Article · People & ideas
The Vai Script
6 min read · Liberia & Its Peoples · People & Ideas
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The Vai syllabary is one of the best-documented writing systems invented in West Africa. It is associated with Momolu Duwalu Bukele, who lived in the Cape Mount area of present-day Liberia around 1833.
Invention and spread
Each Vai character represents a syllable rather than a single sound. The script spread through teaching, and was used for letters, records and personal writing.
The missionary linguist Sigismund Koelle studied the script and published a grammar of the Vai language in 1854, recording testimony about its origins.
Still written
Vai is included in the Unicode Standard, allowing it to be typed and shared digitally.
Sources and further reading
Primary source
- Koelle, S. W. Outlines of a Grammar of the Vai Language. Church Missionary House, 1854.
Later scholarship
- Dalby, D. “A Survey of the Indigenous Scripts of Liberia and Sierra Leone: Vai, Mende, Loma, Kpelle and Bassa.” African Language Studies 8 (1967): 1–51.
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