Yes, it is. It's written in the modernized Tifinagh alphabet.

The Tifinagh alphabet is the oldest alphabet used by Berbers (it dates back to the 6th century BC according to linguist Nait-Zerrad). Some people want to revive it. It was a Moroccan Berber who told me to use it. I used it for a few sentences, then I stopped.

The Latin script I'm using is the most widely used. Most Berber books are published in the Latin script.

This looks beautiful. Can you please send a link of the whole page written using this script.

Neron:

Here is an article about the brown bear (abubbaz aras):

http://incubator.wikimedia.org/...B4%B0%E2%B5%99

^^

CK:

I guess so... In 2010, I installed a new software developed by an Algerian authority in charge of developing the Berber language, and it was only then that I could see the characters on my computer.

My British friend later developed his own version of that program (allowing one to write not only Berber diacritics and Tifinagh but even the diacritics of other languages).

Here's the link (in French):

http://www.akufi.org/fr/tools/downloads.html

If some day the use of Tifinagh on the Internet becomes extensive, then we'll all have to use this script to write Berber. For now, the battle is still ongoing.

I'm working on the Berber version of Wikipedia, and the British friend has decided to make this version of Wikipedia available in both alphabets with some sort of an automatic conversion feature. I think that he made it work only for some articles though.

Thanks for the link.
I am using Firefox, and I have no problem seeing this properly (letters have its place in Unicode system).
I am sincerely impressed. I've just read that Gaddafi had banned this script from Libia. I have one question, regarding practice of writing this script, actually not the modernized variant, but in old times. There are a lot of round letters, how are they written by hand? In what, clay?
I had a theory that old Germanic runes (germanic,anglo-saxon,norse... futharh etc.) are with sharp edges (lines, almost without any round corner, let alone circle - since they used to carve letters in stones, usually. So it would be almost impossible to carve a circle. Some sort of practical aspects of using an alphabet. And this one must be done with some soft material. Isn't it?

Neron:

Thanks for your question.

The Tifinagh alphabet dates back to (at least) the 6th century BC, and, as far as I know, most of the inscriptions found in this alphabet (they're in thousands all over North Africa, including the Canary Islands) were engraved on rocks.

Regarding the circle letters, I think that they were generally engraved as squares. The circle letters are variants of square-shaped letters. They represent letter "R" (ⵔ - the "zero" letter) and letter "S" (ⵙ - the "zero with the dot in the middle").

As for the small circles, they represent dots in the engravings or in the handwritten form. When they decided to make the present-day Unicode fonts in the early 2000's, they chose to replace handwritten dots with small circles in order to avoid confusion with punctuation signs (periods, colons, semi-colons, etc.).

You have made a good observation by comparing the Germanic-Scandinavian runes to the Tifinagh alphabet and stating the reason why runes didn't have round shapes. I think that this made runes easier to write and since my ancertors had "corners" in their letters, it was more difficult, thus, slower to write in the Tifinagh alphabet.

Anyway, this alphabet still remains a strong symbol of the Berber identity. Many people still use it, many want to revive it (although efforts made in the Latin alphabet are much better than those made in Tifinagh), and the Tifinagh letters have always been present in our traditional pottery, tapestry, tattoos and house decoration.

^^

CK:

Honestly, I have no idea about which code is used for Berber written in Tifinagh or if there is any particular 3-letter code used for it.

Actually, and as far as I know, even "ber" is not used to refer to the Berber language in general. According to Wikipedia, it's the ISO code of what is considered by linguists as the "Berber languages" family (actually, most of them are only superficially interested in our language, they hardly know and study its structure and they are not interested in Berber sociolinguistcs and the current strong movement for its modernization, standardization and revival).

I asked Sysko to recognize Berber as a single language with a single ISO code using what ISO considers as a family of languages. Indeed, we, Berber-speakers, consider their language as one, even when mutual understanding is not so easy. Anyway, and scientifically, ALL Berber dialects are structurally very closely related and this view is strongly defended by eminent linguists like Salem Chaker (Algeria) or Miloud Taifi (Morocco), both local linguists and native speakers of Berber. This idea of considering Berber as a group of separate languages was rather popularized in the recent years by some local political groups advocating autonomy for some Berber-speaking groups that they consider "separate ethnic groups."

In addition to that, even the Algerian and the Moroccan governments refer to the some 15 Berber dialects spoken in their national territories as THE Berber language and not "Berber languages".

^^