Tifinagh
The geometric script of the Amazigh (Berber) world — one of the oldest letters in Africa, given a single modern standard in 2003.
Curatorial note
Tifinagh is at once one of the oldest scripts still in use and one of the newest standards. Its ancestor, Libyco-Berber, is known from stone inscriptions scattered across North Africa from the 3rd century BCE — a consonantal alphabet whose own origins are debated, with likely influence from Phoenician and Punic, the language of nearby Carthage.
Among the Tuareg of the Sahara the script never fully died: it was kept alive for personal notes, jewellery, and rock inscriptions long after it faded elsewhere. In 2001–2003 the Moroccan IRCAM — the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture — drew the many regional forms into a single standard, Neo-Tifinagh, adding full vowel letters and giving Amazigh an official script of its own.
Among the oldest letters in Africa, given their newest shape in 2003.
Neo-Tifinagh is now used on public signage and taught in Moroccan schools. Its letterforms are strikingly geometric — circles, dots, crosses and lines. The Libyco-Berber ancestry is genuinely debated; the descent diagram in the Hall of Lineages records the link without resolving it.
Ancient letters, a modern standard
Geometry: circles, dots, and linesThe Neo-Tifinagh letters
The IRCAM standard · left to rightMost letter names follow the pattern "ya-" + the consonant (yab, yag, yad …). The three vowels ⴰ ⵉ ⵓ and ⴻ are a Neo-Tifinagh addition to what was historically a consonant-only script. The labialised ⴳⵯ / ⴽⵯ are consonant + labializer combinations.
Specimen — Noto Sans Tifinagh
Waterfall on baseline gridIn the building
In the Reading Room
A Standard for the Amazigh
How a script known from 3rd-century-BCE stone and kept alive by the Tuareg was drawn into a single modern alphabet — and put on Moroccan road signs.
Plaque sources: The Unicode Standard (Tifinagh block) · ISO 15924 (Tfng · 120) · IRCAM Neo-Tifinagh standard · studies of Libyco-Berber epigraphy · ScriptSource (SIL). Libyco-Berber ancestry is debated; letter names and sounds follow the IRCAM convention. Compiled 2026-07.