Bassa Vah, also known as simply Vah ('throwing a sign' in Bassa) is an alphabetic script for writing the Bassa language of Liberia.[2] As an old system nearing extinction in the 1900s, it was rediscovered among Bassa in Brazil and the West Indies, then revived in Liberia, by Thomas Flo Lewis.[3] Type was cast for it, and an association for its promotion was formed in Liberia in 1959.[1] It is not used today and has been classified as a failed script.[4]
| Bassa Vah 𖫔𖫧𖫱𖫒𖫨𖫴 𖫣𖫧𖫱 | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Languages | Bassa [ISO 639-3:bsq] |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Bass (259), Bassa Vah |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Bassa Vah |
| Final accepted Unicode proposal, U+16AD0 – U+16AFF[1] | |
Letters
Vah is written from left to right. It is a true alphabet, with 23 consonant letters, 7 vowel letters and 5 tone diacritics, which are placed inside the vowels. A fullstop/period is represented with 𖫵.
| IPA | Latin | Bassa Vah | IPA | Latin | Bassa Vah | IPA | Latin | Bassa Vah |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [a] | A/a | 𖫧 | [g] | G/g | 𖫖 | [ɔ] | Ɔ/ɔ | 𖫨 |
| [b] | B/b | 𖫢 | [ɡ͡b] | Gb/gb | 𖫝 | [o] | O/o | 𖫩 |
| [ɓ]/[mᵇ] | Ɓ/ɓ | 𖫔 | [ŋ͡m] | Gm/gm | 𖫔 | [p] | P/p | 𖫥 |
| [c] | C/c | 𖫟 | [h] | H/h | 𖫤 | [s] | S/s | 𖫒 |
| [d] | D/d | 𖫗 | [hʷ] | Hw/hw | 𖫠 | [t] | T/t | 𖫡 |
| [ɖ]/[ɺ] | Đ/ɖ | 𖫦 | [i] | I/i | 𖫭 | [u] | U/u | 𖫪 |
| [dʲ]/[ɲ] | Dy/dy | 𖫕 | [ɟ] | J/j | 𖫙 | [v] | V/v | 𖫣 |
| [e] | E/e | 𖫫 | [k] | K/k | 𖫑 | [w] | W/w | 𖫛 |
| [ɛ] | Ɛ/ɛ | 𖫬 | [k͡p] | Kp/kp | 𖫘 | [xʷ]/[ħʷ] | Xw/xw | 𖫚 |
| [f] | F/f | 𖫓 | [n] | N/n | 𖫐 | [z] | Z/z | 𖫜 |
Tones
Vah uses 5 diacritical marks to denote tonality of its vowels. It distinguishes five tones: high, low, mid, mid-rising, and falling.
| IPA | Latin with a | Vah with 𖫧 | Vah diacritic |
|---|---|---|---|
| ˦ | á | 𖫧𖫰 | 𖫰◌ |
| ˨ | à | 𖫧𖫱 | 𖫱◌ |
| ˧ | a | 𖫧𖫲 | 𖫲◌ |
| ˨˧ | ă | 𖫧𖫳 | 𖫳◌ |
| ˥˩ | â | 𖫧𖫴 | 𖫴◌ |
Unicode
Bassa Vah was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.
The Unicode block for Bassa Vah is U+16AD0–U+16AFF:
| Bassa Vah[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+16ADx | 𖫐 | 𖫑 | 𖫒 | 𖫓 | 𖫔 | 𖫕 | 𖫖 | 𖫗 | 𖫘 | 𖫙 | 𖫚 | 𖫛 | 𖫜 | 𖫝 | 𖫞 | 𖫟 |
| U+16AEx | 𖫠 | 𖫡 | 𖫢 | 𖫣 | 𖫤 | 𖫥 | 𖫦 | 𖫧 | 𖫨 | 𖫩 | 𖫪 | 𖫫 | 𖫬 | 𖫭 | ||
| U+16AFx | 𖫰 | 𖫱 | 𖫲 | 𖫳 | 𖫴 | 𖫵 | ||||||||||
| Notes | ||||||||||||||||
