Global InformationDitema tsa Dinoko information
 | This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. (November 2019) |
| Ditema tsa Dinoko isiBheqe soHlamvu | |
|---|---|
 Ditema tsa Dinoko written in the syllabary | |
| Script type | Featural syllabary
|
| Languages | Southern Bantu, Swazi |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Litema, amaBheqe ideographs (Izimpawu zesiNtu)
|
Ditema tsa Dinoko (Sesotho for "Ditema syllabary"), also known as ditema tsa Sesotho, is a constructed writing system (specifically, a featural syllabary) for the siNtu or Southern Bantu languages (such as Sesotho, Setswana, IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, SiSwati, SiPhuthi, Xitsonga, EMakhuwa, ChiNgoni, SiLozi, and Tshivenḓa). It is also known by its IsiZulu name isiBheqe soHlamvu, and by various other names in different languages.[1][2] It was developed in the 2010s from antecedent ideographic traditions of the Southern African region. Its visual appearance is inspired by these, including the traditional litema arts style.[3] It was developed between 2014 and 2016 by a group of South African linguists and software programmers with the goal of creating a denser writing system to avoid the slowness in reading caused by the word length and visual homogeneity of Southern Bantu languages written in the Roman alphabet.[4][5] As of 2023,[update] no proposal has been made to encode the script in Unicode, the text encoding standard designed to support all of the world's major writing systems.[6]
The Ditema / Isibheqe syllabary has the capacity to represent the full phonological range of these sintu languages (in the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, Venḓa, Tsonga and Tonga-Inhambane groups) consistently under one orthography.[7] This includes languages that are unstandardised in the Latin alphabet such as the East Sotho languages (Sepulana, Sekutswe and Hipai), or the Tekela languages, which, with the exception of SiSwati, are not official languages. Orthographic support for these languages is for instance evidenced in the ingungwana grapheme, which indicates vowel nasality — a feature of Tekela languages.
- ^ "isiBheqe". isibheqe.org. 23 August 2015. Archived from the original on 8 February 2016. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
- ^ "Isibheqe Sohlamvu: An Indigenous Writing System for Southern Bantu Languages" (PDF). linguistics.org.za. 22 June 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
- ^ Writing Systems Archived 2018-06-27 at the Wayback Machine (12 May 2017) "Perhaps the most contemporary and creative African script is known as Ditema Tsa Dinoko (Isibheqe Sohlamvu in Zulu). This script can be used to write any Southern Bantu language, such as Sesotho, Zulu, and Tswana. The Southern Bantu languages are found in South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. Created within the past three years by linguists, programmers, and designers, this special writing system is inspired by traditional litema art of Lesotho." See also e.g.: "Isibheqe cabinets". Design Miami. Retrieved 2015-11-23.
- ^ van Niekerk, Garreth (2016-02-08). "Indigenous alphabet on the cards for SA". City Press (South Africa). Archived from the original on 2021-07-14.
- ^ Land, Sandra (2015). "Reading and the orthography of isiZulu" (PDF). South African Journal of African Languages. 35 (2): 163–175. doi:10.1080/02572117.2015.1113000. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-08-03.
- ^ "Update on Usage and Implementation Status of African Scripts." Unicode, Inc. 8 September 2023. Retrieved 5 February 2023. p. 6.
- ^ isibheqe.org (2015). "Isibheqe Sohlamvu/Ditema tsa Dinoko". isibheqe.org. Archived from the original on 2016-02-08. Retrieved 2016-09-11.