Re: Swahili & Banthu

From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Mon Oct 20 2003 - 05:12:04 CST


On 20/10/2003 02:43, Philippe Verdy wrote:

>From: "Marco Cimarosti" <marco.cimarosti@essetre.it>
>
>
>>Peter Kirk wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Are we talking about a real non-Latin script, some kind of
>>>syllabary or logographic script, for Swahili and other
>>>Bantu languages? [...]
>>>Or did someone not notice that Marco's comments were about
>>>the word "joke"?
>>>
>>>
>>Indeed.
>>
>>In the last few months, I have been relatively serious, so someone may not
>>know or remember that I am the unofficial Unicode List's clown.
>>
>>
>
>Accept my apologize: I had not checked the script used by Swahili when it
>was discussed (joked). However after reading your message, I had thought
>that this language was mostly transliterated to ASCII, and there may have
>existed some historic native scripts to write this language, in a context
>where culture is/was mostly transmitted orally.
>
>As Africa has been influenced by many foreign invasions, there may in fact
>exist other scripts to represent this language (notably some Semitic
>script). Do you know if such historic texts exist for this language written
>in Arabic, Ethiopic, or some Indic scripts imported by merchants or
>missionnaries ?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
The best candidate for a historic script for a Bantu language. I can
find is the script for the Bamun or Bamum language of Cameroon, which is
"Bantoid" but not "Narrow Bantu" (see
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=BAX and
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=22). The script was
originally devised about 1897 with 466 picto-ideographic characters, was
developed further and simplified to a 72 character phonetic script in
1918, and used widely until about 1933 after which it fell into gradual
disuse. Presumably this is the same as the "Bamum" roadmapped for
1900-1AFF in plane 1. The other roadmapped indigenous African scripts,
Vai, Mende and Bassa (not to forget Tifinagh, Egyptian and Meroitic,
also Ethiopic which is not strictly indigenous), are not for Bantu
languages. And the same is true of one African script which is well
attested but not apparently roadmapped: Egyptian demotic.

-- 
Peter Kirk
peter@qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk@qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/


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