the Riffians of northern Morocco, the Chaoui people of eastern Algeria, the Chenouas in western Algeria and the Berbers of Tripolitania. Outside the Maghreb, the Tuareg in Mali (early settlement near the old imperial capital of Timbuktu), Niger, and Burkina Faso number some 850,000, 1,620,000, and 50,000, respectively. Tuaregs are Berber people with a traditionally nomadic pastoralist lifestyle and are the principal inhabitants of the vast Sahara Desert. Though stereotyped in Europe and North America as nomads, most Berbers were in fact traditionally farmers, living in mountains relatively close to the Mediterranean coast, or oasis dwellers, such as the Siwa of Egypt; but the Tuareg and Zenata of the southern Sahara were almost wholly nomadic. Some groups, such as the Chaouis, practiced transhumance. Political tensions Over the past few decades, political tensions have arisen between some Berber groups (especially the Kabyles and Rifians) and with North African governments, partly over linguistic and social issues. For example, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, giving children Berber names was banned. The regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya also banned the teaching of Berber languages, and, in a 2008 diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, the Libyan leader warned Berber minorities: "You can call yourselves whatever you want inside your homes – Berbers, Children of Satan, whatever – but you are only Libyans when you leave your homes." He denied the existence of Berbers as a separate ethnicity, and called Berbers a "product of colonialism" created by the West to divide Libya. As a result of the persecution suffered under Gaddafi's rule, many Berbers joined the Libyan opposition in the 2011 Libyan civil war. Diaspora According to a 2004 estimate, there were about 2.2 million Berber immigrants in Europe, especially the Riffians in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France; and Algerians of Kabyles and Chaouis heritage in France. Languages The Berber languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They thus descend from the proto-Afroasiatic language. It is still disputed which branches of Afroasiatic diverged most recently from Berber, but most linguists accept either Egyptian or Chadic (see Afro-Asiatic languages). is a generic name for all of the Berber languages, which consist of many closely related varieties and dialects. Among these Berber languages are Riffian, Kabyle, Shilha, Siwi, Zenaga, Sanhaja, Tazayit (Central Atlas Tamazight), Tumẓabt (Mozabite), Nafusi, and Tamasheq, as well as the ancient Guanche language. Berber languages are spoken by around thirty to