The Afaka script (afaka sikifi) is a syllabary of 56 letters devised in 1908 for the Ndyuka language, an English creole of Surinam. The script is named after its inventor, Afáka Atumisi. It is still used to write Ndyuka, but the literacy rate for all scripts is under 10%. Jump to: navigation, search A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ... 1908 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Ndyuka (or Ndjuka, officially Ndyukátongo) is a language of Suriname. ... The term Creole is used with different meanings in different contexts, which can generate confusion. ...

Afaka is the only script in use that was designed specifically for a creole or a form of English.

The origin of many of the glyphs are opaque, though several appear to be rebuses, many of which use symbols brought from Africa. For example, a curl with a dot in it representing a baby in a bely stands for [be]; symbols for come and go are used for [ko] and [go], two linked circles for we stand for [wi], something like II two is [tu] and |||| four is [fo]; and + is [ne], from name, from the practice of signing one's name with an X. The only letters which correspond to the Latin alphabet are the vowels a and o, though it is said that the latter represents the shape of the mouth when pronouncing it. A rebus (Latin: by things) is a kind of word puzzle which uses pictures to represent words or parts of words, for example: H + picture of ear = Hear. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

Afaka is a rather defective script. Tone is phonemic but not written. Final consonants (the nasal [n]) are not written, but long vowels are, by adding a vowel letter. Prenasalized and voiced consonants are written the same, and syllables with the vowels [u] and [o] are seldom distinguished (they are in the cases of [o]/[u], [po]/[pu], and [to]/[tu], but not after the consonants [b, d, dy, f, g, l, m, n, s]). Thus the Afaka form of Ndyuka could be read instead as Joka. In a few cases syllables with [e] and [i] are not distinguished (after the consonants [l, m, s, w]), and a single letter is used for both [ba] and [pa], and another for both [u] and [ku]. Several consonants have only a one syllabic symbol assigned to them. These are [ty], which is only written as [tya]; [kw], only as [kwa]; [ny], only as [nya]; and [dy], only as [dyu/dyo]. The only cases where there is no ambiguity are with the consonants [y] (only occurs as [ya], [ye], [yu]) and [t] (which occurs with all five vowels). This article or section uses Ruby annotation. ... In oral language, a phoneme is the theoretical basic unit of sound that can be used to distinguish words or morphemes; in sign language, it is a similarly basic unit of hand shape, motion, position, or facial expression. ... Prenasalized stops are phonetic sequences of nasal plus plosive that behave phonologically like single consonant. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ...

There is a single punctuation mark, the pipe (|), which corresponds to a comma and period.

Afaka is not supported by Unicode, and the only available font is poorly designed. In computing, Unicode provides an international standard which has the goal of providing the means to encode the text of every document people want to store on computers. ...

Reference

• Cornelis Dubelaar & André Pakosie, Het Afakaschrift van de Tapanahoni rivier in Suriname. Utrecht 1999. ISBN 9055380326.

External links

• A sample of Afaka script on a memorial in Surinam. The phrase is Odun m’sigasiye "I'm prepared to die for freedom", which in Afaka is O.DŮ.MĖ.SĖ.GA.SĖ.E (Ů = U or O, Ė = E or I)
• Afaka at Omniglot
• The font pictured at Omniglot