Tifinagh: some ligatures seem erroneous

[digitalheir]

Defect Report

The font for Tifinagh generally adhered to IRCAM definition for monographs. There are some ligatures defined, which (as far as I know) are only used among Tuareg dialects, and not for the IRCAM Neo-Tifinagh. In #2 I have explained why I think there should maybe be a separate font for Tuareg writing separating all different the nuances between Tamazight and Tuareg writing. But to describe all my gripes with the current design choices would be outside the scope of that issue. I don't know exactly where the font designer has glossed the ligatures in the Tifinagh font, but there are some ligatures which I find extremely puzzling.

Title

Tifinagh: some ligatures seem erroneous

Font

NotoSansTifinagh-hinted.zip

Where the font came from, and when

https://noto-website-2.storage.googleapis.com/pkgs/NotoSansTifinagh-hinted.zip
23-11-2019

Font Version

2.000;GOOG;noto-source:20170915:90ef993387c0; ttfautohint (v1.7)

OS name and version

Any

Application name and version

Any

Issue

The document Inventaire des œils de la police pan-berbère Hapax Berbère seems to be the most comprehensive list of quasi-standard characters on the internet. Noto implements the charts inconsistently and sometimes seemingly erroneously.

Character data

yanf

ⵏ+ⴼ = ⵏ ⵿ⴼ

I can't gloss this shape. It seems to just be a rotated version of yaf and not a ligature.

Document above shows:

Maybe it's a rotated variant of this in IRCAM style? Hm. I think this is a weird candidate for encoding ligatures, because it looks so much like yaf and Tifinagh has a history of writing LTR, RTL and bottom to top, with glyphs rotated and mirrored in all possible manners.

yanẓ

ⵏ+ⵌ = ⵏ ⵿ⵌ

Second character seems to be wrong. Document above lists 'yant'. Should be:

ⵏ+ⵜ = ⵏ ⵿ⵜ

Note that 'yant' is already encoded in the font with a ligature that looks like T (which is also correct). I personally do not like the T-shape, because it is not so obvious that is is a ligature of ⵏ and ⵜ.

yans

ⵏ+ⵙ = ⵏ ⵿ⵙ

Maybe this one is just artistic? Looks cool, but can't find gloss.

yanz

ⵏ+ⵤ = ⵏ ⵿ⵤ

Seems to be the wrong shape. Document above lists:

yats

ⵜ+ⵙ = ⵜ ⵿ⵙ

Oddly unfamiliar shape. Native speaker Madi Mohammed in L2/03-076 has this as yep for /p/, seemingly a regional variant of "ⵒ", which makes more sense if you look at the shape of the glyph.

Screenshot

From L2003:

[digitalheir]

Additionally, Wikipedia has the following bit:

(Strangely not providing an image of these ligatures.)

Noto might want to support all these ligatures as well.

(Are these only Kabyle-Berber? For the sake of pan-dialectual legibility the INALCO standard omits them as letters; Tira n Tmaziɣt, 1996, pp. 7–8.)

ⵜ ⵿ⵙ yaţ
ⴷ ⵿ⵣ yaz̧

ⵜ ⵿ⵛ yatsh
ⴷ ⵿ⵊ yadj

I have read before that IRCAM defines these as optional ligatures, but can't find the source and do not know what they should look like so maybe this is false information.

[Yassine3649]

Please fix
ⵍ + ⵍ
ⵏ + ⵏ
ⵏ +ⵍ
ⵍ + ⵏ
ⵍⵍⵍⵏⵏⵍⵏⵏ should look like ‌ⵍ‌ⵍ‌ⵍ‌ⵏ‌ⵏ‌ⵍ‌ⵏ‌ⵏ