Afaka syllabary

It continues to be used to write Ndyuka in the 21st century, but the literacy rate in the language for all scripts is under 10%.

[citation needed] Afaka is the only script in use that was designed specifically for a creole.

In four cases syllables with [e] and [i] are not distinguished (after the consonants [l, m, s, w]); a single letter is used for both [ba] and [pa], and another for both [u] and [ku].

These are [ty], which only has a glyph for [tya]; [kw] (also [kp]), which only has [kwa ~ kpa]; [ny], which only has [nya] (though older records report that letter pulled double duty for [nyu]); and [dy], which only has [dyu/dyo].

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

[1] Examples of rebuses include a curl with a dot in it representing a baby in the belly (in Ndyuka, a abi beli, lit.

"she has belly", means "she's pregnant"), which stands for [be]; two hands outstretched to give (Ndyuka gi) stand for [gi]; iconic symbols for come (Ndyuka kon) and go to represent [ko] or [kon] and [go]; two linked circles for we stand for [wi], while [yu] is an inversion of [mi], corresponding to the pronouns you and me; letters like Roman numerals two and four are [tu] and [fo].

[ka] and [pi] are said to represent feces (Ndyuka kaka) and urine (pisi).

The odd conflation of [u] and [ku] is due to the letter being a pair of hooks, which is uku in Ndyuka.

[2] The only letters which appear to correspond to the Latin alphabet are the vowels a, o, and maybe e, though o is justified as the shape of the mouth when pronouncing it.

A good number are rotated a quarter turn, and sometimes inverted as well; these are be, di, dyo, fi, ga, ge, ye, ni, nya, pu, se, so, te, and tu, while lo, ba/pa, and wa may be in mirror-image and sa, to may be simply inverted.

Other syllables are placed near each other to spell out words: futu ("foot"), odi ("hello"), and ati ("heart"), or even phrases: a moke un taki ("it gives us speech"), masa gado te baka ben ye ("Lord God, that the white/black(?)

It was copied into the Patili Molosi Buku c. 1917. fu a pampila di yu be gi afaka.

The syllabary as recorded by Gonggrijp in 1968. All letters may include a final nasal (a for an, ba for ban, etc.), and the rows for b , d , dy , and g may also stand for mb , nd , ndy , and ng . The y row is placed between g and k because it was originally transcribed with Dutch j . The dot inside the loop of nya may be an error due to confusion with similarly shaped be .
Three orders of the Afaka syllabary as recorded in the Patili Molosi Buku , c. 1917 . The traditional order is at top. Letters which retain a final nasal may reflect their origin, such as ne(m) from "name" and ko(m) from "come". The mid order differs in moving row 5 and the syllable a to the beginning. Most significant allographs can be seen in comparing these two syllabaries, with some letters rotated and others more angular in the mid syllabary. The bottom order is arranged top-to-bottom according to the Dutch alphabetic order, reflecting the Dutch spellings j and oe for modern Ndyuka y and u , respectively.
The syllabary as recorded in 1920. The order is the original except that a comes first. There are three errors: kwa is missing; te(n) in column 4 was written ti(ng) , though ti appears again in column 6; and di in column 6 was transcribed ba , though it duplicates di in column 5. ( Ba / pa in column 5 had only been transcribed as pa . It should also be closed at the bottom; perhaps this is an inking error.) Also, accounts from the second half of the 20th century no longer give nyu as an alternate reading of nya .