important ethnic group is the

Another important ethnic group is the Berbers. Western
Egypt, especially around the Siwa oasis and the coastal areas west
of Alexandria, are key Berber homelands. The Berber people are
among the oldest inhabitants of northern Africa. The Berbers
speak their own language and most of them originate from the
western Sahara, in Algeria and Morocco. Egyptian Berbers, for the
most part, have been “Arabized” and integrated into mainstream
Egyptian society. They constitute only a very small fraction of the
Egyptian population, yet they have preserved their culture for
millennia. Prior to the Arab invasion of the seventh century a.d.,
the Berbers dominated northwestern Africa and still constitute
approximately 30 percent of Morocco’s population.