Bassa Vah alphabet

Bassa Vah
𖫔𖫧𖫱𖫒𖫨𖫴 𖫣𖫧𖫱
Script type
DirectionLeft-to-right Edit this on Wikidata
Languagesbassa language
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Bass (259), ​Bassa Vah
Unicode
Unicode alias
Bassa Vah
Final accepted Unicode proposal, U+16AD0 – U+16AFF[1]
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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
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

Vah uses five diacritical marks to denote tonality of its vowels. It distinguishes five tones: high, low, mid, mid-rising, and falling.

Tone diacritics and examples with ⟨𖫧⟩
high
𖫰◌
IPA: ˦
low
𖫱◌
IPA: ˨
mid
𖫲◌
IPA: ˧
mid-rising
𖫳◌
IPA: ˨˧
falling
𖫴◌
IPA: ˥˩
𖫰𖫧
𖫧𖫱
𖫲𖫧
𖫳𖫧
𖫧𖫴

Unicode

Main article: Bassa Vah (Unicode block)

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
1.^ As of Unicode version 16.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

References

  1. ^ a b Everson, Michael; Riley, Charles (2010). "Final proposal for encoding the Bassa Vah script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF).
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ "History of the Bassa Script". Bassa Vah Association. Archived from the original on 2007-02-22.
  4. ^ 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.