
Originally Posted by mansamusa
The quote I gave referencing the etymology of the word Moor implies clearly that the part of Africa referred to as Mauritania were inhabited by blacks. The inhabitants of that regiuon were so black that they and their country was named after their complexion. I don't see how reminding us that modern day Mauritania is not the same as ancient Mauretania changes that. The idea that blacks never inhabited Morocco and Algeria is quite something. Here is the quote again:
I would rather take the word of an academic source over yours. Even google translate translates the word Μαύρος into black. So You seem to be either misinformed or just plain full of it.
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Well, this is Roman Mauretania:
As you can see it encompasses modern Morocco and a large swath of current northern Algeria, right?
Now, "moor" is the English equivalent of the term "moro" present in all Romance languages (in Italian it is "moro").
The term is related to "Maurus" which means an inhabitant of "MAURetania", from this word it came out "Morus" which the
medieval latin corruption of "maurus".
There's no Ancient Greek equivalent, "mauros" is a
modern Greek term for Black, otherwise every single Ancient Greek dictionary will tell you this.
Isidore of Seville included the term "mauron" as if Latin "maurus" derives from that, but it's not.
Isidore was writing in the 7th century, the Greek to which he referred was far different from Ancient Greek.
Now, while we can agree that indeed there Black berbers, people inhabiting the region of Mauretania (the one above-linked) are largely and predominantly light-skinned, call them olive-skinned, swarthy, as you prefer.
In fact, "moor" in Romance language nowadays does NOT mean "Black", it means a darker complexion similar to that a tanned person or, at least in Italian, even someone with Black hair.
Nobody would use "moor" (in Italian "moro") to describe a Black (which technically means nothing, but here we mean a person with predominantly sub-saharan traits).
Now, to suggest that inhabitants of Roman Mauretania (alias, modern Morocco and North-western Algeria) were largely and predominantly Black (that means with sub-saharan traits) and that, "magically" they vanished is quite ludicrous isn't it?
If inhabitants of Roman Mauretania were all Black, how it comes that nowadays the population of both the region and Spain (an area settled by them for 700 years) is nowhere Black?
I mean, were they all killed and "white-washed" by evil whites?
I don't think so.
The point is
not whether Black berbers exist, they do (and I expressed myself badly previously), the point is that they never were the majority of such ethnic group.
Quote:
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Moor cannot mean an Islamic Berber since the word was used before the birth of Islam. And several centuries after the birth of Islam, the word Moor was used to describe non-Islamic blacks. There is a Berber festival held in Douz, Tunisia every year called the Festival of the Sahara. At least 60% of the people based on the pics seem to be black. The idea that Black Berbers donot exist is more delusional than anything else.
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Berbers aren't defined by their Islamic faith, Berbers are some of the oldest inhabitants of Northern Africa, I'll quote Wiki to sum up my point:
Quote:
Mauri (from which the English term "Moors") was the Latin designation for the population of Mauretania, the part of Africa west of Numidia, corresponding roughly to the territory of modern Morocco. Mauri (Μαῦροι) is recorded by Strabo, who wrote in the early 1st century, as the native name, which was also adopted into Latin, while he cites the Greek name for the same people as Maurusii (Μαυρούσιοι).
[...] By the early Christian era, the byname Mauritius identified anyone originating in Africa (the Maghreb), roughly corresponding to Berber populations.
[...]The Chronicle of 754 still mentions Mauri but by the High Middle Ages the endonym seems to have disappeared, while Christian sources begin to apply the term Mauri, Moors to the Islamic populations of the Maghreb and Andalusia in general.
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Μαῦροι is read in "Mauroi" and it does NOT mean "Black", there's no connection whatsoever because the term "Mauros" did NOT exist in Ancient Greek.
Isidore makes reference to the Greek spoken around his age which was far far different from the Greek spoken when "Maurus" was coined as a term.
The term "Moor" then was used as reference to Islamic North Africans but it was used as a poor broad term to describe all populaces of North Africa: this means both Arabs and Berbers.
I don't honestly understand all these attempts to define all Moors inclusively as a "Black" when:
a) Such a definition does NOT exist in any field: it doesn't mean anything in history, linguistics, genetics, nothing.
b) Black is a loose term for a multitude of different ethnicities: it's a stupid term which doesn't mean anything.
A Fulani from West Africa has nothing in common with a Khoisan in South-Africa and a Bantu has nothing to do with a Masai from Kenya.
c) It's stupid because it tries to suggest that the strength and power of the Caliphate of El-Andalus is somehow tied to race as to suggest that all credits are only because of Blacks, when it's largely recognised that the culture behind El Andalus was Arabic in all its forms.
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