Mandombe script

Mandombe or Mandombé is a script proposed in 1978 in <a href="/facts/Mbanza-Ngungu/rkCxST7B">Mbanza-Ngungu</a> in the <a href="/facts/Bas-Congo/favJ37qa">Bas-Congo</a> province of the <a href="/facts/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo/E2KmHDdv">Democratic Republic of the Congo</a> by Wabeladio Payi, who related that it was <a href="/facts/Revelation/xMygzvLv">revealed</a> to him in a dream by <a href="/facts/Simon_Kimbangu/a1bunYtk">Simon Kimbangu</a>, of the <a href="/facts/Kimbanguist_Church/LUBBvLlm">Kimbanguist Church</a>. Mandombe is based on the "sacred shapes" and intended for writing African languages such as <a href="/facts/Kikongo/JlEsHIa0">Kikongo</a>, as well as the four national languages of the Congo, <a href="/facts/Kituba_language/BgVPvbSX">Kikongo ya leta</a>, <a href="/facts/Lingala/AfCYqDDq">Lingala</a>, <a href="/facts/Tshiluba/8gskJI4q">Tshiluba</a> and <a href="/facts/Swahili_language/sLzhutLC">Swahili</a>, though it does not have enough vowels to write Lingala fully. It is taught in Kimbanguist church schools in Angola, the Republic of the Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is also promoted by the Kimbanguist Centre de l’Écriture Négro-Africaine (CENA). The Mandombe Academy at CENA is currently working on transcribing other African languages in the script. It has been classified as the third most viable indigenous script of recent indigenous west African scripts, behind only the <a href="/facts/Vai_syllabary/RsTE1wL2">Vai syllabary</a> and the <a href="/facts/N%2527Ko_alphabet/f4U0u9ou">N'Ko alphabet</a>.
A preliminary proposal has been made to include this script in the combined character encoding <a href="/facts/ISO_10646/7Tn6LPLw">ISO 10646</a>/<a href="/facts/Unicode/DDu3MfPV">Unicode</a>. A revised <a href="https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16077-mandombe.pdf">Unicode proposal</a> was written in February 2016 by Andrij Rovenchak, Helma Pasch, Charles Riley, and Nandefo Robert Wazi.

Mandombe script open-in-new

Mandombe script