[65] In offering this new derivation of the much discussed name Berberi or Barbari, one must remember that it has always been the name of a powerful tribe in Morocco, the Brebres; that it was what the ancient Egyptians called them (Herodotus); and that it is to-day a pure Libyan word. Iberru, is from the verbal root ibra, they are free; ibarbar, they come forth (Newman, Libyan Vocabulary, pp. 40, 133). The plural in the Hamitic group was originally formed by repetition (F. Müller, Sprachwissenschaft, Bd. III., s. 240). Hence Berberi may mean either “those who came forth,” i. e., emigrants, or those who go where they list, i. e., freemen. This is also the meaning of amóshagh, the generic name of the Touaregs (Barth, Travels in Africa, vol. v., page 555). Barth, a high authority, believes that the same word ber is the radical of the names Bernu, Berdoa, Berauni, etc. The legendary ancestors of the Moroccan Berbers (Brebres) was Ber, in which, says Barth, “we recognize the name Afer,” the f and b being interchangeable in these dialects. From “Afer” we have “Africa” (Travels, vol. i., p. 224). One of the principal gods of ancient Libya and of the Guanches was Abŏra, or Ibru. See my article “On Etruscan and Libyan Names” in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Feb., 1890. One of the Pindaric fragments recites a Libyan tradition to the effect that the first man, Iarbas, sprang from the sun-heated soil, and chose for food the sweet acorns of the tree (Lenormant, The Beginnings of History, p. 48). In “Iarbas” we can scarcely fail in recognizing the same root bar, the change being by the familiar process of reversal.
[66] Early in this century, Bory de St. Vincent maintained the identity of the Iberians and Berbers (Essai Geologique, Paris, 1805). Humboldt argued that there was but one language in old Spain beside the Celtic, in spite of the direct assertion of Strabo to the contrary, and the well-known fact that many Celtiberic inscriptions cannot be read either in Celtic or Basque (Prüfung der Untersuchungen, etc., § 39).
The Roman geographer, Rufus Festus Avienus, offers the important correction that the Iberi derived their name, not from the Ebro, as is usually stated, but from a stream close to Gibraltar on the Atlantic side.
“At Iberus inde manat amnis et locos
Fœcundat undã: plurimi ex ipso ferunt
Dictos Iberos, non ab illo flumine
Quod inquietos Vasconas prælabitur.”
—Ora Maritima.
The two names show that it was a nomen gentile, and that the tribe so known extended along the southern coast.
It has been recently asserted that many north African place-names occur in Spain (Revista de Anthropologia, Madrid, 1876, quoted by Fligier).
[67] The Coptic word is Na-pa-ut, Bunsen, Egypt’s Place in History, Vol. III, p. 137.
[68] This war is recorded in the celebrated “inscription of Menephtah,” of the XIXth dynasty. See Records of the Past, Vol. IV; Brugsch Bey, History of Egypt, Vol. II, p. 129, and the more recent studies of these inscriptions by Dr. Max Müller, in the Proceedings of the Society for Biblical Archæology, Vol. VI.
[69] As further showing the ancient culture of the Libyans, I may note that they constructed stone dwellings before their conquest by the Romans. For extracts showing this, see Revue des deux Mondes, Dec., 1865.
[70] The evidence to this effect I have marshalled in two papers read before the American Philosophical Society: “On the Ethnic Affinities of the Ancient Etruscans” (Proceedings of the Amer. Phil. Soc., Oct., 1889), and “A Comparison of Etruscan and Libyan Names” (Ibid., Feb., 1890).