Bassa Vah alphabet
Bassa Vah 𖫔𖫧𖫱𖫒𖫨𖫴 𖫣𖫧𖫱 | |
---|---|
Script type | |
Direction | Left-to-right |
Languages | Bassa [ISO 639-3:bsq] |
ISO 15924 | |
ISO 15924 | Bass (259), Bassa Vah |
Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Bassa Vah |
Final accepted Unicode proposal, U+16AD0 – U+16AFF[1] |
Bassa Vah, also known as simply Vah ('throwing a sign' in Bassa) is an alphabetic script for writing the Bassa language of Liberia.[2] As an old system nearing extinction in the 1900s, it was rediscovered among Bassa in Brazil and the West Indies, then revived in Liberia, by Thomas Flo Lewis.[3] Type was cast for it, and an association for its promotion was formed in Liberia in 1959.[1] It is not used today and has been classified as a failed script.[4]
Letters
[edit]Vah is written from left to right. It is a true alphabet, with 23 consonant letters, seven vowels and five tone diacritics. A fullstop/period is represented with 𖫵.
𖫧
IPA: [a] a
|
𖫢
IPA: [b] b
|
𖫔
IPA: [ɓ]/[mᵇ] ɓ
|
𖫟
IPA: [c] c
|
𖫗
IPA: [d] d
|
𖫦
IPA: [ɖ]/[ɺ] ɖ
|
𖫕
IPA: [dʲ]/[ɲ] dy
|
𖫫
IPA: [e] e
|
𖫬
IPA: [ɛ] ɛ
|
𖫓
IPA: [f] f
|
𖫖
IPA: [g] g
|
𖫝
IPA: [ɡ͡b] gb
|
𖫔
IPA: [ŋ͡m] gm
|
𖫤
IPA: [h] h
|
𖫠
IPA: [hʷ] hw
|
𖫭
IPA: [i] i
|
𖫙
IPA: [ɟ] j
|
𖫑
IPA: [k] k
|
𖫘
IPA: [k͡p] kp
|
𖫐
IPA: [n] n
|
𖫨
IPA: [ɔ] ɔ
|
𖫩
IPA: [o] o
|
𖫥
IPA: [p] p
|
𖫒
IPA: [s] s
|
𖫡
IPA: [t] t
|
𖫪
IPA: [u] u
|
𖫣
IPA: [v] v
|
𖫛
IPA: [w] w
|
𖫚
IPA: [xʷ]/[ħʷ] xw
|
𖫜
IPA: [z] z
|
Tones
[edit]Vah uses five diacritical marks to denote tonality of its vowels. It distinguishes five tones: high, low, mid, mid-rising, and falling.
high 𖫰◌
IPA: ˦
|
low 𖫱◌
IPA: ˨
|
mid 𖫲◌
IPA: ˧
|
mid-rising 𖫳◌
IPA: ˨˧
|
falling 𖫴◌
IPA: ˥˩
|
𖫰𖫧
|
𖫧𖫱
|
𖫲𖫧
|
𖫳𖫧
|
𖫧𖫴
|
Unicode
[edit]Bassa Vah was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.
The Unicode block for Bassa Vah is U+16AD0–U+16AFF:
Bassa Vah[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+16ADx | 𖫐 | 𖫑 | 𖫒 | 𖫓 | 𖫔 | 𖫕 | 𖫖 | 𖫗 | 𖫘 | 𖫙 | 𖫚 | 𖫛 | 𖫜 | 𖫝 | 𖫞 | 𖫟 |
U+16AEx | 𖫠 | 𖫡 | 𖫢 | 𖫣 | 𖫤 | 𖫥 | 𖫦 | 𖫧 | 𖫨 | 𖫩 | 𖫪 | 𖫫 | 𖫬 | 𖫭 | ||
U+16AFx | 𖫰 | 𖫱 | 𖫲 | 𖫳 | 𖫴 | 𖫵 | ||||||||||
Notes |
References
[edit]- ^ a b Everson, Michael; Riley, Charles (2010). "Final proposal for encoding the Bassa Vah script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF).
- ^ Coulmas, Florian, ed. (1999). "Bassa alphabet". The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. p. 39. doi:10.1002/9781118932667.ch2. ISBN 9780631214816.
- ^ "History of the Bassa Script". Bassa Vah Association. Archived from the original on 2007-02-22.
- ^ Unseth, Peter (2011). "Invention of Scripts in West Africa for Ethnic Revitalization". In Joshua A. Fishman; Ofelia García (eds.). Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity: The Success-Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 23–32. ISBN 9780199837991.