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 European languages distinguish between the words "Berber" and "barbarian", while Arabic has the same word "al-Barbari" for both meanings. Some other Berber writers, especially in Morocco, prefer to refer to Berber with "Amazigh" when writing about it in French or English. Traditionally, the term "Tamazight" (in various forms: "Thamazighth", "Tamasheq", "Tamajaq", "Tamahaq") was used by many Berber groups to refer to the language they spoke, including the Middle Atlas, the Riffians, the Sened in Tunisia and the Tuareg. However, other terms were used by other groups; for instance, some Berber populations of Algeria called their language "Taznatit" (Zenati) or "Shelha",