Berber orthography modern printed works is the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) standard, designed for phonemicity. Older systems from the colonial French era are still found in place names and personal names. The older colonial system showed marked influence from French, for instance writing as and as , and was inconsistent in marking many Berber sounds, for instance writing as a circumflex over the vowel, and often leaving emphatics unmarked. The Tifinagh script is the traditional script for written Berber; but Latin Script remains the predominant orthography for Berber literature for the general public in North Africa. Some Tamazight
Berber languages today. It was borrowed from Latin "barbari". The Latin word is also found in the Arabic designation for these populations, البربر ("al-Barbar"); see Names of the Berber people. Etymologically, the Berber root "M-Z-Ɣ" ("Mazigh") (singular noun: "Amazigh", feminine: "Tamazight") means "free man", "noble man", or "defender". The feminine "Tamazight" traditionally referred specifically to the Riffian and Central Atlas Tamazight languages. Many Berber linguists prefer to consider the term "Tamazight" as a pure Berber word to be used only in Berber text while using the European word "Berber/"Berbero"/"Berbère"" in European texts to follow the traditions of European writings about the Berbers.