History[edit]
The Berber languages were originally written using the ancient Libyco-Berber script and then centuries later by the Tuareg Tifinagh script in Tuareg language areas, of which the Neo-Tifinagh alphabet/abjad is the modern development.
The use of a Latin script for Berber has its roots in European (French and Italian) colonial expeditions to North Africa.[1] Dictionaries and glossaries written with Latin letters, ordered alphabetically and following European orthography (mainly French) began to appear in print in the 19th century, they were intended to the colonial administration, traders and military officers.[1] With the arrival of linguists specialized in Semitic languages there emerged a system based on Semitic romanization conventions:[1] diacritics were used, and dictionary entries were now ordered by root. This system has since become the most common way of Berber transcription in scientific documents and literature.[1]
Various writing standards were used since the 19th century, some are phonetically oriented, other phonologically oriented. While the Tuareg languages use a phonetically oriented transcription, the northern Berber languages use on the other hand a mixed transcription, the latter is recommended by the French institute of languages, INALCO and has been adopted by the HCA in Algeria and IRCAM in Morocco (although in Neo-Tifinagh).[1]
The Berber Latin alphabet of Northern-Berber usually consists of 34 letters:
In Northern-Berber texts, foreign words and names are written in their original form even if they contain the letters: O, P, V, or any other non-Berber letter (like: Ü, ẞ, Å, ...). According to SIL, the letter P is used in Kabyle.