Vai | |
---|---|
ꕙꔤ | |
Native to | Liberia, Sierra Leone |
Region | Africa |
Ethnicity | Vai people |
Native speakers | (120,000 cited 1991–2006) [1] |
Vai syllabary | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | vai |
ISO 639-3 | vai |
Glottolog | vaii1241 |
The Vai language, also called Vy or Gallinas, is a Mande language spoken by the Vai people, roughly 104,000 in Liberia, and by smaller populations, some 15,500, in Sierra Leone. [2]
Vai is noteworthy for being one of the few African languages to have a writing system that is not based on the Latin or Arabic script. This Vai script is a syllabary invented by Momolu Duwalu Bukele around 1833, although dates as early as 1815 have been alleged. The existence of Vai was reported in 1834 by American missionaries in the Missionary Herald of the ABCFM [3] and independently by Rev. Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle, a Sierra Leone agent of the Church Missionary Society of London. [4]
The Vai script was used to print the New Testament in the Vai language, dedicated in 2003.
Vai is a tonal language and has 11 vowels and 31 consonants, which are tabulated below. [5]
Oral vowels | Nasal vowels | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Front | Back | Front | Back | |
Close | iiː | uuː | ĩĩː | |
Close-mid | eeː | ooː | ɛ̃ɛ̃ː | ɔ̃ɔ̃ː |
Open-mid | ɛɛː | ɔɔː | ||
Open | aaː | ããː |
Labial | Alveolar | Post-al. /palatal | Velar | Labial -velar | Glottal | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||||
Stop / Prenasalised | p | b mb | t | d nd | c | ɟ ɲɟ | k | g ŋɡ | k͡p | ŋ͡mɡ͡b | ||
Implosive | ɓ | ( ɗ ) | ɠ͡ɓ | |||||||||
Fricatives | f | v | s | z | ( ʃ ) | h | ||||||
Approximant (Lateral) | j | w | ||||||||||
l ~ ɗ | ||||||||||||
Trill | ( r ) |
[r] and [ʃ] occur only in recent loanwords.[ clarification needed from which language?]
The following is a sample text in Vai of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [6]
Vai: "ꕉꕜꕮ ꔔꘋ ꖸ ꔰ ꗋꘋ ꕮꕨ ꔔꘋ ꖸ ꕎ ꕉꖸꕊ ꕴꖃ ꕃꔤꘂ ꗱ, ꕉꖷ ꗪꗡ ꔻꔤ ꗏꗒꗡ ꕎ ꗪ ꕉꖸꕊ ꖏꕎ. ꕉꕡ ꖏ ꗳꕮꕊ ꗏ ꕪ ꗓ ꕉꖷ ꕉꖸ ꕘꕞ ꗪ. ꖏꖷ ꕉꖸꔧ ꖏ ꖸ ꕚꕌꘂ ꗷꔤ ꕞ ꘃꖷ ꘉꔧ ꗠꖻ ꕞ ꖴꘋ ꔳꕩ ꕉꖸ ꗳ."
IPA:/adamaɗeŋnũg͡bitɔŋmaⁿd͡ʒaɗeŋnũwaanũawolokiːjɛfɛ,amũɓɛːsiːlɔⁿɗɔɛwaɓɛanũakowa.aⁿɗakotɛmaːlɔkasɔamũanũfalaɓɛ.komũanũhĩkonũtahajɛlɛilakɛmũnɛ̃hĩɲɔ̃ːlakuŋtijaanũtɛ./
English original: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
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The Vai are Mandé peoples that live mostly in Liberia, with a small minority living in south-eastern Sierra Leone. The Vai are known for their indigenous writing system known as the Vai syllabary, developed in the 1820s by Momolu Duwalu Bukele and other Vai elders. Over the course of the 19th century, literacy in the writing system became widespread. Its use declined over the 20th century, but modern computer technology may enable a revival.
The Bassa language is a Kru language spoken by about 600,000 Bassa people in Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Sierra Leone.
Momolu Duwalu Bukele was the inventor of the Vai syllabary used for writing the Vai language of Liberia—one of several African languages to develop its own writing system.
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Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle or Kölle was a German missionary working on behalf of the London-based Church Missionary Society, at first in Sierra Leone, where he became a pioneer scholar of the languages of Africa, and later in Constantinople. He published a major study in 1854, Polyglotta Africana, marking the beginning of serious study by Europeans of African languages.
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