Mende Kikakui
Script details
Section titled “Script details”See all script details: code, region, status and more
| Code | Mend |
| Script type | syllabary |
| Region | African |
| Status | Current |
| Direction | RTL |
| Baseline | bottom |
| Case | no |
| White space | unspecified |
| Complex behaviors | diacritics, required ligatures |
| OpenType code | mend |
| ISO 15924 Number | 438 (syllabic) |
Script description
Section titled “Script description”The Mende (also called Kikakui) script was devised by Mohammed Turay for writing the Sierra Leonean language, Mende, spoken by almost 1.5 million people.
Read the full description…
It was modified by one of Turay’s students, Kisimi Kamara, in 1921 to produce the form currently used. It is an abugida; each of the 195 symbols represents a consonant with an inherent vowel. Symbols are sometimes formed by adding diacritics to a basic consonant sign to indicate the quality of the vowel; more often, every legitimate consonant+vowel syllable is represented by a unique, underived sign. It is the only West African syllabary to be written from right to left, which is attributed to Kamara’s Islamic heritage and familiarity with the Arabic script, also written from right to left. It is generally believed that the inventors also had some knowledge of the Vai script of Liberia, as the two scripts share significant similarities both in form and in origin.
The script was widely used for a time, and was a source of great national pride. However in the 1940s the British set up the Protectorate Literacy Bureau, with the aim of spreading literacy in the Latin script. As a result, the Mende script was largely replaced by a modified version of the Latin script, and is now estimated to be used by fewer than 500 people.
Languages that use this script
Section titled “Languages that use this script”| Language | Writing System Code | Writing System Status | SLDR/CLDR locale | Regional variants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mende | men-Mend | in use | men-Mend-SL (Sierra Leone) |
Unicode status
Section titled “Unicode status”In The Unicode Standard, Mende Kikakui script implementation is discussed in Chapter 19:Africa
.
Resources
Section titled “Resources”External links
- Mende Kikakui (ScriptSource)
- Mende Kikakui script (Wikipedia)
- Mende Syllabary (Omniglot)
- Unicode character pickers (r12a.io)
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.
- Mafundikwa, Saki. “The Mende Syllabary (Ki Ka Ku)”. Afrikan Alphabets, Mark Batty, 2004, pp. 70-73.
- Tuchscherer, Konrad. “African Script and Scripture: The History of the Kikakui (Mende) Writing System for Bible Translations”. African Languages and Cultures, vol. 8, no. 2, 1995, pp. 169-188.
- Tuchscherer, Konrad. “Recording, Communicating and Making Visible: A history of writing and systems of graphic symbolism in Africa”. Inscribing Meaning, edited by Christine Mullen Kreamer, et al., Five Continents Editions, 2007, pp. 37-53.
- Tuchscherer, Konrad. “The Kikakui(Mende) Syllabary and Number Writing System: Descriptive, Historical andEthnographic Accounts of a West African Tradition of Writing”. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1996.