AFAKA SCRIPT

The 'Afaka script' ''(afaka sikifi)'' is a syllabary of 56 glyphs (letters) devised in 1908 for the Ndyuka language, an English-based creole of Surinam. The script is named after its inventor, Afáka Atumisi. It continues to be used to write Ndyuka, but the literacy rate in that language for all scripts is under 10%.
Afaka is the only script in use that was designed specifically for a creole or for a form of English.
The origins of many of the glyphs are opaque, though several appear to be rebuses, with many of these being symbols from Africa. Examples of rubuses include a curl with a dot in it representing a '''ba'by'' in a '''be'lly'' and standing for [be]; symbols for ''come'' and ''go'' to represent [ko] and [go]; two linked circles for ''we'' standing for [wi]; a glyph like II ''two'' is [tu]; and |||| ''four'' is [fo]. A + symbol stands for [ne], from the word ''name,'' derived from the practice of signing one's name with an X. The only letters which correspond to the Latin alphabet are the vowels ''a'' and ''o,'' though it is said that the latter represents the shape of the mouth when pronouncing [o] rather than the Latin letter ''o.''
Afaka is a rather defective script. Tone is phonemic but not written. Final consonants (the nasal [n]) are not written, but long vowels are, by adding a vowel letter. Prenasalized and voiced consonants are written with the same glyphs, and syllables with the vowels [u] and [o] are seldom distinguished: They are in the syllables [o]/[u], [po]/[pu], and [to]/[tu], but not after the consonants [b, d, dy, f, g, l, m, n, s]. Thus the Afaka rendition of ''Ndyuka'' could also be read as ''Joka.'' In a few cases syllables with [e] and [i] are not distinguished (after the consonants [l, m, s, w]), a single letter is used for both [ba] and [pa], and another for both [u] and [ku]. Several consonants have only one glyph assigned to them. These are [ty], which only has a glyph for [tya]; [kw], which only has [kwa]; [ny], which only has [nya]; and [dy], which only has [dyu/dyo]. The result of these conflations is that only syllables for which there is no ambiguity are those beginning with the consonants [y] and [t].
There is a single punctuation mark, the pipe (|), which corresponds to a comma and period.
Afaka is not supported by Unicode, and the only available font is poorly designed.

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Reference

External links

Reference

★ Cornelis Dubelaar & André Pakosie, ''Het Afakaschrift van de Tapanahoni rivier in Suriname''. Utrecht 1999. ISBN 90-5538-032-6.

External links

★ Afaka at Omniglot

★ The font pictured at Omniglot