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Short URL: https://scripts.sil.org/SILVai

SIL Vai Fonts Home

Lorna A. Priest, 2007-03-14

Note:

These fonts are still custom (legacy) 8-bit fonts. They are not Unicode fonts. We do not recommend that you use the SIL Vai font. However, we do provide links to some Unicode resources below:

Unicode Fonts: — Two Vai Unicode fonts are available here. Dukor is based on SIL Vai. Windows 7 provides a Unicode font with Vai support called Ebrima.
Unicode Keyboards: — A Windows Keyman keyboard is available here: Known Unicode Keyman Keyboards. A MacOSX keyboard is available here. An online Vai input tool (beta) Vai Graphical and Keyboard Input Interface.
TECkit mapping files for converting SIL Vai text to Unicode are provided here.

Table of Contents for this web page:

SIL Vai Character Set
SIL Vai Extras Character Set

The SIL Vai Fonts were developed in 1999, in cooperation with LBT and script experts from the Vai community. The work was done over a period of years, via regular mail and e-mail between the type designer in Texas and script experts in West Africa. Two fonts are available, in regular and bold typefaces. The fonts are available for the Windows system and include keyboard definitions to assist with typing. An unusual feature of this font is the 11° slant requested by those in the Vai language community with whom we worked.

SIL Vai Character Set

SIL Vai Extras Character Set

Vai is spoken by approximately 105,000 people in Liberia and Sierra Leone, West Africa. The Vai script is a syllabary thought to be invented by Momolu Duwalu Bukele in approximately 1833. It is a unique indigenous writing system which the Vai people have used proudly for nearly two centuries.

We particularly thank Lutheran Bible Translators for their assistance in developing this font package.

SIL International (SIL) is an organization of linguists dedicated to the study and promotion of the thousands of languages around the world.

As a service to the general academic community, we are happy to make this package available at no charge. You may (and are encouraged to) share this package with your friends and co-workers, as long as you abide by certain distribution restrictions.

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