Boko alphabet

Boko (or bookoo) is a Latin-script 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]

Boko alphabet
Letter A aB bƁ ɓC cD dƊ ɗE eF fG gH hI iJ jK kƘ ƙL lM mN nO oR rS sSh shT tTs tsU uW wY y(Ƴ ƴ)Z zʼ
IPA /a//b//ɓ//tʃ//d//ɗ//e//ɸ//ɡ//h//i//(d)ʒ//k//kʼ//l//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
  1. Awoyale, Yiwola; Planet Phrasebooks, Lonely. Africa: Lonely Planet Phrasebook. Lonely Planet. p. 79. ISBN 1-74059-692-7.
  2. Dalby, Andrew (1998). Dictionary of languages: the definitive reference to more than 400 languages. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 242. ISBN 0-231-11568-7.
  3. omniglot.com
  4. maguzawa.dyndns.ws (Hausa-English dictionary)
  5. Newman, Paul (2013). "The Etymology of Hausa boko" (PDF). Mega-Chad Research Network / Réseau Méga-Tchad. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-27. Retrieved 2014-04-27.


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