Vai (language)

Vai
Spoken in	Liberia , Sierra Leone
speaker	105,000
Linguistic classification	Niger-Congo Mande West Mande Central Manding-Jogo Manding-Vai Vai-Kono Vai
Language codes
ISO 639-3	vai

Vai , alternatively also called Wey , Vy or Gallinas , is a Mande language that is spoken by around 104,000 people in Liberia and just under 1,000 (as of 2015) in Sierra Leone .

The musical language is known to have a used today writing system which is not based on the Latin alphabet. This Vai script is a syllabary which was developed by Momolu Duwalu Bukele around 1815 and was introduced in the Vai area in Liberia by 1833 . The existence of the Vai was reported in the Missionary Harald of the ABCFM in 1834 by American missionaries and independently by Rev. Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle , a Sierra Leonean agent of the Church Mission Society of London .

The Vai script was even used to print the New Testament in the Vai language, dedicated in 2003.

Play media file

Language example Vai, WIKITONGUES project

Web links

• Vai Script workshop
• Omniglot entry on Vai script
• Smithsonian exhibit on Vai and other African scripts
• Online Vai language dictionary
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Vai (PDF file; 99 kB)
• Dōălū Bŭkărä: Vita of the Dōălū Bŭkărä - BSB Cod.Vai 1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ethnologue report for Vai
2. ↑ Sierra Leone 2015 Population and Housing Census national analytical report. Statistics Sierra Leone, October 2017, p. 89ff.
3. ^ Report of Messrs. Wilson and Wynkoop . In: Missionary Herald , June 1834, p. 215. 
4. ^ A Written language in Western Africa . In: A. Howard (Ed.): The New-Jerusalem magazine . 23, No. 10, August, p. 431.