Every year, the mountains of Morocco are covered with snow when winter comes, Tagrest in Amazigh.
All posts about Tamazight in pictures
Autumn is called ⴰⵎⵡⴰⵏ (Amwan) in Berber. It's too short a season, but I think it's my favourite, as it gives us a break from the summer heat and allows us to see migratory birds!
Summer is called Anbdu in Berber, and it is not the most beautiful of the four seasons in this country, where heat is more of an enemy.
The only particularity of "tafaska" is that the Berbers prefer animals without big horns! For the rest, the "sheep festival" is the same as in the rest of Morocco.
The pomegranate, a fruit of the sun symbolising abundance, whose Berber name is Taṛemmant, very similar to the Arabic Arrouman.
The dromedary is an animal of the desert, of sand and stones. It cannot plough, and the ‘dromedary's furrow’ is a symbol of work that does not progress. Like much of the work in Morocco!
As in French, fireplace or foyer (almessi) defines the family. The oven (afarnou) gives its name to a much sought-after bread in Morocco, which every Berber housewife knows how to prepare!
Wheat is threshed on dedicated areas of land (threshing floors) covered with stones or on terraces. The same word, Anrar, is used for football pitches.
There are many Amazigh words for rivers, streams and watercourses, no doubt to better appreciate this rare resource that is so essential to nomadic pastoralists!
Tizi means mountain pass. A mountainous country, with its three Atlas mountains, Morocco offers visitors many vertiginous tizi, the best known of which are between Marrakesh and Ouarzazate, on the one hand, and Taroudant on the other.
Every year, at Eid time, Moroccans choose their "Anougoud", the young male sheep that will be sacrificed and shared among family and neighbours.
The tent (Axam in Berber, khayma in Arabic) is the home of nomads. The ‘people of the tent’ are the family unit, the nucleus around which daily life is organised.
The Berber house is most often built of earth and is square in shape, or fortified, like a kasbah. In some Berber towns, such as Azrou or Ifrane, there are "European" houses.
They are called reg or hamada, from two Arabic words. In Berber, the stone desert is called Amerdoul. Most of Morocco's deserts are like this.
