A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Monday, January 16, 2017

Yannayer: Belated Berber New Year

This has been the three day Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday here in the US, and as a result I am late in wishing Amazigh Berber readers a happy new year  according to the old (Julian) agricultural calendar on January 14.

I've talked about Yannayer several times in previous tears, While the Julian date for the New Year is an ancient one in North Africa, celebrating it has become more popular with revival of Amazigh pride and identity in recent years. As I have noted before, the so-called Berber era, dating from 950 BC, is a modern nationalist invention; by that reckoning this is the year 2962, As I also noted in a previous post, while January 14 is the correct date of the Julian New Year, some Algerian Imazighen celebrate on January 12 instead.

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