I don't know a lot about the background, but there's politics
involved, apparently (but the issue is not new), and one contact
indicated that there were some prominent individuals committing their
own money to making this work. (Makes one wonder if Unicode encoding
of Tifinagh could benefit?)

My limited impression is that this is not intended as something like
a classic, but as something people would use. How that will turn out
in practice is another issue.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Gabriella F. Scelta <webmaster@...>
wrote:

> This seems like a fairly major development (especially to me who

has

> been wanting to learn it for some time now and is now thinking

about

> enrolling in moroccan primary school).
>
> Its especially interesting since i thought Tifinagh was 'on its way
> out' as scripts go. Its also interesting on a cultural level

because,

> at least historically, it seems that it was more of a 'female'

script

> since the men traditionally have gone to school to learn arabic.

(And

> i've noticed that learning things that are considered 'female' do

not

> usually take precedent.) Also, i've gotten the feeling that there

is a

> certain level of secrecy regarding the script and to make it

publicly

> available would be counter to that.
>
> I'm curious as to whether anyone knows why they decided this and

how it

> is being treated - my guess is that it might be treated more like

latin

> here - more of a classics type of educational element.
>
> On Thursday, October 2, 2003, at 12:08 PM, Don Osborn wrote:
>
> > The recent announcement by Morocco that Berber will be taught in
> > schools using the Tifinagh script* and an observation of Tifinagh
> > signs in parts of Algeria** make one wonder if this script is
> > enjoying something of a renaissance?
> >

[ . . . ]