Mandombe or Mandombé, is a native African alphasyllabary invented in 1978 by Wabeladio Payi in Mbanza-Ngungu in the Bas-Congo province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This script is taught in primary, secondary and post-secondary schools run by the Kimbanguist Church in Angola, the Republic of the Congo, DR Congo, and by more than 500 professors at the Centre for the Negro-African Script in DR Congo.
It can be used to transcribe Kikongo, Lingala, Tshiluba and Swahili, four national languages of DR Congo, as well as many other languages of central and southern Africa. The Mandombe Academy at CENA is currently working on transcribing other African languages in the script.
No proposal has been made as yet to encode the script in Unicode.
Vowels
A
vowel can be written individually and form a
syllable on its own. If it forms part of a
diphthong, a
diacritic is used.
{| class="wikitable"
!Latin script !! Mandombe !! Diacritic
|-
|a|| align="center"| || align="center"|
|-
|e|| align="center"| || align="center"|
|-
|i|| align="center"| || align="center"|
|-
|o|| align="center"| || align="center"|
|-
|u / w|| align="center"|
|}
Consonants and Character Families
There are four base
consonants. Each base consonant can be
reflected horizontally, vertically, or both to represent a different consonant of the same group. These consonants are combined with vowels in four families to create syllables.
Family 1.
: The base character is placed to the lower left of the vowel without being geometrically transformed.
Family 2
: The base character is reflected both horizontally and vertically.
Family 3
: The base character is reflected horizontally.
Family 4
: The base character is reflected vertically.
The use of geometric transformation is also present in Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, though Mandombe consonants in the same group do not seem to have any phonological relationship.
Examples
{|class="wikitable"
! Consonant !! Family 1 !! Family 2 !! Family 3 !! Family 4
|-
|align="center"|
Group 1||align="center"|
na||align="center"|
va||align="center"|
sa||align="center"|
ta
|-
|align="center"|
Group 2||align="center"|
be||align="center"|
de||align="center"|
fe||align="center"|
ge
|-
|align="center"|
Group 3||align="center"|
ko||align="center"|
mo||align="center"|
lo||align="center"|
po
|-
|align="center"|
Group 4||align="center"|
wi||align="center"|
ri||align="center"|
zi||align="center"|
yi
|-
|align="center"|Mazita ma zindinga||align="center"|
shu||align="center"|
dju||align="center"|
tshu||align="center"|
ju
|}
Complex Characters
Prenasalisation of consonants is indicated with a variation on (n) disconnected from the vowel.
* Nasalisation of the vowel is marked by an attached diacritic: .
* If is placed between the consonant and the vowel, it represents an intervening /r/.
Examples of Complex Syllables
{|class="wikitable"
! Modification !! Mandombe !! Latin script
|-
|rowspan="2"| Diphthong || ||bi
e
|-
| || mw
a
|-
| Nasalisation or final nasal consonant || ||ke
n
|-
| Prenasalisation ||||
mbu
|-
| Inserted
r || || p
ro
|}
Digits
{| class="wikitable"
!digit !! mandombe
|-
|0|| align="center"|
|-
|1|| align="center"|
|-
|2|| align="center"|
|-
|3|| align="center"|
|-
|4|| align="center"|
|-
|5|| align="center"|
|-
|6|| align="center"|
|-
|7|| align="center"|
|-
|8|| align="center"|
|-
|9|| align="center"|
|}
See also
Syllabary
Alphasyllabary
Alphabet
Africa Alphabet, African Reference Alphabet
N'Ko alphabet
Kimbanguism
External links
CENA (in French)
Mandombe script
References
Largely translated from
:fr:Mandombe, version as of 25 April 2006
Category:Artificial scripts used in natural languages
Category:Syllabary writing systems
Category:Writing systems of Africa
