Convert text between Latin alphabet and African writing systems: Ge'ez, Tifinagh, N'Ko, and Vai scripts.
Africa has a rich diversity of writing systems spanning thousands of years. From the ancient Ge'ez script of Ethiopia to modern inventions like N'Ko, African scripts represent unique approaches to recording language and knowledge. This tool helps you transliterate between the Latin alphabet and four major African scripts used by hundreds of millions of people today.
The Ge'ez script (also called Ethiopic or Fidel) is one of the oldest alphabets still in use, dating back over 2,000 years. It is used to write Amharic (Ethiopia's official language), Tigrinya (spoken in Eritrea and Ethiopia), and liturgical Ge'ez. The script is a syllabary with 33 base characters, each modified into 7 forms to represent consonant-vowel combinations, yielding over 230 unique characters.
Tifinagh is the script of the Amazigh (Berber) people of North Africa, with roots going back 3,000 years to the ancient Libyco-Berber inscriptions. Neo-Tifinagh, a standardized modern version, became an official script in Morocco in 2003 and is taught in schools alongside Arabic and French. The script has a distinctive geometric appearance with circles, dots, and lines.
N'Ko was invented in 1949 by Solomana Kante of Guinea to write the Manding languages (Bambara, Dyula, Mandinka). Written right-to-left, N'Ko has become an important tool for literacy across West Africa, with newspapers, textbooks, and even computer software supporting the script. The name "N'Ko" means "I say" in all Manding languages.
Transliteration is the process of converting text from one writing system to another, mapping characters based on their phonetic values. Unlike translation (which converts meaning), transliteration preserves the sounds of the original text in a different script. For example, the Amharic word for "peace" can be transliterated from Ge'ez to Latin as "selam."
Yes, all four scripts featured here are actively used. Ge'ez is the official script for Amharic and Tigrinya, used by over 50 million people daily. Neo-Tifinagh is taught in Moroccan schools and used on road signs. N'Ko is used for literacy programs across West Africa with millions of learners. Vai continues to be used in Liberia.
This tool provides phonetic transliteration based on standard mapping tables. For Ge'ez, it maps Latin consonant-vowel pairs to the corresponding Ethiopic syllable characters. Results are approximate and may not capture all nuances of each script. For professional or academic use, please verify with native-script-literate reviewers.