Vai language

Vai
Native to Liberia, Sierra Leone
Region sub-Saharan Africa
Native speakers
 (120,000 cited 1991–2006)[1]
Niger–Congo

  • Mande

    • Western Mande
      • Central
        • Manding–Jogo
          • Manding–Vai
            • Vai–Kono
              • Vai
Vai syllabary
Language codes
ISO 639-2 vai
ISO 639-3 vai
Glottolog vaii1241[2]
Vai language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

The Vai language, alternately 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.[3]

Writing system

Main article: Vai syllabary

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 [4] and independently by Rev. Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle, a Sierra Leone agent of the Church Mission Society of London.[5]

The Vai script was used to print the New Testament in the Vai language, dedicated in 2003.

Phonology

Vai is a tonal language and has 12 vowels and 31 consonants, which are tabulated below.

Vowels

  Oral vowels Nasal vowels
Front Back Front Back
Close i u ĩ i
Close-mid e o ɛ̃ ɔ̃
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a ã

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Post-al.
/palatal		 Velar Labial
-velar		 Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Stop/
Affricate		 p
 		b
 		 t
 		d
 		 tʃ
 		dʒ
ᶮdʒ		 k
 		g
ᵑɡ		 k͡p
 		ɡ͡b
ᵑ͡ᵐɡ͡b
Implosive ɓ
ᵐɓ		 ɗ
ⁿɗ
Fricatives fv sz (ʃ) h
Approximant
(Lateral)		 j w
l
Trill (ɲ)

[r] and [ʃ] occur only in recent Loanwords.

References

  1. ↑ Vai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Vai". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Ethnologue report for Vai
  4. ↑ "Report of Messrs. Wilson and Wynkoop". Missionary Herald. June 1834. p. 215.
  5. ↑ "A Written language in Western Africa". The New-Jerusalem magazine. A. Howard. 23 (10): 431.

See also


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