This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
History of the alphabet
Graphical descent from Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs 32nd c. BCE
Hieratic 32nd c. BCE
Demotic 7th c. BCE
Meroitic 3rd c. BCE
Proto-Sinaitic 19th c. BCE
Ugaritic 15th c. BCE
Epigraphic South Arabian 9th c. BCE
Geʽez 5–6th c. BCE
Phoenician 12th c. BCE
Paleo-Hebrew 10th c. BCE
Samaritan 6th c. BCE
Aramaic 8th c. BCE
Kharosthi 3rd c. BCE
Brahmi 3rd c. BCE
Brahmic family (see)
Pallava 4th c. CE
Cham 4th c. CE
Dhives Akuru 6th c. CE
Khmer 611 CE
Tibetan 7th c. CE
Phagspa 1269 CE
Devanagari 10th c. CE
Canadian Aboriginal 1840
Hebrew 3rd c. BCE
Square Aramaic Alphabet 2007
Pahlavi 3rd c. BCE
Avestan 4th c. CE
Palmyrene 2nd c. BCE
Nabataean 2nd c. BCE
Arabic 4th c. CE
N'Ko 1949 CE
Syriac 2nd c. BCE
Sogdian 2nd c. BCE
Orkhon (old Turkic) 6th c. CE
Old Hungarian c. 650 CE
Old Uyghur
Mongolian 1204 CE
Mandaic 2nd c. CE
Greek 8th c. BCE
Etruscan 8th c. BCE
Latin 7th c. BCE
Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE
Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE
Deseret 1854 CE
Great Lakes Algonquian 19th c. CE
Blackfoot (influence from Canadian) 1888 CE
Fraser (Old Lisu) 1915 CE
Saanich 1978 CE
Osage 2006 CE
Runic 2nd c. CE
Ogham (origin uncertain) 4th c. CE
Lycian 5th c. BCE
Coptic (influence from Demotic) 3rd c. CE
Gothic 3rd c. CE
Armenian 405 CE
Caucasian Albanian (origin uncertain) c. 420 CE
Georgian (origin uncertain) c. 430 CE
Glagolitic 862 CE
Cyrillic c. 940 CE
Old Permic 1372 CE
Libyco-Berber 10th c. BCE
Tifinagh 4th c. CE
Neo-Tifinagh 1970 CE
Paleohispanic (semi-syllabic) 7th c. BCE
Graphically independent
Hangul 1443 CE (proposed connection to Phagspa)
Thaana c. 1601 CE
Adlam 1989 CE
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The Vai syllabary is a syllabic writing system devised for the Vai language by Momolu Duwalu Bukele of Jondu, in what is now Grand Cape Mount County, Liberia.[1][2][3] Bukele is regarded within the Vai community, as well as by most scholars, as the syllabary's inventor and chief promoter when it was first documented in the 1830s. It is one of the two most successful indigenous scripts in West Africa in terms of the number of current users and the availability of literature written in the script, the other being N'Ko.[4][5]
^Migeod, F.W.H. (1909). "The syllabic writing of the Vai people". Journal of the African Society. 9 (33): 46–58. JSTOR 715184.
^Massaquoi, Momolu (1911). "The Vai people and their syllabic writing". Journal of the African Society. 10 (40): 459–466. JSTOR 714743.
^Coulmas, Florian (1996). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 537–539. ISBN 978-0-631-21481-6.
^Unseth, Peter (2011). "Invention of Scripts in West Africa for Ethnic Revitalization". In Fishman, Joshua A.; García, Ofelia (eds.). Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity: The Success-Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 23–32. ISBN 978-0-19-983799-1.
^"British Library Documents showing the Vai script". www.bl.uk. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
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indigenous writing system known as the Vaisyllabary, developed in the 1820s by Momolu Duwalu Bukele and other Vai elders. Over the course of the 19th century...
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...
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spelled as Mɔmɔlu Duwalu Bukɛlɛ) was the inventor of the Vaisyllabary used for writing the Vai language of Liberia—one of several African languages to...
Etruscan 8th c. BCE Latin 7th c. BCE Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE Deseret 1854 CE Great Lakes Algonquian...
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given language. Not all writing systems represent language in this way: a syllabary assigns symbols to spoken syllables, while logographies assign symbols...
indigenous script of recent indigenous west African scripts, behind only the Vaisyllabary and the N'Ko alphabet. A preliminary proposal has been made to include...
Etruscan 8th c. BCE Latin 7th c. BCE Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE Deseret 1854 CE Great Lakes Algonquian...
Etruscan 8th c. BCE Latin 7th c. BCE Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE Deseret 1854 CE Great Lakes Algonquian...
Etruscan 8th c. BCE Latin 7th c. BCE Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE Deseret 1854 CE Great Lakes Algonquian...
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behaved as a syllabary for plosives and as an alphabet for the rest of consonants. This unique writing system has been called a semi-syllabary. In the syllabic...
traditional Bambara iconography and shares some similarities with the Vaisyllabary of Liberia and with Arabic-derived secret alphabets used in Hodh (now...
The Afaka script ( afaka sikifi) is a syllabary of 56 letters devised in 1910 for the Ndyuka language, an English-based creole of Suriname. The script...
Etruscan 8th c. BCE Latin 7th c. BCE Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE Deseret 1854 CE Great Lakes Algonquian...
and Linear A (encoding a possible "Minoan language") the Cypro-Minoan syllabary Earlier symbols, such as the Jiahu symbols, Vinča symbols and the marks...
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language that demanded precision since Pahlavi was a simplified abjad syllabary with at most 22 symbols, most of which were ambiguous (i.e. could represent...
Etruscan 8th c. BCE Latin 7th c. BCE Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE Deseret 1854 CE Great Lakes Algonquian...
also have been a degree of influence from the poorly understood Byblos syllabary. It has been proposed in this regard that the two basic shapes in cuneiform...
Etruscan 8th c. BCE Latin 7th c. BCE Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE Deseret 1854 CE Great Lakes Algonquian...
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