Kpelle
Script details
Section titled “Script details”See all script details: code, region, status and more
| Code | Kpel |
| Script type | syllabary |
| Region | African |
| Status | Current |
| Direction | LTR |
| Baseline | bottom |
| Case | no |
| White space | unspecified |
| Complex behaviors | |
| OpenType code | unspecified |
| ISO 15924 Number | 436 (syllabic) |
Script description
Section titled “Script description”The Kpelle script was created by Chief Gbili, from the town of Sanoyie in Liberia, for writing the Kpelle language.
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It was used in the 1930s and early 1940s around Gbili’s local area for sending messages, keeping tax and store records, and recording legal debts, but by the late 1940s had been replaced by the Latin script.
Kpelle writing uses 88 symbols, each representing a pair of syllables dubbed ‘mutational pairs’ by the linguist David Dalby. These pairs are related by the phonological similarity of their initial consonants or consonant clusters. For example, the syllables kpi and gbi are identical except in voicing, and are represented by a single symbol. Some pairs are written with two symbols, for example, ti and di, but either symbol can be used for either sound.
The script is written from left to right, without the use of punctuation. Numbers from 1-10 can be written, but there is no symbol for writing the number zero.
Languages that use this script
Section titled “Languages that use this script”| Language | Writing System Code | Writing System Status | SLDR/CLDR locale | Regional variants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kpelle, Liberia | kpe-Kpel | in use | kpe-Kpel-LR (Liberia) |
Unicode status
Section titled “Unicode status”The Kpelle script is not yet in Unicode. The script has a tentative allocation at U+16C00..U+16C7F in the Roadmap to the SMP
for the Unicode Standard.
Resources
Section titled “Resources”External links
- Kpelle (ScriptSource)
- Kpelle syllabary (Wikipedia)
- Kpelle Syllabary (Omniglot)
Bibliography
- Dalby, David. “A Survey of the Indigenous Scripts of Liberia and Sierra Leone: Vai, Mende, Loma, Kpelle and Bassa”. African Language Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, 1967, pp. 1-51.
- Dalby, David. “The indigenous scripts of West Africa and Surinam: their inspiration and design”. African Language Studies, vol. IX, 1968, pp. 156-197.
- Mafundikwa, Saki. Afrikan Alphabets. Mark Batty, 2004.
- Slager, Tim. “A Brief Summary of Liberian Indigenous Scripts”. Liberian Studies Association Conference, 2008, https://cefliberia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/IndigenousScripts.pdf.