Zaghawa script
The Zaghawa or Beria alphabet , Beria Giray Erfe ('Zaghawa characters'), is the alphabetic script of the Zaghawa and their Zaghawa-Beria language in Chad and Darfur (West Sudan ).
The new font is based on a native character system. In the 1950s, Sudanese Zaghawa school teacher Adam Tajir codified an alphabet for the Zaghawa language based on traditional clan branding for cattle, most notably camels . Sometimes known as the Kame alphabet , it first copied the inventory of Arabic script , the official script of the state - so the system was not ideal for the Zaghawa.
In 2000, the Zaghawa veterinarian, Siddick Adam Issa, adapted the script from Tajir to Zaghawa, which the Zaghawa community accepted. The typography is a bit unusual because the capital letters have descenders that reach below the baseline, rather than protruding above the lowercase letters as in the Latin alphabet . Beria Giray Erfe is a complete alphabet, with independent letters for vowels; however, diacritical marks are used to mark the pitch: Accent Grave for falling tones and Accent aigu for rising tones; high, middle and low are unmarked. There are also extended tongue length vowels. A macron branches / ie ə ou / from the letters for / ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ / .
The letter for / p / , which does not appear in Zaghawa or in the official language Arabic, is written by adding a tail to the letter for / b / . Likewise, / ʃ / is derived from the letter for / s / with a dash added. There is usually no letter for / ħ / and no distinction between / ɾ / and / r / , although both phonemes occur in the Zaghawa language.
European numerals and punctuation are also used in the script. Capturing the script in Unicode for future universal computing was proposed in 2007.
Web links
- SIL Zaghawa Beria Font Page , with free non-Unicode fonts and the Unicode proposal from 2007.