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The Goulsse alphabet or Gʋlse was created for writing Gur languages of West Africa, such as Mooré and Kasem. It was developed in 2022 by Wenitte Apiou and Babaguioue Micareme Akouabou of Burkina Faso along with several others, based on the writing system used by the Kassena people for over four hundred years. Other scripts have also been created in West Africa as part of ethnic and linguistic revitalization.
The alphabet contains 30 letters, plus punctuation marks, and dots above some vowel symbols to mark nasalization. The script is written from left to right in a straight line. It does not distinguish between upper and lower case letters. Also, despite the fact that Gur languages have tonal distinctions, the script does not provide a way to mark tone differences.
The word gʋlse means writing in Mooré. The script has been taught in Pô, Burkina Faso.
References
- ^ Brookes, Tim (November 2022). "Minority Languages in West Africa". MultiLingual. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
- ^ Brookes, Tim (23 August 2022). "The Vanderbilt–Burkina Faso Connection". Endangered Alphabets. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
- Unseth, Peter (2011). "Invention of Scripts in West Africa for Ethnic Revitalization". In Fishman, Joshua A.; García, Ofelia (eds.). Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity: The Success-Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 23–32. ISBN 978-0-19-983799-1.