NOTE

The name “Air” is a dissyllable word: the vowels are pronounced as in Italian according to the general system of transliteration, which follows, wherever possible, the rules laid down by the Committee of the Royal Geographical Society on the Spelling of Proper Names. In the Tuareg form of Berber, t before i or similar vowel, especially in the feminine possessive particle “tin,” very often assumes a sound varying between a hard explosive tch and a soft liquid dental, such as is found in the English word “tune.” This modification of the sound t is written t’, wherever it is by usage sufficiently pronounced to be noticeable. The pronunciation of Tuareg words follows the Air dialect, which often differs from the northern speech. Letters are only accented where it is important to avoid mispronunciation, as in Fadé and Emilía: a final e, as in Assode, which is a trisyllable, should always be pronounced even if not accented.

The nasal n occurring in such words as Añastafidet is written ñ.

The gh (or Arabic غ, ghen) sound is, as in other Berber languages, very common in the speech of the Tuareg. The letter is so strongly grasseyé as to be indistinguishable, in many cases, from r. The French with greater logic write this sound r or r’. Doubtless many names which have been spelled with r in the succeeding pages should more correctly have been spelled with gh: such mistakes are due to the difficulties both of distinguishing the sound in speech, and of transcribing French transliterations.

No attempt has been made to indicate the occurrence of the third g which exists in the Tuareg alphabet, in addition to the hard g and the soft g (written j).

The Arabic letter ع (’ain) does not exist in the speech of the Tuareg; where they use an Arabic word containing this letter, they substitute for it the sound gh.

No signs have been used to distinguish between the hard and soft varieties of the letters d, t and z. The “kef” (Iek) and “qaf” (Iaq) sounds are written k and q.

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