THE TIFINAGH
The Berber alphabet from A to 
By Rachid RIDOUANE ZIRI
What is the origin of this alphabet?
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The ancestors of the Berbers, the Libyans – a word which comes from “Libou” which is what the Egyptians used to call them – were using an alphabet when most other peoples did not have or use, anything more than hieroglyphic systems or at most, syllable-forms. The question thus arises of where the Berbers got their alphabet. Some are tempted to see in this question an implicit insinuation that nothing, or almost nothing, is typically Amazigh or of North African origin. But what if it was a Berber invention? The Amazigh people, especially of Morocco, much exercised by this long-running quest for an external origin for everything that relates to the Berbers, have developed a thesis which is often cited as validating the indigenous origin of this alphabet. For them, Tifinagh is a word made up of “Tifi” which means a find, or discovery, and the possessive adjective “nnagh” which means “ours”. So Tifinagh means “our find” or “our discovery”. This simplistic and very probably erroneous analysis does not take account of the regional variations and of the evolution of the Amazigh language; the Berber of 2500 years ago is certainly not the same as the language spoken today by the Chleuh or the Kabyle. We outline below the other theories which are most often put forward.
Unknown origin?
Quoted by Prasse (1972), Cohen in “The great invention of writing and its evolution” (1958) concluded that the origin of the Tifinagh alphabet remained unknown. According to him, all the attempts to derive it from Egyptian hieroglyphics, from South Arabian alphabets, from Greek, Iberian, or even Phoenician, had failed to produce decisive proof.
Phoenician origin?
According to Hanoteau, the very name of the Amazigh alphabet reveals its Phoenician origin. “Tifinagh” is a feminine plural noun of which the singular would be “tafniqt”: the Phoenician woman.
This hypothesis is broadly shared by Berber experts. Thus for Salem Chaker (1984) “The Tifinagh alphabet is very definitely of Phoenician origin, like almost all the existing alphabetic systems.” Several reasons led Chaker to the view that the Tifinagh alphabet was of Punic origin:
- The name Tifinagh: this word comes from the root /fnq/ which is the Semitic indicator for the Phoenicians. The shift between /q and/gh is a structural variation very commonly found in the Berber language – as in the case when the intensive [=strong] form of a word is constructed: for example “negh” --- “neqqa” [meaning] “to kill”.
- The use of Tifinagh developed in the regions of North Africa which experienced Punic [Phoenician] influence.
- The original orientation [of the script] was abandoned in favour of a Punic writing-style (ie horizontal from right to left replaced the ‘flowing’ vertically downward alignment).
- There is no pre-alphabetic tradition which would permit anyone to envisage seriously the hypothesis of indigenous native formation [of the alphabet].
Indigenous origin, with Punic influence?
Ch Higounet (1986) reckons that the Amazighs would only have borrowed from the Carthaginians the principle of a written alphabet: as for the characters, some would have been borrowed, and others drawn from a local reservoir of symbolic signs.