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WonderIndigenous script fact

The Vai syllabary is a script for the Vai language of Liberia in which each sign stands for a whole syllable. It was created in the early 1830s, largely by Mọmọlu Duwalu Bukẹlẹ, and is still in use today.

Vai syllabary

LanguageHistory

The story behind the card

Vai is spoken in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Bukẹlẹ said the signs had come to him in a dream, and the script, of about two hundred syllable signs, spread from person to person rather than through schools, used for letters, accounts and records. In the 1970s the psychologists Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole studied Vai readers to test whether literacy alone changes the way people think. In The Psychology of Literacy (1981) they reported that reading and writing Vai sharpened particular skills tied to how the script was used, while the broader effects often credited to literacy were linked more to formal schooling.

Türkçe oku
Vai hece yazısında her işaret bütün bir heceyi gösterir. Liberya'da konuşulan Vai dili için 1830'ların başında, büyük ölçüde Mọmọlu Duwalu Bukẹlẹ'nin çalışmasıyla geliştirildi ve bugün de kullanılıyor.

Vai dili Liberya'da ve Sierra Leone'de konuşulur. Bukẹlẹ işaretlerin kendisine bir rüyada göründüğünü söylemişti. Yaklaşık iki yüz hece işaretinden oluşan yazı okullar aracılığıyla değil, kişiden kişiye öğretilerek yayıldı; mektuplarda, hesaplarda ve kayıtlarda kullanıldı. 1970'lerde psikologlar Sylvia Scribner ve Michael Cole, okuryazarlığın tek başına insanın düşünme biçimini değiştirip değiştirmediğini anlamak için Vai okurlarını inceledi. The Psychology of Literacy (1981) adlı kitaplarında, Vai yazısını okuyup yazmanın yazının kullanıldığı işlerle bağlantılı belirli becerileri geliştirdiğini, okuryazarlığa genellikle yüklenen daha geniş etkilerin ise asıl olarak okul eğitimiyle ilgili olduğunu bildirdiler.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Vai syllabary
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