ancient berber & tifinagh (written tuareg)

[cimorene]

Tuareg or Tamasheq is the most common variety of Berber (or Tamazight, a term for the language group which is gaining ground over "Berber", which was borrowed from Arabic in the middle ages and bears no relation to the native terms). Tuareg is spoken by the Tuareg in approximately the middle third of the protruding Western part of northern Africa, between Algeria (N)/ Niger (S)/ Mali (SW)/ Libya (NE). Arabic script has been used to write Tuareg for a couple of thousand years now, but the consonantal alphabet of Ancient Berber - derived from Phoenician! - survived by some strange miracle, and a recognisable descendant of it is still used by the Tuareg colloquially (not for formal writing). Check out the awesome.