Bassa Vah alphabet

Bassa Vah
𖫔𖫧𖫱𖫒𖫨𖫴 𖫣𖫧𖫱
Bassa Vah; 𖫔𖫧𖫱𖫒𖫨𖫴 𖫣𖫧𖫱
Script type	Alphabet
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Bassa [ISO 639-3:bsq]
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.^[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[edit]

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[edit]

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: ˥˩
𖫧𖫰	𖫧𖫱	𖫲𖫧	𖫧𖫳	𖫧𖫴

Unicode[edit]

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 15.1 2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

References[edit]

^ ^a ^b 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.

External links[edit]

Bassa, and Bassa Vah, at Omniglot
From the Bassa Vah Association (all links archived):

[Everson-1] 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.

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