Tarifit, like other Amazigh languages, can be written in Tifinagh, Arabic, or Latin scripts. For this course, I’ve chosen to use a version of the Latin-Berber alphabet (🔗).

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To write in Tamazight, you need special software to run on your device. Most phone OS’s come with Tamazight keyboard settings. Go to settings, keyboard and add either a Tamazight language (usually Kabyle). On Windows/Mac, Tamazight keyboard languages should also be available.

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Course writing system overview

This course Transcript	IPA (click to listen)	Commonly written as	Arabic equivalent	Sounds like
a	/æ/, /ɛ/ or /ɑ/	a	ا	default: a in and or e in end
emphatic: a in car
i	/ɪ/	i	ي	i in pit
u	/ʊ/, /ɔ/	ou, o	و	default: close to u in put
empathic: o in ****more
e	/ə/	e, a	-	Similar to -uh in duh
b	/b/	b	ب	b in bed
b̲	/β/	b, v	-	Soft Spanish b
d	/d/	d	د	d in done
ḏ	/ð/	dh	ذ	th in this
ḍ		d	ض	d pronounced lower in back of mouth
ḏ̣	/ðˤ/	dh	ظ	a ḏ but ****pronounced lower in back of mouth
ǧ	/ʤ/	dj	ج	j in joke
f	/f/	f	ف	f in fun
g	/g/	g	گ	g in gold
ggʷ	/g:w/	gw	-	the gw- in Gwen
ɣ	/ɣ/	gh	غ	French r
h	/h/	h	هـ	h in hello
ḥ	/ħ/	7	ح	Arabic ḥ
x	/x/	kh	خ	German ch in Nacht
j	/ʒ/	j	ج	j in deja-vu
k	/k/	k	ك	k in kind
ḵ	/ç/	-	-	a softer k sound
kkʷ	/k:w/	kw	-	the qu- in quick
l	/l/	l	ل	l in long
m	/m/	m	م	m in map
n	/n/	n	ن	n in net
p	/p/	p	-	p in pan
q	/q/	9	ق	Similar to k, but deeper in the throat
r	/ɾ/	r	-	Soft rolling r
ṛ	/rˤ/	r	ر	Spanish r pronounced lower in back of mouth
ř	/r/	r	ر	hard rolling r
s	/s/	s	س	s in seed
ṣ	/sˤ/	s	ص	s pronounced lower in back of mouth
c	/ʃ/	ch, sh	ش	sh in ship
t	/t/	t	ت	t in tin
t̲*	/θ/	th	ث	th in thin
ṭ	/tˤ/	t	ط	t pronounced lower in back of mouth
tc (č)	/tʃ/	tch	تش	ch in China
w	/w/	w	وْ	w in water
y	/j/	y	يْ	y in yes
z	/z/	z	ز	z in zoo
ẓ	/zˤ/	z	ژ	z pronounced lower in back of mouth
ɛ	/ʕ/	3	ع	Arabic ‘Ayn
‘	/ʔ/	2	ء	Glottal stop, the break in the expression “uh-oh”

R-forms

This course Transcript	IPA (click to listen)
-ār	/a/
-ar	/æ/
-uār	/wa/
-yār	/ja/
-ař	/ɛ:r/

Why these letters?

Although there is a semi-standard common writing style unofficially used across the internet (see the third column in the table above), it is not an ideal way of writing for this Tarifit course, for the following reasons:

In Tarifit many letters are doubled, for example “dd” and “tt”. This does not only happen for letters that are only one character like “d”, “b” or “t”, but also for letters commonly written as “kh”, “gh”, “ch”. This means some words, such as “smoke”, would be written as “dekhkhan”. As this makes sentences unnecessarily long and hard to read, we write a single character per sound made. Since “kh” is one sound, the character “x” is used as a single character to represent it (it’s also the IPA character used for it). The letter “tc” is an exception, because it is rarely doubled, but if it is, ‘č’ can be used. This applies to the letters: ɣ , x , c , ǧ.
Spirantalized letters like “th”, “dh” and soft “b”, are also shortened to one character for the same reason as above by adding a line below the letter: t̲ , ḏ , b̲.
Some letters are written as numbers like: “7”, “3” and “9”. In this course all letters are represented by letters, not numbers. Numbers are only used to represent numbers. Instead of the numbers above we will use: ḥ , ɛ , q.

Now let’s take a closer look at the letters and their characteristic to ensure you can properly read and write them in context.

Writing vowels

Tarifit has three full vowels: a, i, u. And one neutral vowel: e.

The neutral vowel is more special, and we will come to it in a bit. First let’s deal with the full vowels.