The Garay alphabet was designed in 1961, as a transcription system "
arryingAfrican sociolinguistic characteristics" according to its inventor,
Assane Faye. This alphabet has 25 consonants and 14 vowels.
['' The Garay alphabet can contribute to the rebirth of Africa, according to its inventor '']
Birane Hady Cissé, on '' fr.allafrica.com '' (April 21, 2009, accessed November 7, 2018). It is used in particular for the writing of the
Wolof language
Wolof (; Wolofal: ) is a language of Senegal, Mauritania, and the Gambia, and the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer language, Serer and Fula language, Fula, it belongs to the Senegambian languages, Senegam ...
, spoken mostly in
Senegal
Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 ...
, although it is more often written in the Latin alphabet. It is written from
right to left
In a script (commonly shortened to right to left or abbreviated RTL, RL-TB or R2L), writing starts from the right of the page and continues to the left, proceeding from top to bottom for new lines. Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Pashto, Urdu, Kashmi ...
, and distinguishes
letter case
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
.
A proposal to encode Garay in Unicode was submitted in 2012.
Letters
Consonants
The consonants are written as standalone letters and are not joined as in Arabic.
There is a mark above some letters to show pre-nasalization. The letter labeled
alif is used like its counterpart in Arabic, coming before an initial vowel. Extra to the standard Wolof set is /ħ/, available for Arabic loan words. Lacking is /q/, but /k/ may suffice for that. Also lacking is /nk/, but that may easily be formed with a mark above, like /mb/ etc.
In Garay, uppercase letters are distinguished from lowercase letters by a swash added to one side or the other of the letter. Each sentence begins with a capital letter. Personal names are likewise capitalized.
Garay Alphabet: a Wolof Script
6 May 2019
Vowels
Numbers
References
Bibliography
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External links
Discover Garay
Movement of Teachers of African Languages in Senegal (MELAS).
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Writing systems introduced in 1961
Writing systems of Africa
Wolof language
Right-to-left writing systems
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