Africa Alphabet

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Africa Alphabet
Type:	alphabet
Languages:	African languages
Time period:	1928 -
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

The Africa Alphabet was developed in 1928 under the lead of Diedrich Westermann. He developed it with a group of Africanists at the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures (later the IAI) in London. Its aim was to enable people to write all the African languages for practical and scientific purposes.

This alphabet has influenced development of orthographies of many African languages, but not all, and discussions of harmonization of systems of transcription that led to, among other things, adoption of the

[edit] Characters

lowercase

a

b

ɓ

c

d

ɖ

e

ɛ

ǝ

f

ƒ

g

ɣ

h

x

i

j

k

uppercase

A

B

Ɓ

C

D

Ɖ

E

Ɛ

Ǝ

F

Ƒ

G

Ɣ

H

X

I

J

K

lowercase

l

m

n

ŋ

o

ɔ

p

r

s

ʃ

t

u

v

ʋ

w

y

z

ʒ

uppercase

L

M

N

Ŋ

O

Ɔ

P

R

S

Ʃ

T

U

V

Ʋ

W

Y

Z

Ʒ

[edit] See also

• Standard Alphabet by Lepsius
• African reference alphabet
• Alphabets derived from the Latin

[edit] References

• The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, Florian Coulmas, 1996, Blackwell, Oxford

• IIACL Practical Orthography of African Languages, Revised Edition, London: Oxford University Press, 1930