Trade centres · devised c. 1832–33
The Vai script
An indigenous syllabary invented by Dualu Bukele and his associates — one of the few independently created writing systems in modern history.
Biography
The syllabary of roughly 200 characters was devised at Jondu in the Cape Mount district and spread rapidly through Vai commercial networks, used for accounts, letters and records.
It postdates 1822 by a decade, but it grows directly from the pre-1822 world this book describes: a literate Muslim commercial milieu, a mercantile need for records, and a confident sense that a people may make its own instruments.
Historical significance
Decisive evidence against the assumption that literacy came to this coast only with settlers and missionaries.
Timeline
- c. 1832Devised by Dualu Bukele
- 1849First European description published
Related entries
References
- Koelle, S. W. (1854). Outlines of a Grammar of the Vei Language.
- Tuchscherer & Hair (2002).
Suggested reading
- Scribner & Cole (1981). The Psychology of Literacy.