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The Vai language, also called Vy or Gallinas, is a Mande language spoken by the Vai people, roughly 104,000 in Liberia, and by smaller populations, some 15,500, in Sierra Leone.[2]

Vai
ꕙꔤ
Native to	Liberia, Sierra Leone
Region	Africa
Ethnicity	Vai people
Native speakers	(120,000 cited 1991–2006)[1]
Language family	Mande Western Mande Central Manding–Jogo Manding–Vai Vai–Kono Vai
Writing system	Vai syllabary
Language codes
ISO 639-2	vai
ISO 639-3	vai
Glottolog	vaii1241
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Writing system

Vai is noteworthy for being one of the few African languages to have a writing system that is not based on the Latin or Arabic script. This Vai script is a syllabary invented by Momolu Duwalu Bukele around 1833, although dates as early as 1815 have been alleged. The existence of Vai was reported in 1834 by American missionaries in the Missionary Herald of the ABCFM[3] and independently by Rev. Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle, a Sierra Leone agent of the Church Missionary Society of London.[4]

The Vai script was used to print the New Testament in the Vai language, dedicated in 2003.

Phonology

Vai is a tonal language and has 11 vowels and 31 consonants, which are tabulated below.[5]

Vowels

	Oral vowels		Nasal vowels
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Close	i iː	u uː	ĩ ĩː
Close-mid	e eː	o oː	ɛ̃ ɛ̃ː	ɔ̃ ɔ̃ː
Open-mid	ɛ ɛː	ɔ ɔː
Open	a aː		ã ãː

Consonants

	Labial		Alveolar		Post-al. /palatal		Velar		Labial -velar		Glottal
Nasal		m		n		ɲ		ŋ
Stop/ Prenasalised	p	b mb	t	d nd	c	ɟ ɲɟ	k	g ŋɡ	k͡p	ŋ͡mɡ͡b
Implosive		ɓ		(ɗ)						ɠ͡ɓ
Fricatives	f	v	s	z	(ʃ)						h
Approximant (Lateral)						j				w
			l ~ ɗ
Trill				(r)

[r] and [ʃ] occur only in recent loanwords.^{[clarification needed from which language?]}

See also

• A Grammar of Vai, by William E. Welmers, 1977
• Vai syllabary

References

External links

• Vai Script workshop
• Omniglot entry on Vai script
• Smithsonian exhibit on Vai and other African scripts
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Vai

На других языках

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[de] Vai (Sprache)

Vai, alternativ auch Wey, Vy oder Gallinas genannt, ist eine Mandesprache, die von etwa 104.000 Einwohnern Liberias[1] und knapp 1000 (Stand 2015) in Sierra Leone gesprochen wird.[2]

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- [en] Vai language

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[es] Idioma vai

La lengua vai (llamada también en ocasiones Gallinas, Gallines, Vei o Vy) es un idioma que se habla principalmente en el oeste de Liberia y zonas limítrofes del este de Sierra Leona. Es una de las lenguas mandé que se expandió por África Occidental, destacando por su prestigio como lengua comercial desde el siglo XV.[1] Destaca por haber sido una de las pocas lenguas subsaharianas que ha desarrollado un sistema de escritura propio, el silabario Vai.[2][3]

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[fr] Vaï (langue)

Le vaï est une langue mandée du Libéria et de Sierra Leone. C’est la langue du peuple vaï. Elle a la particularité d’avoir son propre système d’écriture : le syllabaire vaï, créé par Momolu Duwalu Bukele (en) en 1833.

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[ru] Ваи (язык)

Ваи (ꕙꔤ) – один из языков манде. Большинство носителей, около 105 000, проживает в Либерии. Небольшие общины имеются в Сьерра-Леоне.

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