| Bassa Vah 𖫔𖫧𖫱𖫒𖫨𖫴 𖫣𖫧𖫱 | |
|---|---|
| Script type | Alphabet |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Languages | bassa language |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Bass (259), Bassa Vah |
| Unicode | |
| Unicode alias | Bassa Vah |
| Unicode range | Final accepted Unicode proposal, U+16AD0 – U+16AFF |
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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. 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. Type was cast for it, and an association for its promotion was formed in Liberia in 1959. It is not used today and has been classified as a failed script.
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 𖫵.
| 𖫧IPA: a | 𖫢IPA: b | 𖫔IPA: /ɓ | 𖫟IPA: c | 𖫗IPA: d | 𖫦IPA: /ɖ | 𖫕IPA: /dy | 𖫫IPA: e | 𖫬IPA: ɛ | 𖫓IPA: f |
| 𖫖IPA: g | 𖫝IPA: gb | 𖫔IPA: gm | 𖫤IPA: h | 𖫠IPA: hw | 𖫭IPA: i | 𖫙IPA: j | 𖫑IPA: k | 𖫘IPA: kp | 𖫐IPA: n |
| 𖫨IPA: ɔ | 𖫩IPA: o | 𖫥IPA: p | 𖫒IPA: s | 𖫡IPA: t | 𖫪IPA: u | 𖫣IPA: v | 𖫛IPA: w | 𖫚IPA: /xw | 𖫜IPA: z |
Tones
Vah uses five diacritical marks to denote tonality of its vowels. It distinguishes five tones: high, low, mid, mid-rising, and falling.
| high𖫰◌IPA: ˦ | low𖫱◌IPA: ˨ | mid𖫲◌IPA: ˧ | mid-rising𖫳◌IPA: ˨˧ | falling𖫴◌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 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
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References
- ^ 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.
