Goulsse alphabet

The Goulsse alphabet or Gʋlse was created for writing Gur languages of West Africa, originally specifically for Mooré and Kasem. It was developed in 2022 by Wenitte Apiou and Babaguioue Micareme Akouabou of Burkina Faso along with several others, based on the writing system used by the Kassena people for over four hundred years.

Many scripts have been created in West Africa as part of ethnic and linguistic revitalization. The Goulsse alphabet has been celebrated as a step in language revitalization. "When I was a child, we were using, in Kassem, the same alphabet in school as like for Dagbani and other languages. Now, this year, we finally have our own alphabet developed just for Kasssem, the Goulsse alphabet. So, like, we JUST [now] had our own alphabet developed", and people are already wanting "to immediately start making educational curriculums".

The alphabet contains 30 letters, plus punctuation marks, and dots above some vowel symbols to mark nasalization. The script is written from left to right in a straight line. It does not distinguish between upper and lower case letters. Also, despite the fact that Gur languages have tonal distinctions, the script does not provide a way to mark tone differences.

The word gʋlse means 'writing' in Mooré. The script has been taught to thousands of high school and university students in Pô, Burkina Faso, and was supported by the Kassena Language Council in Burkina Faso according to a submission to the Unicode Consortium. no proposal had been submitted to add Goulsse characters to Unicode.

Table