Bassa Vah
Encyclopedia
The Bassa script, known as Bassa vah or simply vah ('throwing a sign' in Bassa
) was an alphabet designed by, or with the help of, Liberian missionaries in the 1920s. It is not clear what connection it may have had with neighboring scripts, or how much it was actually used, but type
was cast for it, and an association for its promotion was formed in Liberia in 1959. It is not used and has been classified as a failed script.
Vah is a true alphabet, with 23 consonant letters, 7 vowel letters, and 5 tone diacritic
s, which are placed inside the vowels.
Bassa language
The Bassa language is a Kru language spoken by about 350,000 people in Liberia and 5,000 in Sierra Leone by Bassa people.It has an indigenous script, Vah, developed before 1907 by Thomas Narvin Lewis while he was studying at Syracuse University in the United States. The first primer was printed...
) was an alphabet designed by, or with the help of, Liberian missionaries in the 1920s. It is not clear what connection it may have had with neighboring scripts, or how much it was actually used, but type
Sort (typesetting)
In typesetting by hand compositing, a sort is a piece of type representing a particular letter or symbol, cast from a matrix mould and assembled with other sorts bearing additional letters into lines of type to make up a forme from which a page is printed.-See also:* History of western typography*...
was cast for it, and an association for its promotion was formed in Liberia in 1959. It is not used and has been classified as a failed script.
Vah is a true alphabet, with 23 consonant letters, 7 vowel letters, and 5 tone diacritic
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
s, which are placed inside the vowels.