Some archaeologists agree that sometimes in the fifth century BC, Numidians and other Berber kingdoms in North Africa developed a script called Numidic. This script appears to be sophisticated at that time. But nowadays, it needs improvements to make it able to represent a number of sounds of the language.
From the outset of this script Numidians paid attention to the form of the script. That is the aesthetic and the pragmatic aspect of the alphabet. They tried to make it simple and beautiful.
In the Numidic tombstones, the script was written either top down or right to left and without representing vowels. Archaeologists noticed that the script differed from a region to another along North Africa.
After the Roman Empire’s invasion of North Africa, the Numidic script went backward and was replaced by the Latin script. However, it remained useful in some areas. For instance, in the Touareg region: an Amazighe community that occupied a great part of North Africa, from parts of the Maghreb to black Africa. Nowadays, the scripts still exist in Libya, Algeria, Mali, Burkina, Nigeria and Chad.
The Touareg preserved Numidic scripts but in a simplified version. These ashes of Numidic scripts were used in very restricted fields like poetry and love letters in addition to decoration. The Touareg women used to draw some letters of these scripts as tattoos on their hands, faces and as drawings on the walls of their houses.
This simplified version of Numidic scripts was called Tifinagh. There are some people who think Tifinagh means “Phoenicians/ Punic letters”, which means that it is derived from the Punic script. “Ancient Berber is thought to have sprung off the Punic script roughly around the 6th century BC”(Lawrence 1996-2005).
Bouhjar(2004) says that:
« L’alphabet Tifinagh est très certainement d’origine Phonecienne - punique, comme la quasi-totalité des systèmes existants ». It means that, like many other writing systems, Tifinagh is certainly derived from the Punic script.
Whatever the origin of Tifinagh is, scholars agreed that it had disappeared around the 3rd century AD and was preserved by the Touaregs.
The Amazighe language was absent for a long period. North Africa underwent many changes. Here, one can mention the Vandal and the Byzantine invasion. In the 9th century, North Africa had to undergo the Islamic conquest. The coming of the new religion and the conversion of the Amazighe to Islam obliged them to neglect their language to learn Arabic, the language of the new religion. So, all literate Touareg men were literate in Arabic while the women, who remained unable to study Arabic, kept their script Tifinagh.
1200 years ago, the Amazighe language was revived again by the coming of the anti-caliphal Abadihit. The latter established a state in the central Maghreb and at this time the Amazighe language emerged in many writings and books.
In the 11th and 12th century, Amazighe language reappeared again in North Africa thanks the coming of the Almoravid dynasty. This latter unified Berber tribes that were distributed along African Sahara.
In this era, Amazighe writings started to appear once again. This was due to the effort of the leaders who believed in Islam as well as their origin and culture. Many books were written. For instance: Riwayat Al Achyakh that contains a large number of Amazigh sentences. Akidat Attawhid, and IbnToumart’s dictionary; Kitab Al Asmaa. This era was a glorious time for Amazighe literature (Lameen Souag).
From that time on, Amazighe writings could be found anywhere in North Africa. Even though they where rare and did not follow the same standards and principles, these writings had some importance.
In the late 60s, the Amazighe language broke into the field as a political issue. It was launched by Kabylian activists in Algeria. These people formed the first Berber Academy now called “Agraw n Imazighen” in Paris. Their project was to restore the Amazigh writing by forming a script from Tifinagh and the old Libyan script with some changes and additions.
After that, many Amazighe movements started to emerge. This was due to the work of the first activists who tried to make Amazighe community aware of their issue.
However, governments in Algeria and Morocco restricted the spreading of these Amazighe issue. So Tifinagh writing became a taboo. No one could write it publicly. However, It was used by some conscious students at the university in a very limited and hidden way.
A few years later, these movements found their way from Kabily to Morocco, then to Libya then became wide spread in the whole of North Africa. At the beginning, there was a hesitation about the final form of the script. There was no agreement between those movements on how Tifinagh should be written. Even if the difference between the available scripts was partial, it was still difficult to find a way out.
Another problem is that the script was linguistically unsatisfactory because it failed “to represent several marginally phonemic emphatic contrasts” (Souag).
With the increase of critics against Tifinagh, the scholars found that the only remedy was to adopt an already formed script for this Language.
Because of some historical and geographical considerations in North Africa, apart form Tifinagh, two scripts were selected for that. Aramean because it is the script of Arabic the language of Islam and all literate people in Morocco manipulate this script. This in addition to Latin script which is the script of the second language in Morocco, French.
Hence forth, scholars and experts work to reshape either Arabic or Latin script to fit Amazighe language. Throughout their study, these experts will judge which script can fit Amazighe language.
However, there were some people who refused to give up Tifinagh, the common script of Amazighe. They worked as well to show the linguistic abilities of this script by improving it.
M.A.TAIBIFrom the outset of this script Numidians paid attention to the form of the script. That is the aesthetic and the pragmatic aspect of the alphabet. They tried to make it simple and beautiful.
In the Numidic tombstones, the script was written either top down or right to left and without representing vowels. Archaeologists noticed that the script differed from a region to another along North Africa.
After the Roman Empire’s invasion of North Africa, the Numidic script went backward and was replaced by the Latin script. However, it remained useful in some areas. For instance, in the Touareg region: an Amazighe community that occupied a great part of North Africa, from parts of the Maghreb to black Africa. Nowadays, the scripts still exist in Libya, Algeria, Mali, Burkina, Nigeria and Chad.
The Touareg preserved Numidic scripts but in a simplified version. These ashes of Numidic scripts were used in very restricted fields like poetry and love letters in addition to decoration. The Touareg women used to draw some letters of these scripts as tattoos on their hands, faces and as drawings on the walls of their houses.
This simplified version of Numidic scripts was called Tifinagh. There are some people who think Tifinagh means “Phoenicians/ Punic letters”, which means that it is derived from the Punic script. “Ancient Berber is thought to have sprung off the Punic script roughly around the 6th century BC”(Lawrence 1996-2005).
Bouhjar(2004) says that:
« L’alphabet Tifinagh est très certainement d’origine Phonecienne - punique, comme la quasi-totalité des systèmes existants ». It means that, like many other writing systems, Tifinagh is certainly derived from the Punic script.
Whatever the origin of Tifinagh is, scholars agreed that it had disappeared around the 3rd century AD and was preserved by the Touaregs.
The Amazighe language was absent for a long period. North Africa underwent many changes. Here, one can mention the Vandal and the Byzantine invasion. In the 9th century, North Africa had to undergo the Islamic conquest. The coming of the new religion and the conversion of the Amazighe to Islam obliged them to neglect their language to learn Arabic, the language of the new religion. So, all literate Touareg men were literate in Arabic while the women, who remained unable to study Arabic, kept their script Tifinagh.
1200 years ago, the Amazighe language was revived again by the coming of the anti-caliphal Abadihit. The latter established a state in the central Maghreb and at this time the Amazighe language emerged in many writings and books.
In the 11th and 12th century, Amazighe language reappeared again in North Africa thanks the coming of the Almoravid dynasty. This latter unified Berber tribes that were distributed along African Sahara.
In this era, Amazighe writings started to appear once again. This was due to the effort of the leaders who believed in Islam as well as their origin and culture. Many books were written. For instance: Riwayat Al Achyakh that contains a large number of Amazigh sentences. Akidat Attawhid, and IbnToumart’s dictionary; Kitab Al Asmaa. This era was a glorious time for Amazighe literature (Lameen Souag).
From that time on, Amazighe writings could be found anywhere in North Africa. Even though they where rare and did not follow the same standards and principles, these writings had some importance.
In the late 60s, the Amazighe language broke into the field as a political issue. It was launched by Kabylian activists in Algeria. These people formed the first Berber Academy now called “Agraw n Imazighen” in Paris. Their project was to restore the Amazigh writing by forming a script from Tifinagh and the old Libyan script with some changes and additions.
After that, many Amazighe movements started to emerge. This was due to the work of the first activists who tried to make Amazighe community aware of their issue.
However, governments in Algeria and Morocco restricted the spreading of these Amazighe issue. So Tifinagh writing became a taboo. No one could write it publicly. However, It was used by some conscious students at the university in a very limited and hidden way.
A few years later, these movements found their way from Kabily to Morocco, then to Libya then became wide spread in the whole of North Africa. At the beginning, there was a hesitation about the final form of the script. There was no agreement between those movements on how Tifinagh should be written. Even if the difference between the available scripts was partial, it was still difficult to find a way out.
Another problem is that the script was linguistically unsatisfactory because it failed “to represent several marginally phonemic emphatic contrasts” (Souag).
With the increase of critics against Tifinagh, the scholars found that the only remedy was to adopt an already formed script for this Language.
Because of some historical and geographical considerations in North Africa, apart form Tifinagh, two scripts were selected for that. Aramean because it is the script of Arabic the language of Islam and all literate people in Morocco manipulate this script. This in addition to Latin script which is the script of the second language in Morocco, French.
Hence forth, scholars and experts work to reshape either Arabic or Latin script to fit Amazighe language. Throughout their study, these experts will judge which script can fit Amazighe language.
However, there were some people who refused to give up Tifinagh, the common script of Amazighe. They worked as well to show the linguistic abilities of this script by improving it.
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