Global InformationWoleai script information
| Woleai | |
|---|---|
 Woleaian syllabary as written by Egilimar in 1913 | |
| Script type | Syllabary
|
Time period | c. 1910 to c. 1950 |
| Direction | Mixed |
| Languages | Woleaian |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Wole (480), Woleai |
The Woleai or Caroline Island script, thought to have been a syllabary, was a partially Latin-based script indigenous to Woleai Atoll and nearby islands of Micronesia and used to write the Woleaian language until the mid-20th century. At the time the script was first noticed by Europeans, this part of Micronesia was known as the Caroline Islands, hence the name Caroline Island script.
The script has 99 known (C)V glyphs, which are not quite enough for a complete representation of the Woleaian language, even given that consonant and vowel length are ignored. Approximately a fifth of them derive from the Latin alphabet. The question for historians is whether the Wolaians had proto-writing which crystallized into full-fledged writing under the influence of the Latin alphabet, or if they were exposed to the Latin alphabet without completely understanding it (see trans-cultural diffusion), and supplemented it either with existing signs from petroglyphs, tattoos, and the like, or by creating new rebus or ad hoc symbols, until it was sufficient to fully express Woleaian.
The script was written from left to right. Since length was ignored, one glyph stood for both ga and ka ([xa] and [kːa]), and another for both la and na ([la], [na], and [nːa]). Some glyphs stood for longer syllables than just consonant-plus-vowel, such as bag, warr, tüt, moi, shrö, chroa, and gkaa. Not enough glyphs were recorded to write all Woleaian syllables this way, and it is not known if the script was fully standardized.[1]
- ^ It may have been expanded through the rebus principle when a writer found that convenient, or some of the extra syllables may have been logograms.