Afaka script

Afaka
Type	Syllabary
Languages	Ndyuka
Creator	Afáka Atumisi
Time period	Invented 1910
Direction	Varies
ISO 15924	Afak, 439

The Afaka script (afaka sikifi) is a syllabary of 56 letters devised in 1910 for the Ndyuka language, an English-based creole of Surinam. The script is named after its inventor, Afáka Atumisi. 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%.

Afaka is the only script in use that was designed specifically for a creole or for a form of English. It has been proposed for inclusion in the Unicode Standard.

Afaka is a 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 stops and voiced stops are written with the same letters, and syllables with the vowels [u] and [o] are seldom distinguished: The syllables [o]/[u], [po]/[pu], and [to]/[tu] have separate letters, but syllables starting with the consonants [b, d, dy, f, g, l, m, n, s, y] do not. Thus the Afaka rendition of Ndyuka could also be read as Dyoka. 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]. Several consonants have only one glyph assigned to them. 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 are no glyphs assigned specifically to the consonant [gw] ~ [gb]. The result of these conflations is that the only syllables for which there is no ambiguity (except for tone) are those beginning with the consonant [t].

There is a single punctuation mark, the pipe (|), which corresponds to a comma or a period. Afaka initially used spaces between words, but not all writers have continued to do so.

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