Osmanya script

E206754

The Osmanya script is an indigenous alphabet created in the early 20th century to write the Somali language before its official adoption of the Latin script.

All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Osmanya script canonical 4

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (47)

Predicate Object
instanceOf alphabet
writing system
competitionWith Arabic script for Somali
Borama script
Kaddare script
Latin script for Somali
creator Osman Yusuf Kenadid
culturalSignificanceFor Somali national identity
designedForLanguageFamily Afroasiatic languages
Cushitic languages
designedToRepresent phonemic structure of Somali
developedInCentury 20th century
developedInCountry Somalia
developedInDecade 1920s
developedInRegion Horn of Africa
encodedInUnicodeVersion Unicode 4.0
hasApproximateNumberOfLetters 22
hasCaseDistinction no
hasCharacterType digits
letters
punctuation marks
hasDistinctLettersFor Somali consonant phonemes
Somali vowel phonemes
hasUnicodeBlock Osmanya
influencedBy Arabic alphabet
surface form: Arabic script

Geʽez script
surface form: Ethiopic script

Latin alphabet
surface form: Latin script
ISO15924Code Osma
ISO15924Number 260
languageWritten Somali
namedAfter Osman Yusuf Kenadid
notOfficialScriptFor Somali
surface form: Somali language
primaryUsage Somali language
replacedBy Somali Latin alphabet
scriptCategory indigenous script
scriptDirection left-to-right
status historical script
minority use
timePeriod early 20th century
UnicodeBlockRange 10480–104AF
usedByCommunity Somali people
usedForWriting correspondence in Somali
poetry in Somali
religious texts in Somali
writingSystemScope national
writingSystemType alphabetic
writingSystemUsage limited contemporary use

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (4)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Somali previousWritingSystem Osmanya script
Somali people usesScript Osmanya script
Kaddare script competedWith Osmanya script
Borama script distinctFrom Osmanya script