Editing Tifinagh (section)

==Libyco-Berber==
{{Main|Libyco-Berber alphabet}}
Before or during the existence of the ancient Berber kingdoms of [[Numidia]] (northern Algeria) and [[Mauretania]] (northern Morocco), between 202 BCE–25 BCE, many inscriptions were engraved using the [[Libyco-Berber script]], also known as Ancient Libyan ({{langx|fr|libyque}}). The Libyco-Berber script is found in thousands of stone inscriptions and engravings throughout Morocco, northern Algeria, Tunisia, northern Libya and the Canary Islands.

The exact evolution of both Libyco-Berber and Tifinagh is still unclear.<ref name="google60">{{cite book|title=Writing and Ancient Near East Society: Essays in Honor of Alan Millard|year=2005|publisher=T.& T.Clark Ltd|isbn=9780567026910|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hdNf33JBS8sC&q=%22Libyco-Berber%22+Tifinagh&pg=PA60|author=M.C.A. MacDonald|editor=Elizabeth A. Slater, C.B. Mee and Piotr Bienkowski|page=60}}</ref> The latter writing system was widely used in antiquity by speakers of the largely undeciphered [[Numidian language]], also called Old Libyan, throughout Africa and on the [[Canary Islands]]. The script's origin is uncertain, with some scholars suggesting it is related to, descended or developed from the [[Phoenician alphabet]]<ref name="centrederechercheberbere.fr"/> while others argue an independent conception with slight Phoenician influences.<ref name=":14">{{cite book|last=Suleiman|first=Yasir|title=Language and Identity in the Middle East and North Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1stXcN-v0JUC&pg=PA173|year=1996|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-7007-0410-1|page=173}}</ref> Its first appearance is also uncertain, but it is no older than the first millennium BCE,<ref>Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, p. 129</ref> with the oldest remains likely originating from the 6th century BCE.<ref>Written Culture in a Colonial Context: Africa and the Americas 1500 – 1900, p. 11</ref> It disappeared in the northernmost areas of North Africa during the 8th century, after the [[Muslim conquest of the Maghreb|Arab conquest of the Maghreb]], Libyco-Berber along with Latin being replaced by the Arabic script.<ref name=":15">Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past: Essays in Honour of Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, p. 185</ref>

The Libyco-Berber script was a pure [[abjad]]; it had no vowels. [[Gemination]] was not marked. The writing was usually from the bottom to the top, although right-to-left, and even other orders, were also found. The letters took different forms when written vertically than when they were written horizontally.<ref name=ancient>{{cite web |url=http://www.ancientscripts.com/berber.html |title=Berber |publisher=Ancient Scripts |access-date=2017-10-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170826045645/http://www.ancientscripts.com/berber.html |archive-date=2017-08-26 }}</ref>

This ''libyque'' script had two forms. The undeciphered Western form was used along the Mediterranean coast from Kabylia to Morocco and probably the Canary Islands. The Eastern form was used in Constantine, Aurès, and Tunisia. 22 out of 24 letters in the Eastern form have been deciphered thanks to Punic-Libyc bilingual inscriptions.<ref name=:0/>