Links

Tamajaq Language

Glottolog contains comprehensive reference information for Tawallammat Tamajaq (ttq) as well as other Tamashek and Berber languages.  The top of the page contains a classification tree to see where Tawallammat Tamajaq fits, in relation to other languages, and the bottom of the page has a long list of books written in or about the Tamajaq language.

Open Language Archives (OLAC) resources in and about the Tawallammat Tamajaq language.  Rather extensive list or resources. Unfortunately few of the links provided are links to easily accessible works.

Ethnologue page for Tamajaq, Tawallammat (ISO 639-3 designation ttq), a language of Niger.  This link is a webpage that describes the language.

Tamajaq Scripts

Roman (Latin) Script.  Like many other languages including English and French, Tamajaq can be written in Roman, also called Latin, script.  This page describes the Roman script.

Tifinagh Script.  Berber languages of North Africa, including Tamajaq, have a unique alphabet of their own with an interesting history and regional variations.  This ScriptSource.org page describes the Tifinagh script. For more resources on Tifinagh in ScriptSource use their search bar to search “Tifinagh.”

Writing Tuareg.  Abstract of International Journal of the Sociology of Language article by Andrew Savage on the three script options (Arabic, Roman, and Tifinagh) for writing the language of the Tuareg people. Note: access to the full article requires a subscription.

Tifinagh and Consonantal Writing Systems by Eugene Buckley.  A downloadable pdf of a brief but useful overview of Shifinagh.

Tamajaq Fonts & Keyboards

Tagmukay SIL Font.  This is one of the best resources available for people interested in using the Tamajaq language on computers and the internet.  Tagmukay is a freely downloadable Shifinagh font, but the page also has helpful information on how to use SIL fonts on the Web.

Font installation tips.  This is a pretty good description of how to install fonts on different systems. However, the description for Windows installation is outdated. To install a .ttf font in windows all you have to do is download it to your computer then right click on the .ttf file and choose install.  If you have multiple typefaces for the same font (like regular, bold, and italic) be sure to right click on each individually and choose install. Windows will group them under their common font name.

Keyman.  This is one of the most useful resources available, because even when you have a unicode font or a shifinagh font, keyboard access is not easy.  To avoid having to use Alt codes and symbol insertion techniques, install this freely downloadable keyboard mapping software .  After installing you still need a keyboard layout for Tamajaq Latin script and one for Tamajaq Shifinagh script. Search our website for the most recent recommended keyboard layout.

Keyman Developer.  If you want maximum ease of typing in Tamajaq, use this software to develop your own keyboard layout for Keyman Professional.

Clavier du Burkina.  This is a custom keyboard layout for Keyman that allows you type with the various Tamajaq language characters in Roman script. However, it is for other languages as well, so it is not optimized specifically for Tamajaq.  We’ll check to see if anyone has already done a layout specifically optimized for Tamajaq. If you know of one please let us know so we can post it.

Using SIL Fonts on Webpages.  Describes several options for using SIL Font on webpages, including browser based and server based solutions as well as google fonts.

Tamashek Languages & Other Languages

Some verb morphology features of Tadaksahak is a downloadable pdf of a paper written by Niels and Regula Christiansen discussing the Berber and Songhai aspects of voice changes in Tadaksahak verbs.