The Goulsse alphabet was created for writing Gur languages of West Africa, such as Mossi and Kasem. It is also used to write the constructed language FuturLang.[1] It was developed in 2022 by two people, Wenitte Apiou and Babaguioue Micareme Akouabou of Burkina Faso.[2] The alphabet contains 30 letters,[2] plus punctuation marks, and dots above some vowel symbols to mark nasalization.
The script is written from left to right in a straight line. It does not distinguish between upper and lower case letters. Also, despite the fact that Gur languages have tonal distinctions, the script does not provide a way to mark tone differences.[3]
The name Goulsse means 'writing' in Mossi, spoken in Burkina Faso.[1] It is one of several scripts that have been created in West Africa to contribute to ethnic and linguistic revitalization.[4][1] The script has been taught in Po, Burkina Faso.[3]
References
edit- ^ a b c Simon Ager, ed. (2023). "Goulsse alphabet". omniglot.com.
- ^ a b Brookes, Tim (23 August 2022). "The Vanderbilt–Burkina Faso Connection". Endangered Alphabets. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
- ^ a b Brookes, Tim (November 2022). "Minority Languages in West Africa". MultiLingual. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
- ^ Unseth, Peter (2011). "Invention of Scripts in West Africa for Ethnic Revitalization". In Fishman, Joshua A.; García, Ofelia (eds.). Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity: The Success-Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 23–32. ISBN 978-0-19-983799-1.