Blackwell Reference Online

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A modern West African script devised by or with the help of American missionaries in the 1920s. It is used to write Bassa, a Kru language spoken mostly in Liberia. No reliable reports on the usage of the script are available, but dies were created for printing, and an association for the promotion of the script was established in Liberia in 1959. The script is an alphabet with a tone marking system consisting of 23 consonant letters, seven vowel letters and five tone diacritics. In table 2 the consonant letters are arranged in lenis/fortis pairs. The numbering refers to the conventional order of the alphabet which is also known as ni-ka-se-fe using the first four consonant letter names. Vowels are taken as a separate set not included in the sequence. In the table they are arranged roughly in phonological order from unrounded to rounded and front to back vowels. As illustrated for the letter i in the table, tone marks are placed as diacritics within vowel letters. The sign + is used as a punctuation mark corresponding to a full stop. Table 2 The Bassa alphabet: numbering refers to conventional order (see text) Source: Dalby 1967 See also african writing systems . Reading Pichl 1966; Dalby 1967. ... log in or subscribe to read full text