Bassa script

The Bassa script, known as Bassa vah or simply vah ('throwing a sign' in Bassa) is an alphabetic script for writing the Bassa language of Liberia. It was invented by Dr. Thomas Flo Lewis. Type was cast for it, and an association for its promotion was formed in Liberia in 1959. It is not used contemporarily and has been classified as a failed script.[1]

Bassa vah
DirectionLeft-to-right
ISO 15924Bass, 259
Unicode alias
Bassa Vah
U+16AD0 – U+16AFF
Final Accepted Script Proposal
The Bassa vah alphabet.

Vah is a true alphabet, with 23 consonant letters, 7 vowel letters, and 5 tone diacritics, which are placed inside the vowels. It also has its own marks for commas and periods.

Unicode

The Bassa alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.

The Unicode block for the Bassa alphabet is U+16AD0–U+16AFF:

Bassa Vah[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+16ADx 𖫐 π–«‘ π–«’ π–«“ π–«” π–«• π–«– π–«— π–«˜ π–«™ π–«š π–«› π–«œ 𖫝 π–«ž π–«Ÿ
U+16AEx π–«  π–«‘ π–«’ π–«£ π–«€ π–«₯ 𖫦 𖫧 𖫨 π–«© π–«ͺ π–«« 𖫬 π–«­
U+16AFx π–«° π–«± π–«² π–«³ π–«΄ π–«΅
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 13.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

References

  • Coulmas (1999) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems
  1. Unseth, Peter. 2011. Invention of Scripts in West Africa for Ethnic Revitalization. In The Success-Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts, ed. by Joshua A. Fishman and Ofelia GarcΓ­a, pp. 23-32. New York: Oxford University Press.

www.yinda.de/bassa/script_history.html

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