Tifinagh

All you want to know about Tifinagh

Entrance to Kidal. The name of the town is written in Traditional Tifinagh (ⴾⴸⵍ) and Latin script.
Entrance to Kidal. The name of the town is written in Traditional Tifinagh (ⴾⴸⵍ) and Latin script.

Tifinagh (ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ in Neo-Tifinagh, Tifinaɣ in Berber Latin alphabet, pronounced [tifinaɣ]) is an alphabetic script used by some Africans to write their language. It is not in widespread use as a means of daily communication, but often serves to politically and symbolically assert an African identity.

Contents

Tifinagh or Neo-Tifinagh?

History

An older version of Tifinagh, sometimes named the African alphabet, was more widely used by speakers of North Africa and on the Canary Islands. It is attested from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD.


Instructions at Template:Infobox Writing system

Type

Abjad

Time period

3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD

Parent systems

Proto-Canaanite alphabet
 → {{{name}}}

Child systems

Tifinagh, Neo-Tifinagh

  • There are two variants: eastern and western.
  • The eastern variant was used in what is now Constantine, the Aures region and Tunisia. It is the best-deciphered variant, due to the discovery of several Numidian bilingual inscriptions in Libyan and Punic (notably at Dougga in Tunisia.) 22 letters out of the 24 were deciphered.
  • The western variant was more primitive (Février (1964–1965). It was used along the Mediterranean coast from Kabylie to the Canary Islands. It used 13 supplementary letters.
  • The Libyco-Berber script was a pure Abjad, it had no vowels.
  • Gemination was not marked.
  • The writing was usually from the bottom to the top, although right-to-left, and even other orders, were also found.
Sound

The Traditional Tifinagh (Tuareg)

Tifinagh (Tuareg)

Type

Abjad

Spoken languages

Tuareg language

Time period

?? to present

Parent systems

Proto-Canaanite alphabet
 → Tifinagh (Tuareg)

Child systems

Neo-Tifinagh

Traditionally, the script marks no vowels, except word-finally; however, various proposals to allow it to mark vowels have been made in recent times. In some areas, Arabic vowel diacritics are combined with Tifinagh characters to mark vowels.

Occasionally the script has been used to write other neighboring languages, such as Tagdal Songhai.

The Neo-Tifinagh script

Neo-Tifinagh

Type

Alphabet

Time period

1980 to present

Parent systems

Proto-Canaanite alphabet
 → Tifinagh
    → Neo-Tifinagh

ISO 15924

Tfng


Salem Chaker, professor at INALCO had proposed a change in Neo-Tifinagh (Tafsut 1990 #14).

Until recently, virtually no books or websites were published in this alphabet, with activists favouring Latin (or, more rarely, Arabic) scripts for serious usage; however, it is extremely popular for symbolic use, with many books and websites written in a different script featuring logos or title pages using Neo-Tifinagh. However, in Morocco, the king took a "neutral" position between the claims of Latin script and Arabic script by adopting the Neo-Tifinagh script in 2003; as a result, books are beginning to be published in this script, and it is taught in some schools. Outside Morocco, it has no official status. Ironically, the Moroccan state arrested and imprisoned people using this script during 1980s and the 1990s. [1]

Code chart for the Neo-Tifinagh script

Neo-Tifinagh is encoded in the Unicode range U+2D30 to U+2D7F, starting from version 4.1.0. There are 55 defined characters, but there are more characters being used than those defined. In ISO 15924, the code Tfng is assigned to Neo-Tifinagh.

Unicode representative glyphs chart (in left-to-right direction)
Code +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
U+2D30 Image:2D30.png Image:2D31.png Image:2D32.png Image:2D33.png Image:2D34.png Image:2D35.png Image:2D36.png Image:2D37.png Image:2D38.png Image:2D39.png Image:2D3A.png Image:2D3B.png Image:2D3C.png Image:2D3D.png Image:2D3E.png Image:2D3F.png
U+2D40 Image:2D40.png Image:2D41.png Image:2D42.png Image:2D43.png Image:2D44.png Image:2D45.png Image:2D46.png Image:2D47.png Image:2D48.png Image:2D49.png Image:2D4A.png Image:2D4B.png Image:2D4C.png Image:2D4D.png Image:2D4E.png Image:2D4F.png
U+2D50 Image:2D50.png Image:2D51.png Image:2D52.png Image:2D53.png Image:2D54.png Image:2D55.png Image:2D56.png Image:2D57.png Image:2D58.png Image:2D59.png Image:2D5A.png Image:2D5B.png Image:2D5C.png Image:2D5D.png Image:2D5E.png Image:2D5F.png
U+2D60 Image:2D60.png Image:2D61.png Image:2D62.png Image:2D63.png Image:2D64.png Image:2D65.png                   Image:2D6F.png
U+2D70                                

Here is a comparison chart for the character glyph and the transliteration.

Color keys
Color Meaning
  Basic Tifinagh (IRCAM)
  Extended Tifinagh (IRCAM)
  Other Tifinagh letters
  Modern Tuareg letters
  This position shall not be used
Simple letters (and modifier letter)
Code Glyph Unicode Transliteration Name
Latin Arabic
U+2D30 a ا ya
U+2D31 b ب yab
U+2D32 b ٻ yab fricative
U+2D33 g گ yag
U+2D34 g ڲ yag fricative
U+2D35 dj ج Berber Academy yadj
U+2D36 dj ج yadj
U+2D37 d د yad
U+2D38 d د yad fricative
U+2D39 ض ya
U+2D3A ض ya fricative
U+2D3B e ه yey
U+2D3C f ف yaf
U+2D3D k ک yak
U+2D3E k ک Tuareg yak
U+2D3F ⴿ k ک yak fricative
U+2D40 h
b
ھ
ب
yah
= Tuareg yab
U+2D41 h ھ Berber Academy yah
U+2D42 h ھ Tuareg yah
U+2D43 ح ya
U+2D44 ˤ (ε) ع yaε
U+2D45 kh (x) خ yax
U+2D46 kh (x) خ Tuareg yax
U+2D47 q ق yaq
U+2D48 q ق Tuareg yaq
U+2D49 i ي yi
U+2D4A j ج yaj
U+2D4B j ج Ahaggar yaj
U+2D4C j ج Tuareg yaj
Code Glyph Unicode Transliteration Name
Latin Arabic
U+2D4D l ل yal
U+2D4E m م yam
U+2D4F n ن yan
U+2D50 ny ني Tuareg yagn
U+2D51 ng ڭ Tuareg yang
U+2D52 p پ yap
U+2D53 u
w
و
ۉ
yu
= Tuareg yaw
U+2D54 r ر yar
U+2D55 ڕ ya
U+2D56 gh (γ) غ yaγ
U+2D57 gh (γ) غ Tuareg yaγ
U+2D58 gh (γ)
j
غ
ج
Aïr yaγ
= Adrar yaj
U+2D59 s س yas
U+2D5A ص ya
U+2D5B sh (š) ش yaš
U+2D5C t ت yat
U+2D5D t ت yat fricative
U+2D5E ch (tš) تش yatš
U+2D5F ط ya
U+2D60 v ۋ yav
U+2D61 w ۉ yaw
U+2D62 y ي yay
U+2D63 z ز yaz
U+2D64 z ز Tawellemet yaz
= Harpoon yaz
U+2D65 yaẓ
U+2D6F +w ۥ+ Labio-velarization mark
= Tamatart
= <super> 2D61
Digraph letters (ligatures are possible)
Code Glyph Unicode Transliteration Name
Latin Arabic
U+2D5C U+2D59 ⵜⵙ ts تس yats
U+2D37 U+2D63 ⴷⵣ dz دز yadz
Code Glyph Unicode Transliteration Name
Latin Arabic
U+2D5C U+2D5B ⵜⵛ ch (tš) تش yatš
U+2D37 U+2D4A ⴷⵊ dj دج yadj

Unicode fonts for Neo-Tifinagh

Bibliography

  • Aghali-Zakara, Mohamed (1994). Graphèmes berbères et dilemme de diffusion: Interaction des alphabets latin, ajami et tifinagh. Etudes et Documents Berbères 11, 107-121.
  • Aghali-Zakara, Mohamed; and Drouin, Jeanine (1977). Recherches sur les Tifinaghs- Eléments graphiques et sociolinguistiques. Comptes-rendus du Groupe Linguistique des Etudes Chamito-Sémitiques (GLECS).
  • Ameur, Meftaha (1994). Diversité des transcriptions : pour une notation usuelle et normalisée de la langue berbère. Etudes et Documents Berbères 11, 25-28.
  • Boukous, Ahmed (1997). Situation sociolinguistique de l’Amazigh. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 123, 41-60.
  • Chaker, Salem (1994). Pour une notation usuelle à base Tifinagh. Etudes et Documents Berbères 11, 31-42.
  • Chaker, Salem (1996). Propositions pour la notation usuelle à base latine du berbère. Etudes et Documents Berbères 14, 239-253.
  • Chaker, Salem (1997). La Kabylie: un processus de développement linguistique autonome. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 123, 81-99.
  • Durand, O. (1994). Promotion du berbère : problèmes de standardisation et d’orthographe. Expériences européennes. Etudes et Documents Berbères 11, 7-11.
  • O’Connor, Michael (1996). The Berber scripts. The World’s Writing Systems, ed. by William Bright and Peter Daniels, 112-116. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Savage, Andrew. 2008. Writing Tuareg — the three script options. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192: 5-14

External links


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