THE TIFINAGH
T
ifinagh, ancestral language, still engraved in memory and in the stones burned by the sun… Dassine, the Touareg poetess, speaks of it thus:
“Our own writing, in the Ahaggar, is the script of nomads because it is all in the form of ‘sticks’ [=little lines] which represent the legs of all our flocks. They are the legs of men, of camels, zebu, gazelles, of all those who roam the desert. Then the crosses say whether you need to go right or left, and the dots, well, there are lots of dots. They are the stars which guide us at night because we, the dwellers in the desert, we only know the route, the route which has as its guide in turn the sun and the stars. We begin [the journey] from our own heart, and we move around it in ever-increasing circles in order to draw other hearts into a circle of life, just as the horizon draws a circle around your flock and you yourself.”
Dassine, Touareg poetess
Tifinagh alphabet
