Credited to Liberia. Accounts differ on whether Lewis devised the alphabet or revived an older Bassa sign system. Wikipedia says an old system near extinction was rediscovered among Bassa in Brazil and the West Indies and revived by Lewis; other accounts say he learned it from a teacher named Di Wada.
How it began
The Digital Orientalist traces the script in print to Thomas Flo Lewis, a Liberian from Bassa country who studied medicine in Syracuse, New York. He is thought to have traveled to Brazil and the West Indies and spent time in Dresden before returning to Liberia in 1910. He formalized the script by the 1920s, possibly earlier. He may have learned it from a man named Di Wada, but Lewis is generally credited with bringing it to print and spreading it.
How it works
Bassa Vah is an alphabet written from left to right. It has 23 consonants and 7 vowels. Because Bassa is a tonal language, five tone marks are placed with the vowels to show pitch, which distinguishes words that otherwise look the same. The name Vah means "throwing a sign" in Bassa.
How it spread
Type was cast for the alphabet, and a printing press in Bassa country produced tales, proverbs and lessons until a fire destroyed it in 1967. Lewis taught the script after his return and died in 1935. An association to promote it was formed in Liberia in 1959. Most surviving printed texts are fragmentary and hard to date.
Where it stands today
A Unicode proposal reached its final stage in October 2010, and Bassa Vah was added in Unicode 7.0 in June 2014. Fonts such as Noto Sans Bassa Vah and keyboard layouts now exist. Wikipedia describes the script as no longer in everyday use, and a 2024 journal article reports low literacy in it while pointing to digital resources as a path to revival.
