| Zaghawa Beria () | |
|---|---|
| Script type | Alphabet |
| Direction | Left-to-right and top-down  |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Berf(258), Beria Erfe |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Beria Erfe |
| U+16EA0–U+16EDF | |
TheZaghawa orBeria script,Beria Giray Erfe ( ) ('Zaghawa Writing Marks'), is an indigenousalphabetic script proposed for theZaghawa language (also known as Beria) ofSudan,Chad, andLibya. It is one of three scripts used to write Zaghawa, alongside Latin and incipiently Arabic.
In the 1950s, a Sudanese Zaghawa schoolteacher named Adam Tajir created a script for the Zaghawa language, sometimes known as thecamel alphabet, deriving its glyphs from the clanbrands used forcamels and other livestock. He copied the inventory of theArabic script, so the system was not ideal for Zaghawa.
In 2000, a Zaghawa veterinarian named Siddick Adam Issa adapted Tajir's script to a form which has proven popular in the Zaghawa community. The typography is somewhat innovative in that capital letters havedescenders which dropbelow the baseline of the lower-case letters and punctuation, contrasting with the capital letters in the Latin script, which rise above most lower-case letters.Beria Giray Erfe is a full alphabet, with independent letters for vowels; however,diacritics are used to mark tone (grave accent forfalling tone andacute accent forrising tone; high, mid, and low tone are unmarked), as well asadvanced tongue root vowels (amacron derives/ieəou/ from the letters for/ɪɛaɔʊ/).
The letter for/p/, which does not occur in Zaghawa or in Arabic, is written by adding a tail to the letter for/b/; and/ʃ/ is derived from the letter for/s/ with a cross stroke. There apparently is no letter for/ħ/, nor a distinction between/ɾ/ and/r/, both of which have been reported for Zaghawa.
European numerals and punctuation are used.
The Zaghawa scripts was added to theUnicode Standard in September 2025 with the release of version 17.0.
The Unicode block for Zaghawa, called Beria Erfe, is U+16EA0–U+16EDF:
| Beria Erfe[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+16EAx | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| U+16EBx | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ||
| U+16ECx | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| U+16EDx | | | | | ||||||||||||
| Notes | ||||||||||||||||