Talk:Morocco

The usual term given, ⴰⵎⵓⵔ ⵏ ⴰⴽⵓⵛ (amur n akuc, literally “Land of God”), seems to me to be clearly a folk etimology (is it attested in any historical document?); in modern berber the city is called Meṛṛakec in Kabyle and Mṛṛakc/Mrrakc in Tashlhit which is more similar to the modern Iberian forms than to that supposed etymology. Also, regarding said Iberian forms, Asturian/Aragonese/Castilian Marruecos, with ue for Portuguese in Marrocos points to a common Vulgar Latin ancestor which means the term came probably from Berber and not from Arabic, as by the times the arabs invaded the Iberian Peninsula (8th century) these sound changes were already completed. Sérgio R R Santos (talk) 17:02, 18 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Sérgio R R Santos Strabo stated that the term "Mauri" was used by Romans as well as the locals to refers to the Berbers of Mauretania. There may a relationship there. I'm not aware of academic studies that attempt to link the terms "Morocco" and "Mauri" though, or go further into the potential Berber origin of "Mauri" (which could be related to "Amur"). Ideophagous (talk) 20:19, 7 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

The term "Mauri" comes from ancient greek Μαῦρος, which apparently has a native greek origin, meaning "black, dark", even though north africans don't seem particularly dark-skinned to me, but maybe they were compared to greeks. That word still survived in portuguese/spanish mouro/moro, which were initially used to reffer to people from maghreb (Mauritania), and then gained the generalized meaning of "muslim", after the Arab conquest (like the word "Turk" in some languages). I dont think it's related Berber "amur", which just means "land", but who knows, there might be an ancient relationship, but I'm not willing to speculate on that. Sérgio R R Santos (talk) 16:57, 9 September 2024 (UTC)Reply