Vai language

The Vai language, also called Liberian, Vy or Gallinas, is a Mande language spoken by the Vai people, roughly 104,000 in Liberia, and by smaller populations, some 15,500, in Sierra Leone.Ethnologue report for Vai

Writing system

Vai is noteworthy for being one of the few African languages to have a writing system that is not based on the Latin or Arabic scripts. This Vai script is a syllabary invented by Momolu Duwalu Bukele around 1833, although dates as early as 1815 have been alleged. The existence of the Vai script was reported in 1834 by American missionaries in the Missionary Herald of the ABCFM and independently by Rev. Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle, a Sierra Leone agent of the Church Missionary Society of London.

The Vai script was used to print the New Testament in the Vai language, dedicated in 2003.

Phonology Vai is a tonal language and has 11 vowels and 31 consonants, which are tabulated below.

Vowels Oral vowels Nasal vowels Front Back Front Back Close Close-mid Open-mid Open

Consonants Labial Alveolar Post-al./palatal Velar Labial-velar Glottal Nasal Stop/Prenasalised Implosive () Fricatives() Approximant(Lateral) ~ Trill () and occur only in recent loanwords.

Sample text The following is a sample text in Vai of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Vai: ""

IPA:

English original: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

Vai language

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