The Tifinagh alphabet

The Tifinagh alphabet ("Lybico-berber") has been used by Berber speaking people in North Africa and the Canary Islands at least from the third century B.C. up to the third century A.D. The only dated inscription is from 139 B.C. Its use disappeared, or had already disappeared, when the Arabs came. Of the two main variations, only the eastern one has been (partially) deciphered.

Among the Tuaregs, especially the Tuareg women, the use continued up to our time. There are many regional variations.

The name Tifinagh of the alphabet is said to mean "Phoenician".

A standardized version, sometimes called neo-tifinagh, is in use in primary schools in Morocco since Sept 2003.

Writing direction

Today, standard is left-to-right. But earlier also right-to-left was common. In ancient inscriptions one saw both bottom-to-top and top-to-bottom. For right-to-left writing, the glyphs are reflected in a vertical axis. For vertical writing, they are rotated. The following pictures are from Omniglot.

Vowels are not written. In order to avoid confusion with the l, the combination nn is written |/, and ln is written ||/.

Hanoteau

Tables of the tifinagh symbols as given by Hanoteau in Essai de grammaire Tamachek', 1896, including a table with combinations ("ligatures").

Motylinski

The section on the Tuareg alphabet in Grammaire, dialogues et dictionnaire touaregs by A. de Motylinski, 1908.

Thott-Hansen

The tables with the Tuareg alphabet in Afrikas sprog by P. Thott-Hansen, 1969.

Académie Berbère

In the late sixties, the Académie Berbère (Agraw Imazighen) came with proposals to standardise tifinagh writing. Here a comparison of the ancient alphabet, and various modern systems in regional use, and various proposals for standardisation, taken from Mondeberbere.

IRCAM

The Institut Royal de la Culture Amazighe IRCAM developed the 33-symbol alphabet given below, on the basis of the earlier proposals mentioned above.

ya yab yag yagw yad yaḍ yey yef yak yakw yah yaḥ yaε yax yaq yi
a ا b ب g گ gw d د ḍ ض e f ف k ك kw h ه ḥ ح ε ع x خ q ق i ي

yaj yal yam yan yu yar yaṛ yaγ yas yaṣ yac yat yaṭ yaw yay yaz yaẓ
j ج l ل m م n ن u و r ر ṛ *) γ غ s س ṣ ص c ش t ت ṭ ط w و y ي z ز ẓ ژ

*) The Arabic correspondence given is ر-with-three-dots-below , perhaps not in Unicode.

This is the alphabet used by the publications of IRCAM. Texts written in it look rather unlike "classical" tifinagh texts because of the lack of those multi-dot symbols. Note the b glyph, different from everybody else's, while the latter has become the h. Here l and f have connected glyphs, and no special care is needed for the nn combination. Vowels are now written.

See The IRCAM Tifinagh alphabet.

Unicode 4.1 values

In 2004 Tifinagh was added to Unicode. It covers the interval 2D30-2D7F (of which 55 positions are in use and 25 are reserved for future additions).

0123456 789ABCD EF
2D30
2D40
2D50
2D60

Unicode names

The table below gives Unicode name, symbol, and font glyph. This allows you to test your Unicode Tifinagh font.

Unicode names are of the form TIFINAGH LETTER aa xx, where the aa part is empty or an origin indicator (here abbreviated: "A." is "AHAGGAR", "AY." is "AYER", "B." is "BERBER ACADEMY", "TA." is "TAWELLEMET", "T." is "TUAREG") and the xx part the Berber name of the letter.
The only exception is 2D6F, the TIFINAGH MODIFIER LETTER LABIALIZATION MARK.

YA YAB YABH YAG YAGHH B. YAJ YAJ YAD YADH YADD YADDH
ⴰ ⴱ ⴲ ⴳ ⴴ ⴵ ⴶ ⴷ ⴸ ⴹ ⴺ
YEY YAF YAK T. YAK YAKHH YAH B. YAH T. YAH YAHH YAA YAKH
ⴻ ⴼ ⴽ ⴾ ⴿ ⵀ ⵁ ⵂ ⵃ ⵄ ⵅ
T. YAKH YAQ T. YAQ YI YAZH A. YAZH T. YAZH YAL YAM YAN T. YAGN
ⵆ ⵇ ⵈ ⵉ ⵊ ⵋ ⵌ ⵍ ⵎ ⵏ ⵐ
T. YANG YAP YU YAR YARR YAGH T. YAGH AY. YAGH YAS YASS YASH
ⵑ ⵒ ⵓ ⵔ ⵕ ⵖ ⵗ ⵘ ⵙ ⵚ ⵛ
YAT YATH YACH YATT YAV YAW YAY YAZ TA. YAZ YAZZ
ⵜ ⵝ ⵞ ⵟ ⵠ ⵡ ⵢ ⵣ ⵤ ⵥ ⵯ

Note that this Unicode repertoire is not an alphabet, but a random union of symbols that have been used recently. In some cases the meaning varies regionally. The YAH (2D40) is the Tuareg YAB. The YU (2D53) is the Tuareg YAW. The AYER YAGH (2D58) is the Adrar YAJ.

Links

Mondeberbere
Proel: tifinagh.
Proel: libico.
Lameens.
Ancientscripts.
Omniglot: tifinagh.

PetitPrince-Astronome-Tifinaghe.html.

Tifinagh mise à l'épreuve.

The languages

Tamazight is used as a broad name (instead of Berber) and as a more narrow language name in the Middle Atlas. In Morocco: Tarifit (Riffi), Tachelhit (Tashelhiyt), and Tamazight. In Algeria: Kabyle, Tachawit. Tuareg: Tamasheq, Tahaggart Tamahaq, Tayart Tamajeq, and Tawallammat Tamajaq. These four Tuareg dialects are also collectively called Tamasheq.