Berber Latin alphabet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Berber Latin alphabet is the version of the Latin alphabet commonly used to write Northern Berber languages. It uses the 23 standard letters, 7 modified letters and borrows 2 letters from the Greek alphabet. In the interests of pan-dialectal legibility, it omits the partly phonemic contrast found in some Berber languages (notably Kabyle and Tarifit) between stops and fricatives. Note that the Tuaregs of Mali and Niger, when writing in Latin, use a different official orthography, in which, for example, the schwa is represented by ə rather than e.
Some details of the orthography remain in flux; however, the version below has been widely used, particularly in Kabyle publishing, for over a decade.
Contents |
[edit] Standard Latin letters
(To display Tifinagh letters, install IRCAM's font.)
| Berber Latin letter | Tifinagh (IRCAM) equivalent | Similar English sound |
| A | ⴰ | a like in bad |
| B | ⴱ | b/p/v |
| C | ⵛ | sh like in sheet |
| D | ⴷ | d or th like in brother |
| E | ⴻ | like in children |
| F | ⴼ | f |
| G | ⴳ | g like in gate or Greek gh |
| H | ⵀ | h like in hello |
| I | ⵉ | ee like in sheet |
| J | ⵊ | like in confusion |
| K | ⴽ | k or German ch as in ich |
| L | ⵍ | l |
| M | ⵎ | m |
| N | ⵏ | n |
| Q | ⵇ | like Arabic qaf (no English equivalent) |
| R | ⵔ | r |
| S | ⵙ | s |
| T | ⵜ | t or th like in bath |
| U | ⵓ | u like in loose |
| W | ⵡ | w |
| X | ⵅ | Spanish j, German ch |
| Y | ⵢ | y |
| Z | ⵣ | z |
[edit] Modified Latin letters and 2 Greek characters
| Letter | Tifinagh (IRCAM) | Sound |
| č | ⵛ | ch like in chocolate |
| ḍ | ⴹ | emphatic d |
| ğ | ⴵ | like in John |
| ḥ | ⵃ | like in Arabic Muḥammad (no English equivalent) Sound sample |
| ṣ | ⵚ | emphatic s |
| ṭ | ⵟ | emphatic t |
| ẓ | ⵥ | emphatic z |
| ε | ⵄ | like Arabic `ayn (no English equivalent) |
| γ | ⵖ | French/German r |
[edit] Other phenomena
For Kabyle:
- tt=ts
- zz=dz
[edit] Bibliography
- Kamal Nait-Zerrad. Grammaire moderne du kabyle, tajerrumt tatrart n teqbaylit. Editions KARTHALA, 2001. ISBN 978-2-84586-172-5
