Tifinagh
Encyclopedia : T : TI : TIF : Tifinagh
Tifinagh, or 
(pronounced [tifinaɣ]) is an alphabetic script used by the Tuareg, a Berber people of northern Africa, to write their Tuareg languages. An older version of Tifinagh, sometimes named the Libyan (French libyque) or Libyco-berber alphabet, was more widely used by speakers of Berber languages all across North Africa and on the Canary Islands. It is attested from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD. It is usually assumed to be of Phoenician origin. The word Tifinagh is a feminine plural noun whose singular would be Tafniqt; it means 'the Phoenician (letters)'. For a discussion, see [link] and [link].
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. The letter forms vary significantly across the wide area where Tifinagh is used. The direction of writing varies; right-to-left is common, but the older "Libyan" inscriptions most commonly use the unusual orientation bottom-to-top. Occasionally the script has been used to write other neighboring languages, such as Tagdal Songhai.
A modern version, sometimes styled Neo-Tifinagh, was put forward by the Académie Berbère in the 1960's; it is written left to right, marks vowels, and has been modified to better fit Northern Berber phonology. In a modified form, this script has recently (2003) been adopted for pedagogical purposes in Morocco.
Code chart
Tifinagh is encoded in the Unicode range U+2D30—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 Tifinagh.
| Code | +0
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| U+2D40 | 
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| U+2D50 | 
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| U+2D60 | 
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| U+2D70 |
Here is a comparison chart for the character glyph and the transliteration.
| Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Basic Tifinagh (IRCAM) | |
| Extended Tifinagh (IRCAM) | |
| Other Tifinagh letters | |
| Modern Tuareg letters | |
| This position shall not be used |
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Bibliography
- Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. Tifinagh.
External links
- [Amanar] pictures of Tifinagh fonts used in books, magazines
- http://www.ancientscripts.com/berber.html
- http://amazighworld.net/studies/articles/touareg_histoire.php
- http://ennedi.free.fr/tifin.htm
- http://www.mondeberbere.com/langue/tifinagh/tifinagh_origine.htm
- http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tifinagh.htm
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