Berber orthography Berber orthography Berber orthography is the writing system(s) used to transcribe the Berber languages. In antiquity, the Libyco-Berber script (Tifinagh) was utilized to write Berber. Early uses of the script have been found on rock art and in various sepulchres. Following the spread of Islam, some Berber scholars also utilized the Arabic script. There are now three writing systems in use for Berber languages: Tifinagh (Libyco-Berber), the Arabic script, and the Berber Latin alphabet. Different groups in North Africa have different preferences of writing system, often motivated by ideology and politics. Neo-Tifinagh, a resurrected version of an alphabetic script found
Berber languages Oasis of Egypt. Large Berber-speaking migrant communities, today numbering about 4 million, have been living in Western Europe, spanning over three generations, since the 1950s. The number of Berber people is much higher than the number of Berber speakers. The bulk of the populations of the Maghreb countries are considered to have Berber ancestors. Around 90% of the Berber-speaking population speak one of seven major varieties of Berber, each with at least 2 million speakers. They are, in order of number of speakers: Shilha ("Tacelḥit/Tasussit"), Kabyle ("Taqbaylit"), Central Atlas Tamazight ("Tamaziɣt"), Riffian (internal:"Tmaziɣt, external:Tarifit"), Shawiya ("Tacawit") and Tuareg ("Tamaceq/Tamajaq/Tamahaq"). The