The Berbers are an ethnic group indigenous to Northwest Africa, speaking the Berber languages of the Afroasiatic family.They are the descendents of the pre-Arab populations of North Africa from the Egyptian frontier to the Atlantic and from the Mediterranean coast to the Niger River. Originally, Berber was a generic name given to numerous heterogeneous ethnic groups by the Romans that shared similar cultural, political, and economic practices. It was not a term originated by the group itself.