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Bassa |
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The Bassa language is a Kru language spoken by about 350,000 people in Liberia and 5,000 in Sierra Leone by Bassa people.
It has an indigenous script, Vah, developed before 1907 by Thomas Narvin Lewis (c.1880-?) while he was studying at Syracuse
University in the United States. The first primer was printed by Lyman Brothers circa 1907. Dr. Lewis returned to Liberia
where he began teaching his script to Bassa children. The language was taught in some of the Poro society schools. The script
has been described as one which, like the system long in use among the Vai, consists of a series of phonetic characters standing
for syllables. In fact, however, the Vah script is alphabetic. It includes 30 consonants, seven vowels, and five tones that
are indicated by dots and lines inside of each vowel. In the 1970s the United Bible Societies (UBS) published a translation
of the New Testament. June Hobley, of Liberia Inland Mission, was primarily responsible for the translation. The International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was used for this translation rather than the Vah script, mostly for practical reasons related to
printing. Because the Bassa people had a tradition of writing, they quickly adapted to the new script, and thousands learned
to read. In 2005, UBS published the entire Bible in Bassa. The translation was sponsored by the Christian Education Foundation
of Liberia, Christian Reformed World Missions, and UBS. Don Slager headed a team of translators that included Seokin Payne,
Robert Glaybo, and William Boen. The IPA has largely replaced the Vah script in publications. However, the Vah script is still
highly respected and is still in use by some older men, primarily for record keeping. |
Names (more)[de] Bassa[en] Bassa language [fr] Bassa [hr] Bassa jezik [ru] Басса [es] Idioma bassa |
Language type : Living
Technical notes
This page is providing structured data for the language Bassa. |
ISO 639 CodesISO 639-3 : bsqLinked Data URIshttp://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/bsqhttp://dbpedia.org/resource/ISO_639:bsq More URIs at sameas.org SourcesAuthority documentation for ISO 639 identifier: bsqFreebase ISO 639-3 : bsq GeoNames.org Country Information Publications Office of the European Union Metadata Registry : Countries and Languages |