Language and script

Tifinagh

The script of the Amazigh: from rock inscriptions to road signs

One of the oldest scripts in Africa, passed on for centuries almost exclusively by Tuareg women, and the official school alphabet in Morocco since 2003.

Tifinagh looks like geometry: circles, crosses, dots, strokes. That impression is not entirely misleading. The characters are old, they were cut into stone before they stood on paper, and their shapes have changed less since antiquity than those of most alphabets in the world.

Origin

In research the predecessors are called the Libyco-Berber script. Inscriptions of it are found all across North Africa; the oldest securely dated ones come from pre-Christian times. Where the characters come from is unresolved: part of the research sees Phoenician influence, another an independent development. What is certain is that the script never broke off entirely.

The Tuareg line

While in the north Arabic and later Latin took over the written word, Tifinagh remained in use among the Tuareg: above all among women, for short messages, names, marks on objects. Without this line the script would probably be nothing but archaeology today.

Neo-Tifinagh

In the 1960s the characters were taken up again and expanded into a complete alphabet for the language of today. This version is called Neo-Tifinagh. In 2001 Morocco founded the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (IRCAM); in 2003 Neo-Tifinagh was adopted as the script for Amazigh and brought into school teaching. Since 2005 the script has had its own Unicode block (U+2D30 to U+2D7F): that is why you can read it on this page without loading an image.

How many characters?

There is no single right answer to that, and this is not a dodge. The IRCAM alphabet lists 33 characters if you count the two labialized forms and the ⵕ; without them you arrive at 31. Some presentations count 30 basic characters plus extensions. The characters are predominantly consonants, and there are separate vowel characters as well: unlike in Arabic, where vowels usually remain unwritten.

Where it stands today

On place-name signs in Morocco, on public buildings, in schoolbooks, in logos, on clothing. For many, Tifinagh is also a sign of connection to their own origins: an alphabet that belongs to the language. Everyday writing is still mostly done in Latin letters or in Arabic.

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