Adlam script

File:Adlam acronym.png

While they were teenagers in the late 1980s, brothers Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry devised the alphabetic script to transcribe the Fulani language.{{cite web|title=N4628R: Revised proposal for encoding the Adlam script in the SMP of the UCS|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14219r-n4628-adlam.pdf|author-link=Michael Everson|first=Michael|last=Everson|date=28 October 2014|access-date=22 June 2016}}{{cite magazine|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/the-alphabet-that-will-save-a-people-from-disappearing/506987/|title=The Alphabet That Will Save a People From Disappearing|author-link=Kaveh Waddell|last1=Waddell|first1=Kaveh|date=16 November 2016|magazine=The Atlantic}} One method they used involved them closing their eyes and drawing lines. After looking at their drawn shapes, they would pick which ones would look the most to them like a good glyph for a letter, and associate it with whatever sound they felt it would represent. Another method involved is thinking of a sound, imagining the look of a glyph for that sound, and drawing said glyph.{{Citation |title=The ADLaM Alphabet for Our People {{!}} Abdoulaye + More {{!}} Talks at Google |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPQ7ufjN2i8 |language=en |access-date=2023-01-27}} After several years of development it began to be widely adopted among Fulani communities, and is currently taught not only regionally in Guinea, Nigeria, and Liberia but even as far as Europe and North America. In 2019, the character shapes were refined after practical usage.

Adlam has both upper and lower cases. They are written from right to left.{{Cite web |title=Can an alphabet save a culture? |url=https://unlocked.microsoft.com/adlam-can-an-alphabet-save-a-culture/ |access-date=2022-08-26 |website=Microsoft Unlocked |language=en-us}}

The letters are found either joined (akin to Arabic) or separate. The joined form is commonly used in a cursive manner; however, separate or block forms are also used as primarily for educational content.{{cite web |title=Adlam/Pular script notes |url=https://r12a.github.io/scripts/adlam/#writing_styles|website=r12a.github.io}}

Adlam has a number of diacritics. The 'consonant' modifier is used to derive additional consonants, mostly from Arabic, similar to e.g. s > š in Latin script.

Usage of the consonant modifier:

Usage of the dot to represent sounds borrowed from Arabic:

Use of the dot with native letters:

Unlike the Arabic script, Adlam digits go in the same direction (right to left) as letters, as in the N'Ko script.

Adlam punctuation is like Spanish in that there are initial and final forms of the question mark and exclamation mark, which are placed before and after the questioned or exclaimed clause or phrase.

The final forms are taken from the Arabic script.{{cite web |title=Adlam/Pular orthography notes |url=https://r12a.github.io/scripts/adlm/fuf.html#inline |website=r12a.github.io |access-date=16 January 2023 |language=en |date=5 January 2023}}{{Better reference|date=January 2023}}

The shape of the initial marks changed in 2019 as part of the efforts for Unicode standardization.{{cite web |last1=Patel |first1=Neil |last2=Jamra |first2=Mark |last3=Cornelius |first3=Craig |last4=Barry |first4=Ibrahima |last5=Barry |first5=Abdoulaye |title=Replacement of Adlam Reference Font in Codesheet to Updated Design |url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19119r-adlam-font-repl.pdf |access-date=16 January 2023 |language=en |format=PDF |date=19 April 2019}}

The hyphen is used for word breaks, and there are both parentheses and double parentheses.

{{Main|Adlam (Unicode block)}}

The Adlam alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2016 with the release of version 9.0. The Unicode block for Adlam is U+1E900–U+1E95F:

{{Unicode chart Adlam}}

{{reflist|2}}

• {{cite book |last1=Aysha Sow |title=Adlam Alphabet Learning Guide in ten lessons |date=2021 |publisher=Winden Jangen |url=https://tabalde.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ADLAM-ALPHABET-LEARNING-GUIDE.pdf}}

• [https://www.windenjangen.org/home Winden Jangen], an organisation promoting Adlam
• [https://randallmhasson.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-adlam-story-how-alphabet-changes.html The Adlam Story – How Alphabet Changes Culture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180821113728/http://blog.randallmhasson.com/2014/04/the-adlam-story-how-alphabet-changes.html |date=2018-08-21 }}; Randall M. Hasson
• [https://www.omniglot.com/writing/adlam.htm Adlam at Omniglot], with a video pronouncing the basic letters
• [https://adlamtesting.appspot.com/keyboard/ Adlam virtual keyboard]
• [https://letterly.github.io/adlam.html Latin-Adlam Transliterator]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPQ7ufjN2i8 The ADLaM Alphabet for Our People] - Talks at Google session guested by Barry brothers explaining the origins of their script
• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0596rlr The brothers who created an alphabet] - story from the BBC World Service

{{List of writing systems}}

Category:Fula language

Category:Alphabets

Category:Writing systems of Africa

Category:1989 introductions

Category:Right-to-left writing systems

Category:Constructed scripts