Bamum script

The Bamun font (also: Bamum, Schümom or Schumom ) is an indigenous African journal for the Bamum language. It was 1896/97 developed by the young King Njoya Ibrahima in several steps, a development which lasted until 1918 and seven writing systems brought forth.

  • 2.1 The Lewa System (book )
  • 2.2 The Mbima system ( = mixed)
  • 2.3 The system Nyi Nyi Nfa '
  • 2.4 The system Rii Nyi Nfa Mfw '
  • 2.5 The system Rii Nyi Mfw 'Men
  • 2.6 System A Ka Ku U
  • 2.7 The system Mfemfe
  • 3.1 secure the written evidence
  • 4.1 Unicode block Bamum
  • 4.2 Unicode block Bamum, supplement
  • 4.3 Identification of the characters in Unicode
  • 5.1 Combining Glyphs
  • 5.2 The use of diacritical marks 5.2.1 The caret (^)
  • 5.2.2 The macron (¯ )

From the language of Scripture

The word " Schümom " or " Schumom " is derived from " Schüpamom ", which is one of the proper name for the Bamun, but does not refer exactly to the name of the font, but on an artificial language, which had invented the same king before and these then sought to verschriftlichen. Therefore, we used both the term ' Schümom font "and Bamun font, although the latter term is more correct.

. Bamun (or Bamum, Bamun ) is a branch of Semi- Bantu languages ​​and is spoken by a smaller linguistic community in Cameroon.

The dream of the king

According to legend, King Njoya Ibrahima was inspired by a dream and asked his people to draw different objects and name. From this he developed a pictography font way, using an icon for each word. During his life, the king developed from this first - ideographic writing systems other configuration until the system in a phonetic transformed. Njoya used virtually the hieroglyphic method, type of Rebus, which is the image that represents a specific word to use for another same -sounding word also. This led ultimately to the use of symbols that represent sounds and at the same time the importance of the image.

Njoya knew the Arabic script and was reasonably familiar with the Latin alphabet, but worked from seven completely different writing systems, of which five were the first pictographs:

Inspired by this writing, however, some neighboring peoples who spoke Mengaka, early 20th century, the Bagam font from which developed today not a single witness is more present with the exception of a text in Cambridge.

The Bamun - writing systems in detail

The Lewa System (book )

Developed 1896-7. Consisted of 465 pictograms or according to other sources 511 pictograms and 10 characters for numbers. The writing direction, either from top to bottom or from left to right or from bottom to top, only the writing direction from right to left was avoided because the neighboring Hausa as advertised and we definitely wanted to avoid the impression that you have the writing system of copied them.

The system Mbima ( = mixed)

Designed to 1899-1900. It had 427 characters and 10 digits. It would be a simplification of the first system. Njoya was 72 characters away, but added 45 new. This system was very pictographic

Nyi Nyi The system Nfa '

Developed by 1902. This system is a simplification of the previous one. Njoya had gone 56 characters, so 371 and 10 numerals remained. With this system, he wrote his "History of Bamun - people" and used it in correspondence with his mother.

The system Rii Nyi Nfa Mfw '

Designed to 1907-8. It has 285 characters and 10 digits, in turn a simplification of the previous system.

The system Rii Nyi Mfw 'Men

Also designed to 1907-8; it has 195 characters and 10 digits. In this system, a translation of the Bible was written.

These five systems of writing are closely linked: all are pictograms or progressive simplifications thereof.

The system A Ka Ku U

. Developed in 1910 this system was the step towards the sound font: it is a mixture of phonetic syllabary ( monosyllabic ) and alphabet with 82 syllable characters and 10 digits and thus succeeded Njoya express 160 phonemes. With this document the " marriage - Codex ", written birth and death records as well as marriage and court proceedings / court rulings were.

The system Mfemfe

In 1918 he developed the seventh and final system " Mfemfe " ( = new) or "A Ka Ku U Mfemfe " ( new or small -A Ka Ku U ). It only has 72 " letters / syllables " and the numeral 10.

Task of Schümom / Bamun Type System

By 1913, Njoya had completed the construction of a printing company for his typeface, which he had initiated around 1906, but the French administration destroyed the printing vollstängig. Regardless, it was 1916 already more than twenty schools who taught his typeface, distributed all over the Bamum territory, with a total of more than 600 students. Njoya saw in 1931 forced to Yaounde to go into exile, where he died in 1933 at 66 years. After Njoyas death in 1933, the use of Bamun font stopped slowly.

Securing the written evidence

Currently (2011) there are several initiatives to secure the bibliographic discount of more than 7,000 texts in the Schümom font, eg the Bamum Scripts and Archives Preservation Project ( BSAPP ), directed by Konrad Tuchscherer.

2006 initiated the B.S.A.P.P. the development of word processing fonts for these writing systems with A- Ka -U -Ku as a reference system, since it was the most used and present in him the most published texts. For its elaboration in particular the documents of King Njoya and his staff Nji mom and Njoya Ibrahimou be used.

UNICODE

Unicode block Bamum

Unicode encodes the Bamunschrift (System 6 and 7, A and Ku Ka U (A U Ka Ku ) Mfemfe ) version 5.2 in the range U U A6A0 to A6FF (Unicode block Bamum ). 88 characters were added to the Unicode Standard in October 2009 with release of version 5.2.

Unicode block Bamum, supplement

With Unicode 6.0 (October 2010) historical stages of Bamumschrift were included in the Unicode standard. These are in Unicode block Bamum, complement of U 16800- U 16 A3F coded. The various stages of development of writing are marked " Phase A" to " Phase E". The names of the characters hold the LAST appearance phase. For example:

U 168 EE Bamum LETTER PHASE -C PIN is confirmed in phase C, but not in phase D.

Designation of the characters in Unicode

The spelling of the name of the character was approximated in the charts to ASCII:

  • Ae for / ɛ / (French è )
  • Ee for / e / (French é )
  • Ae for / ə / (French e),
  • O for / ɔ /,
  • Eu / ɯ / (French eu )
  • Ue for / y / (French u) and
  • Q [ glottal voiceless plosive | larynx glottal stop ] on ( syllables) end / ʔ / (queen ').

The syllabic alphabet ( Unicode) of the 6th writing system "A Ka Ku U "

The 80 glyphs of modern Bamum are not enough for all CV syllables of the language. This deficiency is remedied by diacritical marks and by combining the glyphs.

Combining Glyphs

Done using CV1 and V2 values ​​(instead of CV2 ), which makes the font alphabetically for syllables that are not directly covered by the syllabic alphabet ( English: "The deficiency is made ​​up for with diacritics and by combining glyphs with CV1 and V2 values, for CV2, making the script for alphabetic syllables not Directly covered by the syllabary. "). By adding the inherent vowel of a syllable the consonant is voiced made ​​:

  • Tu u = / du /,
  • Fu u = / vu /,
  • Ju u = / ʒu /,
  • Yes a = / ʒa /,
  • ʃi i = / ʒi /,
  • Puə u = / bu /.

The use of diacritical marks

The two diacritical marks are the Accent circumflex (^ ) ( Bamun: ko'ndon ) that can be added to each of the 80 glyphs and the macron (¯ ) ( Bamun: tukwentis ), which is used in about a dozen of the glyphs.

The circumflex (^)

The circumflex adds the syllable generally a laryngeal glottal stop at, for example, shall

Kâ like / kaʔ / read, although the vowel is shortened and thereby eliminates any final consonant, as for example in:

Pûə / puʔ / and kɛt / kɛʔ /.

The Pränasalisierung is also lost:

ɲʃâ / ʃaʔ / NTE / teʔ /, NTUU / tuʔ /.

Sometimes, however nasalisiert the circumflex:

Ni / nɛn /, pi / pin /, rê / rɛn /, jûʔ / jun /, mɔ / mɔn /, ɲʒûə / jun / (loss of nasal consonants (NC) as in the larynx glottal stop ).

Other idiosyncrasies: ɲʒəm / jəm / (loss of nasal consonants ), tə / tɔʔ / ( umlaut ), ɲî / ɲe / RIE / z /, m / n /, ʃɯx / jɯx /, nûə / ŋuə /, kɯx / ɣɯ /, rə / rɔ /, ŋkwən / ŋuət /, fɔm / mvɔp /, mbɛn / pɛn /, tî / tɯ /, kPa / NMA /, Vy / fy /, ɣɔm / ŋɡɔm /

The macron (¯ )

Is a ' Killer-Strich/Virama ' which eliminates the syllable vowel and in this manner consonant and nasal consonant cluster forms (eg, / nd, ŋɡ / ), which can be used for syllable codas. Konsonanteisches / n / is used both as a coda as well as for Pränasalisierung of initial consonants.

Exemptions from macron are

ɲʒūə read as / j /, and read ɔ̄ as / ə /.

The font has a differentiated punctuation including an upper-case marker ( nʒɛmli ) that resembles an inverted question mark, for proper names, and a decimal system with ten digits, where the former glyph for " 10 " is now "0" means.

Fonts

There are fonts of various parties, inter alia, However, the fonts are not available on the Internet by Jason Gavy (JG Bamum Arial, JG Bamum Calligraphic, and JG Bamum Courier) since February 2011. These fonts correspond probably not (yet) the Unicode standard, since they were developed before the Bamoum - script was added to Unicode.

  • Fonts4free.net: " Bamum symbols 1 "
Autochthon Məgaka language Syllable#Coda Koda
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