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Assyrian language

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Yeah thanks for telling me that he wrote his reason for reverting the page a couple of times..:)


Mark, I'm sorry to bring this one back to you, but thanks for helping out before. Assyria 90 made a hash of Assyrian language (which needs to be a disambig), and I reverted giving reasons. Well, the response, apart from being reverted back, can be read at user talk:Garzo#GARZO LISTEN. I have been sworn at, shouted at and called a racist. Is appropriate to start a RFC? Gareth Hughes 17:55, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Offf stop accusing me?!Im an Assyrian I know how things work in the real Assyrian life.You dont!
You two are really annoying me since everything ive been writing is true..If you want peace add me on msn or ill be doing this forever hanunz@hotmail.com Sargon 18:08, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ok man i get your point..We will do all your way if you two promess to me write just some short in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as from a nationalist view..And about the Numbers..3.5-5 million do speak the Assyrian language and this is proved you can check that on serveral of other well known and respected webpages or just go to your homecitys libraray..Do i make myself clear? peace Sargon 19:26, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Prove it

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Ok smartos..Prove me that there are only 210 000 assyrians in the world speaking assyrian neo-aramaic.We are 400 000 assyrians in the US speaking assyrian (sureth) so how can you write that only 210 000 speak assyrian neo-aramaic?We are estimated between 3.5-5 million assyrians worldwide so how can there only be 210 000 assyrian neo-aramaic speakers?

Well, I think it's clear that we're talking about different things here. You insist on using a very broad definition of 'Assyrian language'. You're entitled to do that, but you have to understand that if you are piling up all ethnic Assyrians to get to your 4,5 million, it's no longer one single language that unites them, and certainly not Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. If you claim there is, then you have to provide sources, and reliable ones at that. Really, don't give me the 'prove it'-thing — it is up to you to check your facts and cite your sources. — mark ✎ 08:00, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

redirects on image pages

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You can't redirect image pages I'm afraid, it prevents them from functioning as image pages. --fvw* 03:39, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I see your point. However, in this case I think the profits outweigh the costs; many visitors of the Reference Desk won't understand why they are led to an image page when 'clicking on an icon'. I think I found a precedent in the 'in other languages' button on the Main Page (Image:Other-langs2.png). — mark ✎ 17:56, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Culture of DRC vs Zombies

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Taking time off from defending Wikipedia articles against hordes of flesh-eating zombies has given me time to revive the Culture of DRC article. Oh joy. Feedback etc welcomed - Xed 22:59, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's great news! I'm going to take a look as soon as possible and have put in on my watchlist. Cheers, — mark ✎ 07:15, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me? Hordes? Thanks for a great article. I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolvers 'The Poisonwood Bible', and was looking for cultral information about Congo, and your article, I thought was very good. --Artoftransformation 10:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your message! I have passed it on to Xed, the main author of all this. — mark ✎ 14:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Museveni on peer review

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Hey Mark, just thought I'd let you know that Yoweri Museveni is now on peer review. I thought now was about the right time, as it would be good to get a feel for the kind of things people will say in WP:FAC now, rather than pressing ahead with expansion and then having to change a whole load of stuff later.TreveXtalk 11:24, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ateker

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Mark, do you have anything in your books about the Ateker people. This is a classification of an Eastern Nilotic people that is commonly used in Uganda - comprising of Teso, Karamojong, Turkana (and occasionally Maasai). --Ezeu 09:08, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ezeu, I have come across Ateker as a term for the closely related Jie, Karimojong, Turkana, and Teso languages and peoples. This is confirmed by such sources as Rottland & Otaala (1983) 'Mid-vowel assimilation in Teso-Turkana' who write that Teso-Turkana is a classificatory term referring to a lower genetic branch within Eastern Nilotic, alternative names being Ateker, Itung'a or just Teso, and by Vossen & Bechhaus-Gerst (eds.) (1983) Nilotic Studies, who in the index list 'Ateker' with a simple 'see Teso-Turkana'. Maasai however would not be part of this grouping, being instead a member of the Lotuxo-Maa cluster. I couldn't find more historical info about the use of this specific term this grouping. I expect that it is an old indigenous classification which has later been confirmed (naturally) by comparative linguistic work among the Eastern Nilotic languages. One source (Nsimbi 1964 'The clan system in Buganda') tells me that Ateker means 'clan' or 'tribe' in Teso. — mark ✎ 14:11, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nafaanra

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Hi,Mark

I discovered Wikipedia three days ago searching in google some articles related to Nafana.I already translate the whole article in french,see fr:Nafaanra. My wife is Nafana and she helps me in the translation.She makes me change hyena with lion. I can also explain the misunderstanding of Rapp about numbers 60,70,80... You seems to be the main contributor of this article,congratulations. I'm not linguist nor fluent in English but I 've done my best to give a right translation of your work.

[posted by Alafo (talk · contribs), 12:11, 13 September 2005 (UTC)][reply]

Alafo, nice to meet you! I'm really glad that you've come across Wikipedia this way. You and your wife might want to check out Nafana (people) too; that's a really short article and I'm sure there is much more to say about the Nafana. Thank you for translating the article into French. I've never met a native speaker of Nafaanra myself, so all information in the article comes from the sources mentioned. I wonder what your wife's opinion is on the sample sentences and the treatment of the grammar — does the description agree with her own speech or are there differences? As for the numerals, I can't wait to hear your explanation.
By the way, I have updated the Senufo and Nafaanra maps on Wikimedia Commons so that the French article now displays the most recent maps, too. Cheers, — mark ✎ 12:06, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mark, as mentionned in the article, Nafaanra from banda is considered as the main one.My wife speaks Nafaanra from Sampa (wich she says is the nearest from Senufo languages) but is also fluent in Nafaanra from Banda.

The numbers from Rapp are those from Sampa and the translation for 50 is right but wrong for 60,70,80,90. Both of the languages are using the same system for the tens,but for the one from Sampa 20 is "félio"(sorry for the phonetic and the tonal form) said "féle" for the tens thus 50 becomes 20×2+10 ,"féle shiin na ke" as Rapp tell us féleshen-ná-kɛ.Using the same system my wife says féletàànrè for 60 ,féletàànrè-ná-kɛ for 70 etc... So Rapp's 60 félèko-a-ná-nò is actually 20×6 thus 120.

"Do you actually think that "kòmó", one of the main characters with spider in Nafaanra tales might be a Hyena?" That's the logical explanation my wife gave me.

To follow. [posted by Alafo (talk · contribs), 15:25, 13 September 2005 (UTC)][reply]

Thanks for the explanation, Alafo! I'll come back to this, but I have to go now. In the meantime, I hope you don't mind me rearranging the discussion here to keep it in chronological order. — mark ✎ 14:26, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Mark,I think you'll be glad to see that I found the link to the whole book written by Delafosse in PDF.It's from the National French Library.I added the link on your article.Alafo 12:29, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Whoah, that's a nice one — my university library has a copy which consulted for this article, but it's really nice to have it in PDF format, thanks!
I like your (wife's) explanation of the number system. So it seems to be the case that Rapp made a transcription error. Delafosse (1904) gives a longer form for 'fuloe' but isn't of much help here.
As for the hyena/lion thing — it's interesting that your wife said it that way. The Anansi spider stories are widespread through West Africa (and are even found in the diaspora) and I've seen variants with a lion, but also many others with a hyena. Now, I'm not a biologist, but I am under the impression that the hyena is more common in Ghana than the lion; that might be the reason for Jordan to translate kòmó as 'hyena'. I wonder if there are separate words for the two in Nafaanra. I've tried to locate the words in other Senufo languages but I didn't get far. — mark ✎ 13:15, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Mark,your idea to put some audio files links in the article is good but takes time...Fortunatly I got some for the moment; I had been a trader at ABN AMRO BANK in the Paris Stock Exchange for 15 years and they fired me recently.I have made a test on the french article,please listen and let me know what you think. If you agree we could both create an article related to the main with a list of words and sentences in Nafaanra from Sampa. It could be the first time on the web, a kind of scoop; what Rapp, Jordan, delafosse and others couldn't imagine.I 'd make the audio files with the translation and the phonetic prononciation as I heard it and you'd correct with the definitive prononciation using IPA with the tonal marks.What do you think? We could start with the word hyena.(Alafo 10:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC)).[reply]

It's our pleasure to give our help for a topic in which we're actually involved.I think that with your knowledge about the language structure we can even reach a method to learn how to speak Nafaanra. My target is to be able to be understand in Nafaanra next time I 'll go there; to go through theory to practice. About that, don't forget to answer to my question above. About the template you use for the audio,it could be better to use something like this to avoid to have to click twice (the second time on Wikimedia) before to have the download:[ [[Media:{{{1}}}|{{{2}}}]] [[Image:Loudspeaker.png|Son]] <sup>[[Help:listen des sons ogg|?]]</sup>.

Next time I 'll try to improve your article about questions,because it seems that other ways to ask questions are used as tonal accentuation without any marker like 'ra' or 'hin'. (Alafo 16:39, 28 September 2005 (UTC))[reply]

  • As for the template {{Audio}}, there has been much discussion about this (see Template talk:Audio) and apparently the Image: link is needed because otherwise there is no obvious way for users to check the license information of the sound file. I'm looking for a suitable alternative. There is also {{Listen}} which is a bit too big for inline use. I'm not sure how to solve this, as there are people who oppose changing the template from Image: to Media:. I will look out for a solution.
  • Concerning your earlier question about creating an article full of Nafaanra examples — I'm all for having more recordings and examples. I think we could start with some more example sentences as mentioned in the article; and with the help of your wife, other important examples can be added. At the same time we shouldn't forget that Wikipedia is a place for encyclopedic information, not for language courses. So I don't think everyone would think it is a good idea to make such a tutorial-like page on Wikipedia. There are other wikimedia projects however where it would be possible: see for example Wikibooks (link) and Wikiversity (link}.
  • As for learning Nafaanra, I certainly would like to help you out. However, I think you might be overrating my knowledge. As a linguist, I don't consider my knowledge of Nafaanra to be good or deep enough to advise you about learning the language. There are some general things I know about it; I can also tell you something more about general characteristics of Senufo languages; and I wrote a paper summarizing the tonal system of the related language Supyire which I could send you — but I don't know Nafaanra well enough to devise a course in it. It is mainly a problem of sources. As of yet, no grammar of Nafaanra has been published. If I there would be more linguistic publications on Nafaanra, I would be able to help you better.
  • Summarizing: maybe it is good for us to start with some easy examples and see how far we get. I have to see if my knowledge of Nafaanra is good enough to give the correct pronunciation in IPA of sample sentences spoken by your wife; I'm not sure, and as I said, you shouldn't overestimate me. I will also email someone at GILLBT, Ghana to see if they have more materials that could be made available online. And concerning ways to form questions in Nafaanra: go ahead, expand the article — I'm looking forward to it! If you feel more comfortable writing in French, you can first expand the French version and I can add your examples to the English version.
  • That was a long answer. I'm looking forward to your response. — mark ✎ 10:01, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Mark, Wikibook seems ok to make a list of words and sentences.Thank you again for your article which help me to a better understanding of how works Nafaanra. I 'll add more audio asap and when I "ll finish the exemples of your article we 'll start to experiment some of our own. Alafo 11:42, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bulgarian literature

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I saw your new User page at the Swahili WP and followed it to your English User page, where you said a "Bulgarian literature" page was needed, so I did one in Esperanto and then translated it into English. It's not much, but it's a start. --Haruo 10:00, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's great — thanks for fulfilling a request from the Countering Systemic Bias open tasks list! I've wikified the article a bit; I don't know anything about Bulgarian literature myself, but it is a nice stub. Vizuri sana! — mark ✎ 12:36, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Categorys

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Hi Mark I just got a question if you could answer it id be greatfull?! - How come I cant edit categorys?--Sargon 19:26, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on what you want. If you want to edit the category 'Afro-Asiatic languages', you should go to Category:Afro-Asiatic languages and hit 'edit this page'. If you want to change the categorization of an article, you have to edit the article and look for things like [[Category:Afro-Asiatic languages]] somewhere near the end of the article. If you want to rename a category, then you basically have a problem — you will have to change the categorization link in all articles included in the category manually. For more help, see Wikipedia:Category and the links cited there. — mark ✎ 07:56, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Akan

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Hi Mark,

Do you know who's included in the Akan ethnic identity? Are the Boule and Anyi considered to be part of the Akan people and to speak the Akan language? (They're listed under Akan languages, but not Akan people.) I'm thinking of speaker identification here, not mutual intelligibility. I'm wondering if they should be grouped together for the languages ranked by number of speakers article, the way Chinese and Arabic are.

Thanks, Kirk

This is a good point in the light of my response over there. I really have to read up on this, but if I remember correctly, Akan and Baule do consider themselves related to each other, but not one and the same people. I think one even can find linguistic evidence for the distinction, if one wants. I'll try to look up some sources on this. — mark ✎ 10:06, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Muezzin and Hazzan

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Mark: I am a fledgling student of linguistics, but I can't fail to see the linguistic connection between the Muslim Muezzin and the Jewish Hazzan: are these terms (both referring to a religious leader who calls / leads the faithful to / in prayer, in Islam and Judaism) related, etymologically?

Wanyonyi 13:35, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tracing back the respective etymologies, you might or you might not find that they both go back to a common proto-Semitic cognate; I can't tell from top of my head and I don't have sources handy at the time. It is not apparent to me though how one would get from m- to h- or vice versa. However, I'm not much of an expert in Afro-Asiatic historical-comparative linguistics; you could try to ask User:Mustafaa, who is much more at home in this area. — mark ✎ 09:59, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I will ask him. Sorry for not responding.
Wanyonyi 06:22, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That's OK, I just didn't know if you had checked back, because not everyone responds only on his own talk page. — mark ✎ 16:13, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, saw your reply on my talk page.
Wanyonyi 13:19, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sheng

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Hello Mark.

Do not publish my document on SHENG. At the time of writing it, I thought this to be an objective dot-org and actually didn't realize that my mind contained so many ideas off Sheng (language) .

Meanwhile for objectivity's sakes:-

It is not an opinion that I hold on how the British ran the Kenya colony. No! If you conduct some research on my claim and the claim below it'll not be long before you know that:-

It is a fact that:-

Kenya Colony: AD 1920-1963

The establishment of the colony of Kenya brings in its train racial hostilities. New legislation on land tenure shamelessly favours the settlers. In many areas Africans are now formally dispossessed of their land and are confined in reservations (the Kikuyu, the largest tribe, being the main losers), while the 'White Highlands' policy restricts the ownership of the best farming land to Europeans.'''

see:- [1]

That was official British policy. A race based policy, which when referred to the way I did is called "a racist policy."

Thanks and good-bye.

[posted by 137.248.43.54 (talk · contribs)] in response to my welcome and question at his/her talk page. — mark ✎ 22:17, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

al-Umari

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Hey Mark,

A month or so ago I created an article on Arab historian al-Umari at the ridiculously unwieldly Chihab Addine Abul-Abbas Ahmad ben Fadhl Al-Umari. Now that I know naming conventions a little better I see my mistake (use most common English name etc.), but the redirect al-Umari already has a page history. Can you move this one for me? And thanks for the catch on Henry Townsend, by the way. Mch oblgd! --Dvyost 15:53, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I was doing so well staying off too... then went on a big editing binge last night... now this morning I face only shame and regret.

Thanks! --Dvyost 16:38, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, of course. I've been enjoying the spur of new articles coming from you unexpectedly (I have List of missing Africa topics on my watchlist), but I came across Townsend mainly because I'm editing Yoruba language and its neighbourhood these days. See you around! — mark ✎ 20:21, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wolof loan words?

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Mark,

User:Dunks58 just added a section on English loan words to Wolof; I've moved it to Wolof language, but it's unreferenced, and I'm honestly in no position to evaluate it. Wanna take a glance?

--Dvyost 13:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've pulled it out to Talk:Wolof language. It looks like original research to me and most of the etymologies are extremly unlikely. — mark ✎ 14:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pic of the day

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Hi Mark,

Just to let you know that your map Image:Senufo languages.png is up for Pic of the Day tomorrow. You can check and improve the caption at Wikipedia:Picture of the day/October 11, 2005. -- Solipsist 20:05, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar

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<blush> Thanks! Now I need to go some edits to be worthy of it... :-) Stan 03:04, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Talking about a tireless contributor... — mark ✎ 11:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

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Thanks for supporting my RfA. I will use my new powers wisely! --Wikiacc (talk) 19:13, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations. I know you'll be a fine admin! — mark ✎ 16:23, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Language Death and Linguicide

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A few months ago you commented on a proposal that these two articles be merged. Since no-one objected I had a go. I put the result at Talk:Language death/Temp and I'd be grateful if you'd have a look to make sure I haven't completely butchered two articles before I actually put it live (as t'were.) --Cherry blossom tree 23:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Translated one of your maps

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I have just translated one of your maps on wikimedia commons (Niger-Congo.png) into Swedish under the name Niger-Kongo_utbredning.png, and uploaded it. I am quite new at such things, and hope I have not in any way violated your copyright. If I have please let me know, and I will do my utmost best to correct it. I have no account on en.wikipedia, but on sv.wikipedia (http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Användardiskussion:Sannab), which I read much more than my account on commons. Of course I will check back here for your response too. Thank you for providing such an excellent map./ Sannab 22 oct 2005

categories

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i was wondering why other people hadn't added more categories to a bunch of pages. something seemed odd about it...

i just recently figured out how to add categories.

Gringo300 14:03, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

(In response to my tip on categories over there).
You're welcome! — mark ✎ 16:23, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

technical difficulties

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i'm having trouble staying logging in when i log in. any idea what the problem is? Gringo300 14:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

the problem appears to be fixed now. i suspect it was a cookies problem.

Gringo300 09:56, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

now the technical difficulties seem to be coming and going. right now things are working alright.

Gringo300 03:28, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mandan

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Hi! Bishonen gave me your name as an expert linguist. I'm working an article on the Mandan people of North Dakota and I still need a bit more on the Mandan language. What I have been able to uncover on the language so far I have included in the article. Do you know anything else or possibly a source I might refer to in order to expand the language section of this article? Thanks for your help! *Exeunt* Ganymead Dialogue? 18:37, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ganymead, though I'd love to help you, I'm going to refer you to Ish ishwar (talk · contribs), the specialist on Native American languages here at Wikipedia. He's much more at home in the relevant literature than I am and I'm sure he can help you out. Hope you don't mind being sent somewhere else! — mark ✎ 10:37, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Not a problem, thanks for your help in referring me! *Exeunt* Ganymead Dialogue? 13:57, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

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Seeing that RfA support pop up on my watchlist gave me a pretty good laugh, and rest assured that I conditionally promise to try to keep article writing as my main focus here. Thanks for the praise--it means a lot coming from a Wikipedian such as yourself! Cheers, Dave --Dvyost 14:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

african ethnic groups and languages

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i'm attempting to make a complete list of african ethnic groups and languages.

the problem is, there are, from what i hear, thousands of them.

there are, however, larger categories than the individual ethnic groups and languages, and this helps somewhat. i'm familiar with bantu, ethiopian/abyssinian, nilotic, and cushitic ethnic groups and languages. i'm the least familiar with the cushitic ethnic groups and languages.

i've got probably several hundred african ethnic groups written down on dozens of pieces of paper, and i've started a list in a computer file.

this is going to take me a while...

Gringo300 03:28, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well Gringo, for a good approximation of the number of African languages and their relations (they can indeed be classified into larger groups), check out Ethnologue's Africa page, where you can start browsing by country. Since a languages in most cases means an ethnolinguistic units, you'll get some sense of Africa's ethnic groups and how they relate to each other. You can also start by reading the article African languages, and checking out the four African language families. Either way, I'm afraid that trying to make a comprehensive list yourself, and know them all, would be fruitless. There are too many. — mark ✎ 08:08, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
i've made some progress, but there are many things complicating the research. obviously, not everybody in africa is black, and it's mainly the black african ethnic groups i'm doing the research on. for example, there are a huge number of arabs in north africa, and in the southern part of this area there are a lot of people of mixed arab and black descent, especially in central sudan. there are also berbers in north africa, but i know a lot less about them than arabs so far, but i know more about the berbers now than i did when i started this research. Gringo300 11:22, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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