Zaghawa alphabet
Encyclopedia
The Zaghawa or Beria alphabet, Beria Giray Erfe ('Zaghawa Writing Marks'), is an indigenous alphabet
ic script proposed for the Zaghawa
Beria language of Darfur
and Chad
.
In the 1950s, a Sudanese Zaghawa schoolteacher named Adam Tajir created an alphabet for the Zaghawa language that was based on the clan brand
s used for livestock, especially camel
s. Sometimes known as the camel alphabet, he copied the inventory of the Arabic script, so the system was not ideal for Zaghawa.
In 2000, a Zaghawa veterinarian named Siddick Adam Issa adapted Tajir's script to Zaghawa, which has proven popular in the Zaghawa community. The typography is somewhat unusual in that capital letters have descender
s which drop below the baseline of the lower-case letters and punctuation, rather than rising above lower-case letters as in the Latin alphabet. Beria Giray Erfe is a full alphabet, with independent letters for vowels; however, diacritic
s are used to mark tone (grave accent
for falling tone and acute accent
for rising tone; high, mid, and low tone are unmarked), as well as advanced tongue root
vowels (a macron
derives /i e ə o u/ from the letters for /ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ/).
The letter for /p/, which does not occur in Zaghawa or in Arabic, is written by adding a tail to the letter for /b/. Likewise, /ʃ/ is derived from the letter for /s/ with a cross stroke. There apparently is no letter for /ħ/, no a distinction between /ɾ/ and /r/, both of which have been reported for Zaghawa.
European numerals and punctuation are used. A preliminary proposal to map the script into Unicode space for future universal computer support was made in 2007.
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
ic script proposed for the Zaghawa
Zaghawa language
The Zaghawa language is a Saharan language spoken by the Zaghawa people of eastern central Chad and northwestern Sudan ....
Beria language of Darfur
Darfur
Darfur is a region in western Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur...
and Chad
Chad
Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
.
In the 1950s, a Sudanese Zaghawa schoolteacher named Adam Tajir created an alphabet for the Zaghawa language that was based on the clan brand
Livestock branding
Livestock branding is a technique for marking livestock so as to identify the owner. Originally, livestock branding only referred to a hot brand for large stock, though the term is now also used to refer to other alternative techniques such as freeze branding...
s used for livestock, especially camel
Camel
A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
s. Sometimes known as the camel alphabet, he copied the inventory of the Arabic script, so the system was not ideal for Zaghawa.
In 2000, a Zaghawa veterinarian named Siddick Adam Issa adapted Tajir's script to Zaghawa, which has proven popular in the Zaghawa community. The typography is somewhat unusual in that capital letters have descender
Descender
In typography, a descender is the portion of a letter that extends below the baseline of a font. The line that descenders reach down to is known as the beard line....
s which drop below the baseline of the lower-case letters and punctuation, rather than rising above lower-case letters as in the Latin alphabet. Beria Giray Erfe is a full alphabet, with independent letters for vowels; however, diacritic
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
s are used to mark tone (grave accent
Grave accent
The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Dutch, French, Greek , Italian, Mohawk, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Welsh, Romansh, and other languages.-Greek:The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient...
for falling tone and acute accent
Acute accent
The acute accent is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.-Apex:An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.-Greek:...
for rising tone; high, mid, and low tone are unmarked), as well as advanced tongue root
Advanced tongue root
In phonetics, advanced tongue root and retracted tongue root, abbreviated ATR or RTR, are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in West Africa, but also in Kazakh and Mongolian...
vowels (a macron
Macron
A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
derives /i e ə o u/ from the letters for /ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ/).
The letter for /p/, which does not occur in Zaghawa or in Arabic, is written by adding a tail to the letter for /b/. Likewise, /ʃ/ is derived from the letter for /s/ with a cross stroke. There apparently is no letter for /ħ/, no a distinction between /ɾ/ and /r/, both of which have been reported for Zaghawa.
European numerals and punctuation are used. A preliminary proposal to map the script into Unicode space for future universal computer support was made in 2007.
External links
- SIL Zaghawa Beria Font page, with free non-Unicode font and 2007 Unicode proposal.