On 20/10/2003 02:43, Philippe Verdy wrote:
From: "Marco Cimarosti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Peter Kirk wrote:
Are we talking about a real non-Latin script, some kind of
syllabary or logographic script, for Swahili and other
Bantu languages? [...]
Or did someone not notice that Marco's comments were about
the word "joke"?
Indeed.
In the last few months, I have been relatively serious, so someone may not
know or remember that I am the unofficial Unicode List's clown.
Accept my apologize: I had not checked the script used by Swahili when it
was discussed (joked). However after reading your message, I had thought
that this language was mostly transliterated to ASCII, and there may have
existed some historic native scripts to write this language, in a context
where culture is/was mostly transmitted orally.
As Africa has been influenced by many foreign invasions, there may in fact
exist other scripts to represent this language (notably some Semitic
script). Do you know if such historic texts exist for this language written
in Arabic, Ethiopic, or some Indic scripts imported by merchants or
missionnaries ?
The best candidate for a historic script for a Bantu language. I can
find is the script for the Bamun or Bamum language of Cameroon, which is
"Bantoid" but not "Narrow Bantu" (see
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=BAX and
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=22). The script was
originally devised about 1897 with 466 picto-ideographic characters, was
developed further and simplified to a 72 character phonetic script in
1918, and used widely until about 1933 after which it fell into gradual
disuse. Presumably this is the same as the "Bamum" roadmapped for
1900-1AFF in plane 1. The other roadmapped indigenous African scripts,
Vai, Mende and Bassa (not to forget Tifinagh, Egyptian and Meroitic,
also Ethiopic which is not strictly indigenous), are not for Bantu
languages. And the same is true of one African script which is well
attested but not apparently roadmapped: Egyptian demotic.
--
Peter Kirk
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (work)
http://www.qaya.org/
