African orthography: Berber & Tifinagh

Source: Ancient Scripts

From the website:

The “Berber” script has a very interesting story behind it. Ancient Berber is thought to have sprung off the Punic script roughly around the 6th century BC. It was used throughout North Africa until the 3rd century AD. Strangely though, the inscriptions remain unread, as linguists cannot link the written language to any of the dozen modern Berber languages spoken in North Africa. However, it is widely accepted by scholars that it was a Berber language given the continuity of the population.

Ancient Berber disappeared after the 3rd century AD, first supplanted by the Roman alphabet, and then later by the Arabic alphabet brought by Islam. But by some strange miracle, it is preserved, and still used today mainly by women in Tuareg society. The modern form is called Tifinagh, which scholars believe to mean “Phoenician/Punic letters”. Tifinagh is not used widely for literature or history, but instead for recreation (like for composing letters).

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African orthography: Tifinagh script

Source: Omniglot

Tifinagh   

Origin

The Tifinagh alphabet is thought to have derived from the ancient Berber script. The name Tifinagh possibly means ‘the Phoenician letters’, or possibly from the phrase tifin negh, which means ‘our invention’.

Since September 2003, the Tifinagh alphabet children in Moroccan primary schools have been taught to write Tamazight with the Tifinagh alphabet. It is also used by the Tuareg, particularly the women, for private notes, love letters and in decoration. For public purposes, the Arabic alphabet is normally used.

Notable features

• Type of writing system: alphabet.
• Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines.

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