Martin Rose

Here is what I firmly believe to be the British Council’s first business card written in Tamazight and printed in Tiffinagh. Not a work of high literary pretension (indeed it is perfectly possible that it says, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s letter, Kill the Bearer, though I hope not), but symbolically important. Tamazight is an official language under the 2011 constitution, and it is good and necessary to recognize it in the small ways available to us. These include all the signage in the Council’s Rabat office; and this business card which demonstrates, I hope, the will to know more and the conviction that all the languages and cultures of a country in which we work are the Council’s business.

One of the other small initiatives we had in mind was the translation into Tamazight of a conference report on leadership in North Africa that the Council ran in Hammamet last November. We have the document in French, English and Arabic, but it seemed to me that such a report on youth leadership ought also to be put into Tamazight; and that this too is statement that the Council would like to make. Alas, the IRCAM tells us that it is too busy to deal with such things. This is a pity – and if any of my readers is able to recommend a translator who could help us, I would be very interested to hear.