Boulifa was born around 1865 in Adni village in the Irjen tribe, within the Kabyle tribal confederation of At Iraten in Greater Kabylia.
[1][3][4] This combination of circumstances will be decisive for the rest of his life since he quickly committed to the career of teacher, the only way of promotion that could then be offered to a young Kabyle of modest origin.
From 1890, he started instructing Kabyle lessons at the École Normale Supérieure de Bouzaréah, then after an internship in 1895 at the same institution he became an instituteur adjoint[1].
[3] In his will, dated 20 October 1914, Boulifa presents himself as a "professor of Berber" at the École Normale and the Faculty of Letters of Algiers, which suggests that he was able to reach the rank of Lecturer of the University.
And he took his pedagogical function very seriously as he developed the first complete teaching method of Kabyle, founded, several decades in advance, on the principles of the direct language pedagogy.