Vai language

Vai
ꕙꔤ
Native to	Liberia, Sierra Leone
Region	Africa
Ethnicity	Vai people
Native speakers	(120,000 cited 1991–2006)
Language family	Mande Western Mande Central Manding–Jogo Manding–Vai Vai–Kono Vai
Writing system	Vai syllabary
Language codes
ISO 639-2	vai
ISO 639-3	vai
Glottolog	vaii1241

Two Vai speakers, recorded in Liberia.

The Vai language, also called 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.

Writing system

Main article: Vai syllabary

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 script. 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 Vai 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	i iː	u uː	ĩ ĩː
Close-mid	e eː	o oː	ɛ̃ ɛ̃ː	ɔ̃ ɔ̃ː
Open-mid	ɛ ɛː	ɔ ɔː
Open	a aː		ã ãː

Consonants

	Labial		Alveolar		Post-al. /palatal		Velar		Labial -velar		Glottal
Nasal		m		n		ɲ		ŋ
Stop/ Prenasalised	p	b mb	t	d nd	c	ɟ ɲɟ	k	g ŋɡ	k͡p	ŋ͡mɡ͡b
Implosive		ɓ		(ɗ)						ɠ͡ɓ
Fricatives	f	v	s	z	(ʃ)						h
Approximant (Lateral)						j				w
			l ~ ɗ
Trill				(r)

[r] and [ʃ] 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: "ꕉꕜꕮ ꔔꘋ ꖸ ꔰ ꗋꘋ ꕮꕨ ꔔꘋ ꖸ ꕎ ꕉꖸꕊ ꕴꖃ ꕃꔤꘂ ꗱ, ꕉꖷ ꗪꗡ ꔻꔤ ꗏꗒꗡ ꕎ ꗪ ꕉꖸꕊ ꖏꕎ. ꕉꕡ ꖏ ꗳꕮꕊ ꗏ ꕪ ꗓ ꕉꖷ ꕉꖸ ꕘꕞ ꗪ. ꖏꖷ ꕉꖸꔧ ꖏ ꖸ ꕚꕌꘂ ꗷꔤ ꕞ ꘃꖷ ꘉꔧ ꗠꖻ ꕞ ꖴꘋ ꔳꕩ ꕉꖸ ꗳ."

IPA: /adama ɗeŋ nũ g͡bi tɔŋ maⁿd͡ʒa ɗeŋ nũ wa anũa wolo kiːjɛ fɛ, amũ ɓɛː siː lɔⁿɗɔɛ wa ɓɛ anũa kowa. aⁿɗa ko tɛmaː lɔ ka sɔ amũ anũ fala ɓɛ. komũ anũhĩ ko nũ tahajɛ lɛi la kɛmũ nɛ̃hĩ ɲɔ̃ː la kuŋ tija anũ tɛ./

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."

See also

• Vai syllabary

Further reading

• Koelle, S. W. (1854). Outlines of a grammar of the Vei language: together with a Vei-English vocabulary. Church Missionary House. OCLC 20216750.
• Welmers, William (1976). A Grammar of Vai. University of California Press. ISBN 0520095553.

External links

• Vai Script workshop
• Omniglot entry on Vai script
• Smithsonian exhibit on Vai and other African scripts
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Vai