Nafusi Lullaby
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Nafusi Lullaby Lyrics. An original lullaby inspired by the Amazigh (Berber) community of Libya’s Jebel Nafusa mountains, known for fortified hilltop granaries and ancient olive groves. Villages in the Jebel Nafusa built qasr, multi-story fortified granaries where each family kept its own storage cell within a shared communal structure, built collectively and defended together, and the mountains’ relative isolation helped the region preserve both its Amazigh language and its distinct Ibadi branch of Islam over many centuries. Here you will find the lyrics, meaning, and chords.
Lyrics & chords
An original arrangement, with guitar & piano chords above each line.
Verse
What the words mean
Chords — guitar & piano
What “Nafusi Lullaby” Means
“Yemma” means “my mother” across many Amazigh (Berber) languages, including Nafusi, spoken in Libya’s Jebel Nafusa mountains. Families there once stored their harvests together in fortified hilltop granaries like Qasr al-Haj, surrounded by ancient olive groves. This original lullaby draws on those mountain and communal-harvest images of Nafusi Amazigh life, with “yemma” used as a warm, familiar word rather than a literal translation.
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- An original lullaby by Relax In No Time, inspired by the musical traditions of its region. The words, melody, arrangement and recording are ours.
- Recording and arrangement: real instruments played by hand, no AI music, by Relax In No Time.
- Chords: written by us for guitar and piano.
- Translation: our own meaning-for-meaning translation, written for understanding. The sung words stay in the original language.
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