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Africa's first indigenous syllabary.
Also known as: Vai script
The Liberian syllabary invented in the 1830s, one of the earliest indigenous African writing systems of the modern era.
Writes the Vai language of Liberia and Sierra Leone, one glyph to a syllable.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
Attributed to Momolu Duwalu Bukele and associates in the 1830s, and studied since because it was invented by people who could not read any other script — evidence that the idea of writing can be transmitted without the details of any particular system.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
The traditional account describes the script as revealed in a dream, which the record notes as the tradition's own account rather than as an explanation of its origin.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
A large set of distinct glyphs, each standing for a whole syllable, built from curves, dots and enclosed shapes with no shared alphabetic components.