Region Limited to the islands Era fl. ca. 200 BCE | Ethnicity Maesulians | |
Native to ancient Numidia and ancient Africa Language family Afro-Asiatic
? Libyco-Berber
East Numidian Writing system Libyco-Berber (Proto-Tifinagh) | ||
East Numidian, also known as Old Libyan, was the language of the Maesulians of the eastern part of ancient Numidia during the Pre-Roman era, in what is now Algeria.
The language is scarcely attested and can be confidently identified only as belonging to the Afroasiatic family. As the Maesulians were ethnically Berber, it is supposed that East Numidian was therefore a Berber language. The Berber branch of Afro-Asiatic is sometimes called Lybico-Berber since it is not certain whether East Numidian would fall within the modern Berber languages or form a sister branch to them. Indeed, it is widely supposed that it constitutes a group of its own, as there is no trace of the noun-case system shared by the modern Berber languages. However, Proto-Berber is theorized to have no grammatical case either.