Tifinagh is the traditional Tuareg writing system used in parts of the Sahara. It belongs to the broader family of scripts associated with Amazigh, or Berber, languages.
Tuareg communities have used Tifinagh especially for short inscriptions, names, symbols and personal communication. The script’s letter shapes are distinctive, with many geometric forms. Traditional forms were often written without the same full vowel notation expected in many modern alphabets.
A standardized modern version called Neo-Tifinagh was developed for writing Amazigh languages in education and publishing. Morocco officially adopted Tifinagh for standard Amazigh writing in the early twenty-first century, while traditional Tuareg forms remain important in cultural identity across Sahara regions.
Tifinagh is not an Arabic script, although many Saharan languages have also been written with Arabic letters. It should likewise not be confused with N’Ko, a separate West African script created for Mande languages.