The Garay alphabet was designed in 1961, as a transcription system "[marrying] African sociolinguistic characteristics" according to its inventor, Assane Faye. This alphabet has 25 consonants and 14 vowels.[1] It is used in particular for the writing of the Wolof language, spoken mostly in Senegal, although it is more often written in the Latin alphabet and to a lesser extent in the Arabic (Wolofal) alphabet. It is written from right to left, and distinguishes letter case.
| Garay | |
|---|---|
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| Script type | alphabet
|
| Creator | Assane Faye |
| Created | 1961 |
| Direction | Right to left |
| Languages | Wolof |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Gara (164), Garay |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Garay |
| U+10D40–U+10D8F | |
Letters
editConsonants
editThe consonants are written as standalone letters and are not joined as in Arabic.
There is a mark above some letters to show pre-nasalization. The letter labeled alif is used like its counterpart in Arabic, coming before an initial vowel. Extra to the standard Wolof set is /ħ/, available for Arabic loan words. Lacking is /q/, but /k/ may suffice for that. Also lacking is /nk/, but that may easily be formed with a mark above, like /mb/ etc.[2]
In Garay, uppercase letters are distinguished from lowercase letters by a swash added to one side or the other of the letter. Each sentence begins with a capital letter. Personal names are likewise capitalized.[3]
| Nasals | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | ɲ ⟨ñ⟩ | ŋ ⟨ŋ⟩ |
| Lowercase |  |
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| Uppercase |  |
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| Prenasalized plosives | ||||
| IPA | mb ⟨mb⟩ | nd ⟨nd⟩ | ɲɟ ⟨nj⟩ | ŋɡ ⟨ng⟩ |
| Lowercase |  |
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| Uppercase |  |
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| Voiced plosives | ||||
| IPA | b ⟨b⟩ | d ⟨d⟩ | ɟ ⟨j⟩ | ɡ ⟨g⟩ |
| Lowercase |  |
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|
| Uppercase |  |
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| Voiceless plosives | ||||
| IPA | p ⟨p⟩ | t ⟨t⟩ | c ⟨c⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ |
| Lowercase |  |
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| Uppercase |  |
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| Fricatives | ||||
| IPA | f ⟨f⟩ | s ⟨s⟩ | x~χ ⟨x⟩ | ħ ⟨h⟩ |
| Lowercase |  |
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| Uppercase |  |
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| Liquids and semivowels | ||||
| IPA | r ⟨r⟩ | w ⟨w⟩ | l ⟨l⟩ | j ⟨y⟩ |
| Lowercase |  |
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| Uppercase |  |
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| Misc. | ||||
| Alif | ||||
| Lowercase |  |
|||
| Uppercase |  |
Vowels
edit| a ⟨a⟩ | i ⟨i⟩ | ɛ ⟨e⟩ | ɔ ⟨o⟩ |
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| ə ⟨ë⟩ | ü | e ⟨é⟩ | u ⟨u⟩ |
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Numbers
edit
Unicode
editThe Garay alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in September, 2024 with the release of version 16.0.
The Unicode block for Garay is U+10D40–U+10D8F:
| Garay[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+10D4x | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| U+10D5x | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| U+10D6x | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |||
| U+10D7x | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| U+10D8x | | | | | | | | | ||||||||
| Notes | ||||||||||||||||
References
edit- ^ The Garay alphabet can contribute to the rebirth of Africa, according to its inventor , Birane Hady Cissé, on fr.allafrica.com (April 21, 2009, accessed November 7, 2018).
- ^ Garay script for Wolof, Ian James, March 2012
- ^ Garay Alphabet: a Wolof Script, 6 May 2019
Bibliography
edit- Everson, Michael (April 26, 2012). Preliminary proposal for encoding the Garay script in the SMP of the UCS (PDF).
- Pandey, Anshuman (May 9, 2011). Introducing the Wolof Alphabet of Assane Faye (PDF).
External links
edit- Discover Garay[permanent dead link], Movement of Teachers of African Languages in Senegal (MELAS).
- James, Ian (March 2012). "Garay script of Wolof". SkyKnowledge.com.
- "Wolof (Wollof)". Omniglot.
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