Bassa Vah alphabet
| Bassa Vah 𖫔𖫧𖫱𖫒𖫨𖫴 𖫣𖫧𖫱 | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
| Languages | bassa language |
| 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
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
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𖫕 IPA: [dʲ]/[ɲ] dy
|
𖫫 IPA: [e] e
|
𖫬 IPA: [ɛ] ɛ
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𖫓 IPA: [f] f
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𖫖 IPA: [g] g
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𖫝 IPA: [ɡ͡b] gb
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𖫔 IPA: [ŋ͡m] gm
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𖫤 IPA: [h] h
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𖫠 IPA: [hʷ] hw
|
𖫭 IPA: [i] i
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𖫙 IPA: [ɟ] j
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𖫑 IPA: [k] k
|
𖫘 IPA: [k͡p] kp
|
𖫐 IPA: [n] n
|
𖫨 IPA: [ɔ] ɔ
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𖫩 IPA: [o] o
|
𖫥 IPA: [p] p
|
𖫒 IPA: [s] s
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𖫡 IPA: [t] t
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𖫪 IPA: [u] u
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𖫣 IPA: [v] v
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𖫛 IPA: [w] w
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𖫚 IPA: [xʷ]/[ħʷ] xw
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𖫜 IPA: [z] z
|
Tones
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: ˧
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mid-rising 𖫳◌ IPA: ˨˧
|
falling 𖫴◌ IPA: ˥˩
|
𖫰𖫧
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𖫧𖫱
|
𖫲𖫧
|
𖫳𖫧
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𖫧𖫴
|
Unicode
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
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 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.
