Boko alphabet
Boko (or bookoo) is a Latin alphabet used to write the Hausa language. The first boko was devised by Europeans in the early 19th century,[1] and developed in the early 20th century by the British (mostly) and French colonial authorities. It was made the official Hausa alphabet in 1930.[2] Since the 1950s boko has been the main alphabet for Hausa.[3] Arabic script (ajami) is now only used in Islamic schools and for Islamic literature. Since the 1980s, Nigerian boko has been based on the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet.
The word boko also refers to non-Islamic (usually western) education ('yan boko = "modern school")[4] or secularism. The word is commonly stated to be a borrowing from English book. In 2013, leading Hausa expert Paul Newman published "The Etymology of Hausa boko", in which he presents the view that boko is in fact a native word meaning "sham, fraud", Western learning and writing being seen as deceitful in comparison to traditional Koranic scholarship.[5]
| A a | B b | Ɓ ɓ | C c | D d | Ɗ ɗ | E e | F f | G g | H h | I i | J j | K k | Ƙ ƙ | L l |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ | /b/ | /ɓ/ | /tʃ/ | /d/ | /ɗ/ | /e/ | /ɸ/ | /ɡ/ | /h/ | /i/ | /(d)ʒ/ | /k/ | /kʼ/ | /l/ |
| M m | N n | O o | R r | S s | Sh sh | T t | Ts ts | U u | W w | Y y | (Ƴ ƴ) | Z z | ʼ | |
| /m/ | /n/ | /o/ | /r/, /ɽ/ | /s/ | /ʃ/ | /t/ | /(t)sʼ/ | /u/ | /w/ | /j/ | /ʔʲ/ | /z/ | /ʔ/ |
There are some differences in boko used in Niger and Nigeria due to different pronunciations in the French and English languages. The letter ⟨ƴ⟩ is used only in Niger; in Nigeria it is written ⟨ʼy⟩.
Tone, vowel length, and the distinction between /r/ and /ɽ/ (which does not exist for all speakers) are not marked in writing. So, for example, /daɡa/ "from" and /daːɡaː/ "battle" are both written daga.
See also
- Ajami (Arabic alphabet) for Hausa language
Bibliography
- Coulmas, Florian (1999). The Blackwell encyclopedia of writing systems. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 196. ISBN 0-631-21481-X.
- Austin, Peter K. One Thousand Languages: Living, Endangered, and Lost. University of California Press. p. 64. ISBN 0-520-25560-7.
References
- ^ Awoyale, Yiwola; Planet Phrasebooks, Lonely. Africa: Lonely Planet Phrasebook. Lonely Planet. p. 79. ISBN 1-74059-692-7.
- ^ Dalby, Andrew (1998). Dictionary of languages: the definitive reference to more than 400 languages. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 242. ISBN 0-231-11568-7.
- ^ omniglot.com
- ^ maguzawa.dyndns.ws (Hausa-English dictionary)
- ^ Newman, Paul (2013). "The Etymology of Hausa boko" (PDF). Mega-Chad Research Network / Réseau Méga-Tchad. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
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