Garay Alphabet: a Wolof Script

or Garay is an alphabet created specifically for Wolof, a language widely spoken in Senegal and parts of the Gambia and Mauritania. Traditionally, Wolof was written with an adapted version of the Arabic script called Wolofal. While this is still a common writing system, the use of the Latin alphabet has steadily risen since Senegal declared it the official standardized script for Wolof.

Garay, a Native West African Script

Inspired by president Léopold Sédar Senghor’s call to “gather stones and build this new country” on the anniversary of Senegal’s independence from France, Assane Faye created the Garay alphabet in 1961. Strolling on the beach near his village, he wondered what was missing, how he could contribute to the new country. He came to a cave called Garay, which means “the whiteness of the cotton flower” on account of its white interior, and was struck by a vision. He traced shapes on the sand and called to his friend to get him something to write on. Thus, the new alphabet was born.^​2​

Over the years, Assane Faye has transcribed several books, maps, and manuscripts with the Garay alphabet, including the Quran. The script has been taught informally for more than fifty years following its invention, but its user community remains small among Wolof speakers. In 2016, a proposal for Garay’s inclusion into the Unicode Standard was submitted, hoping to reach a new technology-savvy generation.^​1​

Writing in Garay

Heavily influenced by the Arabic script, Garay is written right to left, with words separated by spaces. Faye wanted his alphabet to already be familiar to anyone who knew the basics of the Arabic script, but also much simpler in design and easier to learn.^​1​

Consonants

In Garay, uppercase letters are distinguished from lowercase letters by a swash added to one side or the other of the letter. Each sentence begins with a capital letter. Personal names are likewise capitalized. Assane Faye writes his name as Asan fay ^​1​

Latin Letter [IPA]	Audio *	Garay lowercase	Garay uppercase
Alif (vowel carrier)
C [c]
M [m]
K [k]
B [b]
MB [mb]
J [ɟ]
NJ [ɲɟ]
S [s]
W [w]
L [l]
G [g]
NG [ŋg]
Ŋ [ŋ]
D [d]
ND [nd]
X [x~χ]
H [ħ]
Y [j]
T [t]
R [r]
Ñ [ɲ]
F [f]
N [n]
P [p]

Although Garay does include a letter to represent the “h” sound in Arabic loan words, it does not have a similar letter for the “q” sound. The letter k may suffice for that.^​3​

The gemination mark is written above the consonant and any diacritical marks it carries to indicate a long consonant. For example, the word for “to be born” is written   juddu.^​1,3​

Vowels

Unlike most other languages of the Niger-Congo family, Wolof is not a tonal language. Faye therefore did not need to account for vowel tones in his alphabet, a major concern for the creators of other West African scripts like N’Ko.

Garay has a unique way of representing vowel sounds by combining the alif sign or with the four basic vowels to create new vowel sounds. The alif must also always precede a vowel if the vowel begins a word or is not otherwise preceded by a consonant.^​1​

Latin Letter [IPA]	Audio *	Garay	With Alif	With consonant (M)
a [a]
i [i]
e [ɛ]
o [ɔ]
ó [o]
é [e]
ë [ə]
ü
u [u]
ö

The vowel e is written over the previous consonant as in the “Me” example in the above table. One exception to this rule is the class of consonants that have inherent diacritical marks to modify their sound:^​1​

b, mb, j, nj, g, ŋg, ŋ, d, nd.

To avoid any possible confusion, the vowel e must be written over an alif after one of those consonants instead:

  be,    mbe, je, nje, ge, ŋge, ŋe, de, nde.

This rule also applies to the vowel é .^​1​

The vowel length mark written after a vowel sequence indicates that the vowel sound is long.

Garay also has a symbol to show that a consonant is not followed by any vowel, equivalent to the Arabic sukun. Unlike Arabic, however, the vowels, long or short, are explicitly marked in Garay, which makes the sukun symbol optional. The word for “lamb” or “sheep” is written    Xar° in one of Assane Faye’s books, and    Xar in another.^​1​

Numbers

As opposed to the rest of the script, numbers are written left-to-right, as in Arabic.^​1​

Number	Garay number	Number	Garay number
1		10
2		20
3		30
4		40
5		50
6		60
7		70
8		80
9		90
0		100

Punctuation

There are no punctuation marks specific to the Garay script. Generic Latin full stops, question marks, exclamation points, plus, minus and equal signs, brackets and parentheses are used, as well as the Arabic comma and semicolon.

Garay does have one extra symbol, , that indicates the repetition of the entire word that precedes it.^​1​

Assane Faye’s Primer on Garay

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, introductory text; on the left the letter alif. On the first line four equivalent letters in the Latin and Arabic scripts, followed by four lowercase Garay letters and four uppercase letters.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter C and its equivalent sound in Latin, 'thi' and the equivalent Arabic letter. On the left, the letter M.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter K and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter B.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter M'B and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter J.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter Nj and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter S.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter W and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter L.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter G and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter ŊG.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter Ŋ and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. Note the use of the reduplication mark near the drawing: the word Ŋoosi is intended to be repeated as Ŋoosi Ŋoosi. On the left, the letter D.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter N'D and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter X.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter H and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter Y.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter T and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter R.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter Ñ and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter F.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, the letter N and its Latin and Arabic equivalents. On the left, the letter P.

A Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the right, a summary of the lowercase letters and numbers. On the left, the digits and the numerical values of the letters.

Last pages of the Garay primer by Assan Faye. On the left-hand page, the final letter of each word has a tail that goes back to underline the entire word. This is an optional stylistic choice that has no impact on the sound or meaning of the words. On the right-hand page, this embellishment does not appear.

* Audio samples of Wolof pronunciation were extracted from “Introducción a la fonética del wolof” published on July 27, 2017 on Youtube. https://youtu.be/huRxxiW8KdU Accessed May 6, 2019.