Hi Brittanie, At some point I still think we need a database interface
for information on orthographies in Africa - unfortunately much of the
information is in flux or dated or unreliable. One nice effort to
accomplish this is Christian Chanard's Systèmes alphabétiques des
langues africaines at http://sumale.vjf.cnrs.fr/phono/index.htm (which
is based on information in Hartell 1993).

Don

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Brittanie" <wapogipo928@...> wrote:
>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Don Osborn" <dzo@> wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone have any info on the story behind the upper case hooked B,
> > D, K, and Y consonants (Ɓ, Ɗ, Ƙ, and Ƴ)?
> >
> > At the time of publication of the Africa Alphabet (2nd ed., 1930), a
> > Cyrillic-like Ƃ was used. When was the current uppercase form
> > developed and linked to the lowercase form?
> >
> > TIA for any info. Don
> >
> >
> > Ref:
> > http://www.bisharat.net/Documents/poal30.htm (Zulu sample text)
> > Thanks to Denis Moyogo Jacquerye for raising a question re the form
> > used in this document.
> >
> > See also:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:%C6%81
> >
>
> WOW! Thanks alot for the links! I never knew any of those. Although I
> knew that some of letters were used in African languages. But I didn't
> know that much about them. Thanks alot!
>