African reference alphabet
The African reference alphabet is the 1982 revised version of an alphabet proposal drawn up in 1978 at a UNESCO conference in Niamey ( Niger ) . The conference recommended using a single letter for each sound (in fact, for each phoneme ) instead of multiple letter combinations ( digraphs or trigraphs ) or letters with diacritical marks .
The African reference alphabet is clearly related to the African alphabet and reflects practical experience with the latter. The Niamey Conference also built on the work of a previous UNESCO-organized conference in Bamako ( Mali ) in 1966 on the harmonization of the transcription of African languages .
Previous versions 1978
Various reports on the results of the 1978 Niamey Conference were produced in English and French. In particular, the illustrations of the alphabets differ, and there are also differences in content.
In the English version, an alphabet with 57 letters is proposed, each in a capital and small letter form . Eight of these letters were formed from letters from the basic 26-character Latin alphabet and an underscore (_) below. Many of the glyphs , mostly capital letter forms, appear unusual and (as of 2013, Unicode Version 6.2) cannot be represented exactly in Unicode .
The English version also lists eight accents : acute (´), grave accents (`), circumflex (^), caron ( Hatschek ) (ˇ), macron (¯), tilde (˜), trema (¨) and overpoint (˙) ), and nine punctuation marks ( ?! () «»,;. ).
The French version only contains hand-drawn lowercase letters. There are 56 letters as in the English version (the hook-z is missing), as well as two more apostrophe -like letters ʿ and ʻ . In addition, five of the letters are written with a subdivision instead of an underscore (ḍ, ḥ, ṣ, ṭ and ẓ). These represent emphatic consonants as in Arabic . The remaining letters (c̱, q̱ and x̱) shown with an underscore represent click sounds . Accents and punctuation marks are not listed in the French version.
Otherwise the contents of the English and French versions are the same.
| Lowercase letter | a | ɑ | b | ɓ | c | c̱ | d | ḏ | ɖ | ɗ | ð | |
| Capital letter | A. | Ɑ | B. | Ɓ | C. | C̱ | D. | Ḏ | Ɖ | Ɗ |
|
|
| Lowercase letter | e | ɛ | ǝ | f | ƒ | G | ɣ | H | H | i | ɪ | |
| Capital letter | E. | Ɛ | Ǝ | F. | Ƒ | G | Ɣ | H | H | I. | Ɪ | |
| Lowercase letter | j | k | ƙ | l | m | n | ŋ | O | ɔ | p | q | |
| Capital letter | J | K | Ƙ | L. | M. | N | Ŋ | O | Ɔ | P | Q | |
| Lowercase letter | q̱ | r | ɍ | s | s̱ | ʃ | t | ṯ | ƭ | ʈ | ɵ | u |
| Capital letter | Q̱ | R. | Ɍ | S. | S̱ | Ʃ | T | Ṯ | Ƭ | Ʈ | Ɵ | U |
| Lowercase letter | ʊ | v | ʋ | w | x | x̱ | y | ƴ | z | ẕ |  |
ʒ |
| Capital letter | Ʊ | V | Ʋ | W. | X | X̱ | Y | Ƴ | Z | Ẕ | |
Ʒ |
Remarks:
-
Ɑ / ɑ is the " Latin Alpha " ( ), not a "Latin single story A " ( ). In Unicode, these representations are not viewed as different letters.
- The uppercase letter I as the counterpart to the lowercase letter “i with dot” has no serifs , while the uppercase “Ɪ” (U + A7AE latin capital letter small capital i ) that matches the lowercase ɪ (U + 026A latin letter small capital i ) has clear serifs (or head and foot bars analogous to the head bar of the "T").
Version 1982
The 1982 revision was carried out by Michael Mann and David Dalby, who also attended the Niamey Conference. Since then, the African reference alphabet has had 60 letters, some of which have significantly different shapes compared to the previous versions from 1978. In addition, the alphabet only includes lowercase letters, so it is a unicameral alphabet.
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| a | ɑ | ʌ | b | ɓ | c | ƈ | ç | d | ɗ | ɖ | đ | e | ɛ | ǝ |
| f | ƒ | G | ɠ | ɣ | H | ɦ | i | ɩ | j | ɟ | k | ƙ | l | λ |
| m |  |
n | ŋ | ɲ | O | ɔ | p | ƥ | q | r | ɽ | s | ʃ | t |
| ƭ | ʈ | θ | u | ω | v | ʋ | w | x | y | ƴ | z | ʒ | ƹ | ʔ |
The 32nd letter “ .svg){kind=small}
” is the linearised tilde . This character is not included in Unicode (as of March 2020, Unicode Version 13) and can be represented approximately as ɴ (U + 0274 latin letter small capital n ).
See also
literature
- Michael Mann, David Dalby: A thesaurus of African languages: A classified and annotated inventory of the spoken languages of Africa with an appendix on their written representation . London: Hans Zell Publishers 1987. ISBN 0-905450-24-8 .
- African Languages: Proceedings of the meeting of experts on the transcription and harmonization of African languages, Niamey (Niger), 17–21 July 1978 , Paris: UNESCO 1981
Web links
- Peter Constable: The “international niamey keyboard” layout . SIL International website .
- More Questions About African Characters and Variants. SIL International , August 17, 2003, accessed on March 29, 2020 (discussion page with various first-hand information on some characters, especially on the discrepancy between the published alphabet version from 1978 and Unicode).
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Presentation of the "African Reference Alphabet" (in 4 images) from the Niamey 1978 meeting. www.bisharat.net, accessed on May 10, 2013 (English).
- ↑ Michael Everson, Denis Jacquerye, Chris Lilley: Proposal for the addition of ten Latin characters to the UCS. (PDF; 620 kB) ISO / IEC JTC1 / SC2 / WG2, Document N4297, July 26, 2012, accessed on April 29, 2013 (English).
- ^ Michael Mann, David Dalby: A Thesaurus of African Languages , London 1987, ISBN 0-905450-24-8 , page 207