Bamum script
| Bamum |
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A book in the 6th Bamum script, ca. 1910.
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| Type | |
| Languages | Bamum |
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Time period
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c. 1896, moribund c. 1931, revived c. 2007 |
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Child systems
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Bagam? |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO 15924 | Bamu, 435 |
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Unicode alias
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Bamum |
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The Bamum scripts are an evolutionary series of six scripts created for the Bamum language by King Njoya of Cameroon at the turn of the 19th century. They are notable for evolving from a pictographic system to a partially alphabetic syllabic script in the space of 14 years, from 1896 to 1910. Bamum type was cast in 1918, but the script fell into disuse around 1931. A project began around 2007 to revive the Bamum script.
In its initial form, Bamum script was a pictographic mnemonic aid (proto-writing) including 500 to 600 glyphs. As Njoya revised the script, he introduced logograms (word symbols). The sixth version, completed by 1910, is a semi-syllabary with 80 glyphs. It is also called a-ka-u-ku after its first four glyphs.
The script was further refined in 1918, when Njoya had copper sorts cast for printing. The script fell into disuse with the exile of Njoya in 1931.
At present, Bamum script is not in any significant use. However, the Bamum Scripts and Archives Project is attempting to modernize and revive the script. The project is based in the old Bamum capital of Foumban.
Bamum was added to the Unicode standard in 2009, with version 5.2. Historical Bamum characters were added to version 6.0 in 2010.
The 80 glyphs of modern Bamum are not enough to represent all of the consonant-vowel syllables (C V syllables) of the language. This deficiency is made up for with a diacritic or by combining glyphs having CV1 and V2 values, for CV2. This makes the script alphabetic for syllables not directly covered by the syllabary. Adding the inherent vowel of the syllable voices a consonant: tu + u = /du/, fu + u = /vu/, ju + u = /ʒu/, ja + a = /ʒa/, ʃi + i = /ʒi/, puə + u = /bu/.
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