Tifinagh is a Unicode block containing characters of the Tifinagh alphabet, used for writing Tuareg, Berber, and other languages of North Africa.
Tifinagh (Berber pronunciation: ; also written Tifinaɣ in the Berber
Latin alphabet
, ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ in Neo-Tifinagh, and تيفيناغ in the Berber
Arabic alphabet
) is a series of abjad and alphabetic scripts used to write Berber languages.
A modern derivate of the traditional script, known as Neo-Tifinagh, was introduced in the 20th century. A slightly modified version of the traditional script, called Tifinagh Ircam, is used in a number of Moroccan elementary schools in teaching the Berber language to children as well as a number of publications.
The word tifinagh is thought to be a Berberized feminine plural cognate of Punic, through the Berber feminine prefix ti- and Latin Punicus; thus tifinagh could possibly mean 「the
Phoenician
(letters)「 or 『the Punic letters』.