Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 November 2008
The history of literacy in the Maghreb (Arabic, “west”) spans several millennia. Strategically located in the Northwest of Africa and on the Southern shores of the Mediterranean, the Maghreb has been a crossroads where several civilizations mingled and interacted: The Greeks, the Phonecians, the Romans, the Arabs, and more recently the Turks and the Western Europeans have all affected, to varying degrees, the history, culture, language, and literacy of the region (Al-khatib-Boujibar 1984).