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Re: Tolkien's elfish script (was: Re: demuan identifiers

From:Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...>
Date:Saturday, September 4, 1999, 20:06
On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, BP Jonsson wrote:

> > WRT Abjad scripts: I know of at least four more still in use beside Arabic > and Hebrew, namely Syriac (two versions there), Samaritan, Mandaean and > Pitman's shorthand(!) I don't know if Tifinagh is Abjad or alphabetic, nor > if it is still in use, but being derived from Carthaginian Phoenician it is > at least an Abjad candidate (altho late Carthaginian Phoenician wasn't
A few years ago Berber immigrants in the Netherlands put out a diary in Tifinagh - so it's still in use, even though it is actively discouraged in Morocco, and, I believe, Tunesia. I'm sure Daniels has a section on it (fx - walking upstairs to get the tome, yes, he has. 112-116). He spells it Tifinigh, It is related to southern Semitic, probably Punic. The present-day Tuareg use it 'for playful purposes, for love letters, family notes and domestic ornamentation' (115). The prefix ti- is a feminine marker, while finigh is derived of the 'Punicus', Phoenician. No doubt my copy of the diary will surface when we move house. Boudewijn Rempt | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt