Berber Latin alphabet

This article is about the Latin transcription of Berber. For the oldest Berber alphabet, see Tifinagh; for other alphabets used to write Berber, see Arabic alphabet and Hebrew alphabet.

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.

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

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)
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

Other phenomena

For Kabyle:

• tt=ts
• zz=dz

Bibliography

• Kamal Nait-Zerrad. Grammaire moderne du kabyle, tajerrumt tatrart n teqbaylit. Editions KARTHALA, 2001. ISBN: 2-84586-172-9

See also

• Alphabets derived from the Latin
• Tifinagh