Kaddare | |
---|---|
Script type | |
Languages | Somali language |
The Kaddare alphabet is an alphabetic script created to transcribe Somali, a Cushitic language in the Afroasiatic language family.
The orthography was invented in 1952 by a Sufi Sheikh, named Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare.
A phonetically robust writing system, the technical commissions that appraised the Kaddare alphabet concurred that it was the most accurate indigenous script and orthography for transcribing the Somali language. [1]
Kaddare uses both upper and lower case letters, with the lower case represented in cursive. Many characters are transcribed without having to lift the pen. [2]
Several of Kaddare's letters are similar to those in the Osmanya alphabet, while others bear a resemblance to Brahmi. [2]
As there are no dedicated characters for long vowels, a vowel is made long by simply writing it twice. [2]
An alphabet is a standard set of letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from another in a given language. Not all writing systems represent language in this way: a syllabary assigns symbols to spoken syllables, while logographies assign symbols to words, morphemes, or other semantic units.
The Shavian alphabet is a constructed alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the inefficiencies and difficulties of conventional spelling using the Latin alphabet. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw and designed by Ronald Kingsley Read.
Somali is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken primarily in Greater Somalia, and by the Somali diaspora as a mother tongue. Somali is an official language in both Somalia and Ethiopia, and serves as a national language in Djibouti, it is also a recognised minority language in Kenya. The Somali language is officially written with the Latin alphabet although the Arabic script and several Somali scripts like Osmanya, Kaddare and the Borama script are informally used.
The Vietnamese alphabet is the modern writing script for the Vietnamese language. It uses the Latin script based on Romance languages originally developed by Francisco de Pina (1585–1625), a missionary from Portugal.
The Osmanya alphabet, also known as Far Soomaali and, in Arabic, as al-kitābah al-ʿuthmānīyah, is an alphabetic script created to transcribe the Somali language. It was invented by Osman Yusuf Kenadid, the son of Sultan Yusuf Ali Kenadid and brother of Sultan Ali Yusuf Kenadid of the Sultanate of Hobyo.
A defective script is a writing system that does not represent all the phonemic distinctions of a language. This means that the concept is always relative to a given language. Taking the Latin alphabet used in Italian orthography as an example, the Italian language has seven vowels, but the alphabet has only five vowel letters to represent them; in general, the difference between the phonemes close and open is simply ignored, though stress marks, if used, may distinguish them. Among the Italian consonants, both and are written ⟨s⟩, and both and are written ⟨z⟩; stress and hiatus are also not reliably distinguished.
The endoglossic language of Somalia has always been Somali, although throughout Somalia's history various exoglossic languages have also been used at a national level.
The writing systems of Africa refer to the current and historical practice of writing systems on the African continent, both indigenous and those introduced. In many African societies, history generally used to be recorded orally despite most societies having developed a writing script, leading to them being termed "oral civilisations" in contrast to "literate civilisations".
Wadaad's writing, also known as Wadaad'sArabic, is the traditional Somali adaptation of written Arabic as well as the Arabic script as historically used to transcribe the Somali language. Originally, it referred to a non-grammatical Arabic featuring some words from the Somali language, with the proportion of Somali vocabulary varying depending on the context. The Somalis were among the first people in Africa to embrace Islam. Alongside standard Arabic, Wadaad's writing was used by Somali religious men (Wadaado) to record xeer petitions and to write qasidas. It was also used by merchants for business purposes and letter writing.
Shire Jama Ahmed was a Somali linguist and a scholar. He is notable for creating and developing of the modern Latin script for transcribing the Somali language.
The Fula language is written primarily in the Latin script, but in some areas is still written in an older Arabic script called the Ajami script or in the recently invented Adlam script.
The Somali Latin alphabet is an official writing system in the Federal Republic of Somalia and its constituent Federal Member States. It was developed by a number of leading scholars of Somali, including Musa Haji Ismail Galal, B. W. Andrzejewski and Shire Jama Ahmed specifically for transcribing the Somali language, and is based on the Latin script. The Somali Latin alphabet uses all letters of the English Latin alphabet with the exception of p, v and z. There are no diacritics or other special characters, although it includes three consonant digraphs: DH, KH and SH. Tone is not marked and a word-initial glottal stop is also not shown. Capital letters are used for names and at the beginning of a sentence.
Osman Yusuf Kenadid was a Somali poet, writer, teacher and ruler. Born in Ceel Huur in 1889, he went on to create the Osmanya alphabet for writing Somali. He died on 31 August 1972 in Mogadishu.
Sheikh Nuur was a Somali Sheikh, qādi (judge) of the government at that time and the inventor of the Gadabuursi Script for the Somali language.
Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare was a Somali inventor, linguist, and researcher in Somali traditions and folklore. Kaddare contributed his linguistic expertise in Somalia's Ministry of information.
A number of writing systems have been used to transcribe the Somali language. Of these, the Somali Latin alphabet is the most widely used. It has been the official writing script in Somalia since the Supreme Revolutionary Council formally introduced it in October 1972, and was disseminated through a nationwide rural literacy campaign. Prior to the twentieth century, the Arabic script was used for writing Somali. An extensive literary and administrative corpus exists in Arabic script. It was the main script historically used by the various Somali sultans to keep records. Writing systems developed locally in the twentieth century include the Osmanya, Borama and Kaddare scripts.
The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Hangeul in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern writing system for the Korean language. The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs used to pronounce them. They are systematically modified to indicate phonetic features. The vowel letters are systematically modified for related sounds, making Hangul a featural writing system. It has been described as a syllabic alphabet as it combines the features of alphabetic and syllabic writing systems.
The Gadabuursi script, also known as the Borama script, is an alphabetic script for the Somali language. It was devised around 1933 by Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur of the Gadabuursi clan.