Abstract
Vai Script. The results of an investigation of the origin of the script of the Vai people of West Africa is recorded by A. Klingenheim in Africa, vol. 6, pt. 2. The existence of the Vai script was first reported by F. E. Forbes, a naval officer, in the middle of the nineteenth century. S. W. Koelle, a German missionary, who published an account of the Vai language in 1854, met a native, Momoru Doalu Bukere, who claimed to have invented the script as the result of a dream. European scholars have attributed Vai signs to an origin in European letters, arbitrarily selected to represent syllabic values. Sir Harry Johnston detected Arab influence. Others follow Koelle in recognising the pictorial character of certain signs. Dr. Momolu Massaquoi, a member of the Vai people, is of the opinion that they used a few rude signs expressing concepts before a syllabary was introduced. Other scripts of such a type are found in West Africa. No documents of this character now exist among the Vai, as they were probably written on perishable material. Bukere's invention would appear to have been the substitution of the phonetic syllabary for the older pictorial system then probably in a state of transition. The syllabary possesses two classes of signs: (1) original signs, which go back to a particular picture; (2) derived signs, that is, derived from the original signs by the use of diacritical marks. Among the original signs are representations of particular people, people performing certain actions, spirits, parts of the body, animals and plants, objects of material culture, and symbols for abstract concepts. A special interest of the script lies in the fact that it expresses nuances of pronunciation, and refinements which the study of African linguistics has shown to be essential, while giving an African people's own view of their phonetics.
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Research Items. Nature 131, 915–917 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131915a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131915a0