Tifinagh

Tifinagh ( proper name ⵜ ⵉ ⴼ ⵉ ⵏ ⴰ ⵖ - Tifinaɣ, also Tifinar ) is the name of the font of the Tuareg. It is of Berber origin and evolved from the Libyan script, which in turn were most likely modeled after the Phoenician alphabet. Whether the name is actually a " letter of the Phoenicians " translate, must remain undecided. Short inscriptions can already be found on the BC rock art of the Sahara, which is not clear whether the characters were added later. The Tuareg lead as the "inventor " of their writing on a mythical hero named Aniguran or Amamellen.

General

The alphabet is depending on the region from 21 to 27 geometric characters. Vowels and word division are missing, and the word direction is not fixed. That is, from top to bottom, right to left or vice versa can be written. This makes the writing very hard to read. The right-to- left, however, has come to be, probably under the influence of Arabic, which is also written in this direction.

Contrary to popular belief, the Tifinagh was never used for writing longer texts. Known from the pre-colonial period texts consist mostly of only short inscriptions on rocks ( name or messages ) and name and formulaic blessings on leather amulets or jewelery. Especially the blades of the famous Tuareg swords were often decorated with Tifinagh characters that should bring the warrior luck. In Morocco, Tifinagh characters are traditionally painted for magical purposes with henna or other dyes to the skin. In newborns, they are evil spirits and envious people and their " evil eye " render harmless.

A literature that was written in Tifinagh, there has not been. The layers formed at the Tuareg, the " Inislimen ( men of Islam) ", since the Middle Ages used the Arabic script. The chronicles of the individual Tuareg or Berber confederations, such as the "Chronicle of Agadez ," were not written in Tifinagh, even if they were written in a Berber language and the phonemes of the Berber Arabic characters did not always match. Tuareg princes, who himself did not speak Arabic, in their vicinity were always a literate man, usually a marabout, the correspondence with other Tuareg groups or with Arabic, Moorish, or - as in the late 19th century - Ottoman addressees ( in Murzuq or Tripoli) - led.

One of the famous myths that have grown up around the culture of the Tuareg, stating that the mothers who taught their children traditional font. In fact, it is, at best, the generalization of exceptional cases. Most Tuareg were illiterate, the written communication was at best Arabic. Only in the noble clans, where the women were not used to the heavy physical work, such mediation traditional knowledge took place. The two African explorer Heinrich Barth and Henri Duveyrier who lived 1850-1860 for a long time among the Tuareg and were able to explore the daily life exactly know nothing of such a Tifinagh lessons. Both would certainly be reported as they occurred without bias towards the desert nomads and were at pains to paint a positive picture as possible of this people. The myth of the mothers who teach their children the Tifinagh, was built in the 20th century, given the widespread belief that Tuareg society is dominated matriarchal, and in the light of such an interpretation, it made sense when the mothers, ie women, were portrayed as almost priestly guardians of " ancient " traditions.

Recent Developments

At least the children of the noble clans learned the Scriptures from their mothers, but this custom has long been on the wane since the Tifinagh is no longer needed in the face of Arabic, but also of French. Longer texts are not already written in this document. Early 1970s developed a Targi from Timbuktu a modified script that should fix some of the biggest shortcomings of the Tifinagh: The writing direction was from right to left, words were clearly separated, and the vowels were now called. Despite this modernization has become the Tifinagh -n- Azzaman, the "renewed Tifinagh ", can only be enforced in a circle traditionalist Tuareg. Given the same time onset of drought, the already rapid disintegration of the traditional Tuareg culture was only accelerated, and governments, which was keen to make the nomads possibly also forcibly settled, they had no need to encourage the dissemination of a font, which was able to increase self- awareness of the Tuareg and to support their demand for independence. Only in Niger, the government adopted regardless of the nomads and printed up in the 1990s, official pronouncements in Tifinagh, the costs were mostly taken over by foreign sponsors or charities for this. Whether these publications could be read by the majority of Tuareg at all, must be questioned.

In colonial times, some efforts have been made by the French side, not to let the Tuareg font extinct. Officers and colonial officials that are enthusiastic for the culture of the Sahara nomads who collected legends, fairy tales and songs and had them recorded by literate Tuareg Tifinagh, but would the majority of the nomads not been able to read a coherent text in its traditional font. Their literature was transmitted orally. There were even cases where Christian missionaries wrote Bible texts in Tifinagh, their efforts were met with the Muslim Tuareg with little enthusiasm. Also, translations of works of European literature - such as the Little Prince by Saint- Exupéry - remained a rarity, not to mention, a curiosity.

The German ethnologist Herbert Kaufmann reported in the 1950s that, especially in Mali, Tuareg children summarized in the hinterland of Timbuktu in boarding schools and there by black assistant teachers ( " moniteurs " ) were taught. This was not only drummed into them that they are nomads, the most primitive of all the people were, but they were also the use of their mother tongue and traditional writing strictly prohibited. After the withdrawal of the French, this variety of educational policies exacerbated even further and was one of the causes of the violent conflict between the black African elite of the country and the Tuareg.

At the end of the 1960s, mainly Algerian Berber origin intellectuals joined in Paris to a " Académie Berbère " together, their main concern was the preservation of Berber cultural traditions in the face of Arab dominance and the associated Arabization of their homeland. The members of this movement were primarily members of the Kabyle - people from the north of Algeria. Tuaregs were among the " Académie Berbère " not to. One of the means by which they wanted to revive a 'self-confidence " Mazighen " as they called themselves, was the acquisition of altberberischen font for their literary works. To increase readability, they developed a modernized version of Tifinagh, which they called " tifinagh tiynayin ", internationally known as " Neo - Tifinagh ". For this purpose, your own characters were added invented to denote the vowels and consonants express that did not occur in Berber, but for example for non- Berber names and terms - such as from the Arab or European languages ​​- were needed. Nico van den Boogert writes: " The result is a font that looks the traditional Tifinagh similar, but in reality for literate Tuareg is completely incomprehensible. " This neo- Tifinagh is more an expression of cultural identity as a means of written communication. There are few publishers who are typographically able to publish books in Neo - Tifinagh. A certain celebrity have obtained the works of living in France Tuareg poet Hawad, which has further developed the Neo - Tifinagh a kind of calligraphy and speaking also French readers will find encouragement.

In Morocco, a similar development in the Schlöh Berbers shows (also called Schluh or Shilha ), the. Their language, Tashelhiyt, use, increasingly, Tifinagh characters, in order to emphasize their cultural identity as Amazighen Within a few decades a major shift has also taken place in the acceptance: the use of the Scriptures in the 1980s and 1990s was not published under penalty, Tifinagh is now even taught in schools and is found again and again in the streets of Moroccan cities.

Representation in Unicode

Tifinagh Version 4.1 of Unicode in the range U 2 D30 -U 2 D7F is encoded (see Unicode block Tifinagh ). It 55 characters have been defined, so are not all the characters displayed in Unicode. In the ISO 15924 Neo - Tifinagh, the language code Tfng was assigned. The language of the Tuareg called Tamashek.

Transcription of Tifinagh image characters: