Berber Academy

The Berber Academy (French: Academie Berbere) is a cultural association founded in 1966 by Mohand Arav Bessaoud and a group of young Kabyles, including Ramdane Haifi. This group consisted of intellectuals, artists and journalists, all eager to put the Tifinagh in use. Fearing misuse of the term "academy", they renamed the association Agraw Imaziγen (Berber Assembly) in 1967. This was dissolved in 1978.

Berber alphabet standard

The Academy proposed a Berber alphabet standard on the basis of Tifinagh circulated in Morocco and Algeria - among them Kabyles, Tuaregs, and Riffians - in order to revive old writing of several millennia, and transcribe all Berber dialects. Periodically, and often in Tifinagh, the organization published the journal Imazighen.

The academy also proposed the design of the Berber flag.

Bibliography

• Aghali-Zakara, Mohamed (1994). Graphèmes berbères et dilemme de diffusion: Interaction des alphabets latin, ajami et tifinagh. Etudes et Documents Berbères 11, 107-121.
• Aghali-Zakara, Mohamed; and Drouin, Jeanine (1977). Recherches sur les Tifinaghs- Eléments graphiques et sociolinguistiques. Comptes-rendus du Groupe Linguistique des Etudes Chamito-Sémitiques (GLECS).
• Ameur, Meftaha (1994). Diversité des transcriptions : pour une notation usuelle et normalisée de la langue berbère. Etudes et Documents Berbères 11, 25–28.