Berber orthography

[4] Neo-Tifinagh,[nb 1] a resurrected version of an alphabetic script found in historical engravings, is the de jure writing system for Tamazight in Morocco.

[10] Tifinagh was chosen to be official after consideration of its univocity (one sound per symbol, allowing regional variation[11]), economy, consistency, and historicity.

[8] The Moroccan state arrested and imprisoned people using this script during the 1980s and the 1990s,[16] but now Morocco is the only country in which Tifinagh has official status.

[17] A standard transcription for the Kabyle language was established in 1970, and most other Northern Berber dialects have to varying extents published literature in the Latin alphabet.

[17] The Latin alphabet has been preferred among Amazigh linguists and researchers, and also has a great deal of established writing, including newspapers, periodicals, and magazines.

[20] The orthography used in most modern printed works is the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) standard, designed for phonemicity.

[17] Tifinagh is the traditional script for written Berber, but Latin remains the predominant orthography for literature aimed at the general public in North Africa.

[22][23] Amazigh activists, however, eschew the Arabic script, which is generally unpopular among Berbers who believe it is symptomatic of the pan-Arabist views of North African governments.

The vowels signs fatḥah or kasrah represent a phonemic shwa /ə/ which was lost in the post-medieval language, e.g. tuwərmin ⟨tūwarmīn⟩ (تووَرمين‎) “joints, articulation”.

The way in which Tashelhiyt has been written in the Arabic script during the past centuries is very consistent, to the extent that it is possible to talk about “a conventionalized orthography”.

This premodern orthography has remained virtually unchanged since at least the end of the 16th century, and is still used today in circles of traditional Islamic scholars (ṭṭlba).

Consonants ṛ and ḷ, which bear a minimal functional load, are not distinguished in the spelling from r and l. Texts are always fully vocalized, with a, i and u written with the vowel signs fatḥah, kasrah, and ḍammah.

The Arabic waṣl spellings are often “mirrored” and used to write word-initial vowels, e.g. ayyur ula tafukt ⟨ayyur(u) ulatafukt⟩ “the moon as well as the sun”.