The Africa Alphabet (also International African Alphabet or IAI 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 without diacritics. It is based on the International Phonetic Alphabet with little differences such as j and y, which instead have the same (consonant) sound values as in English.
This alphabet has influenced development of orthographies of many African languages (serving "as the basis for the transcription" of about 60, by one count), but not all, and discussions of harmonization of systems of transcription that led to, among other things, adoption of the African reference alphabet.
The African Alphabet was used, with the International Phonetic Alphabet, as a basis for the World Orthography.
Read more about Africa Alphabet: Characters
Famous quotes containing the words africa and/or alphabet:
“What is Africa to me:
Copper sun or scarlet sea,
Jungle star or jungle track,
Strong bronzed men, or regal black
Women from whose loins I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang?”
—Countee Cullen (1903–1946)
“I believe the alphabet is no longer considered an essential piece of equipment for traveling through life. In my day it was the keystone to knowledge. You learned the alphabet as you learned to count to ten, as you learned “Now I lay me” and the Lord’s Prayer and your father’s and mother’s name and address and telephone number, all in case you were lost.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)