{"id":97474,"date":"2019-07-29T13:06:52","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T13:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/?p=433838"},"modified":"2019-07-29T13:06:52","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T13:06:52","slug":"ibrahima-and-abdoulaye-barry-how-a-new-alphabet-is-helping-an-ancient-people-write-its-own-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/07\/29\/ibrahima-and-abdoulaye-barry-how-a-new-alphabet-is-helping-an-ancient-people-write-its-own-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry: How a new alphabet is helping an ancient people write its own future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Deborah <\/span><\/p>\n

Written by Deborah Bach<\/h3>\n

\"Sara<\/span><\/p>\n

Audio by Sara Lerner<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

How a new alphabet is helping an ancient people write its own future <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When they were 10 and 14, brothers Abdoulaye and Ibrahima Barry set out to invent an alphabet for their native language, Fulfulde, which had been spoken by millions of people for centuries but never had its own writing system. While their friends were out playing in the neighborhood, Ibrahima, the older brother, and Abdoulaye would shut themselves in their room in the family\u2019s house in Nz\u00e9r\u00e9kor\u00e9, Guinea, close their eyes and draw shapes on paper. <\/p>\n

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9:28<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When one of them called stop they\u2019d open their eyes, choose the shapes they liked and decide what sound of the language they matched best. Before long, they\u2019d created a writing system that eventually became known as ADLaM. <\/p>\n

The brothers couldn\u2019t have known the challenges that lay ahead. They couldn\u2019t have imagined the decades-long journey to bring their writing system into widespread use, one that would eventually lead them to Microsoft. They wouldn\u2019t have dreamed that the script they invented would change lives and open the door to literacy for millions of people around the world. <\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t know any of that back in 1989. They were just two kids with a na\u00efve sense of purpose.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just wanted people to be able to write correctly in their own language, but we didn\u2019t know what that meant. We didn\u2019t know how much work it would be,\u201d said Abdoulaye Barry, now 39 and living in Portland, Oregon. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we knew everything we would have to go through, I don\u2019t think we would have done it.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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ADLaM is an acronym that translates to ‘the alphabet that will prevent a people from being lost.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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A new writing system takes shape<\/h2>\n

The Fulbhe, or Fulani, people were originally nomadic pastoralists who dispersed across West Africa, settling in countries stretching from Sudan to Senegal and along the coast of the Red Sea. More than 40 million people speak Fulfulde \u2014 some estimates put the number at between 50 and 60 million \u2014 in around 20 African countries. But the Fulbhe people never developed a script for their language, instead using Arabic and sometimes Latin characters to write in their native tongue, also known as Fulani, Pular and Fula. Many sounds in Fulfulde can\u2019t be represented by either alphabet, so Fulfulde speakers improvised as they wrote, with varying results that often led to muddled communications.<\/p>\n

The Barry brothers\u2019 father, Isshaga Barry, who knew Arabic, would decipher letters for friends and family who brought them to the house. When he was busy or tired, young Abdoulaye and Ibrahima would help out. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were very hard to read, those letters,\u201d Abdoulaye recalled. \u201cPeople would use the most approximate Arabic sound to represent a sound that doesn\u2019t exist in Arabic. You had to be somebody who knows how to read Arabic letters well and also knows the Fulfulde language to be able to decipher those letters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdoulaye asked his father why their people didn\u2019t have their own writing system. Isshaga replied that the only alphabet they had was Arabic, and Abdoulaye promised to create one for Fulfulde.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a basic level, that\u2019s how the whole idea of ADLaM started,\u201d Abdoulaye said. \u201cWe saw that there was a need for something and we thought maybe we could fix it.\u201d <\/p>\n

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The brothers developed an alphabet with 28 letters and 10 numerals written right to left, later adding six more letters for other African languages and borrowed words. They first taught it to their younger sister, then began teaching people at local markets, asking each student to teach at least three more people. They transcribed books and produced their own handwritten books and pamphlets in ADLaM, focusing on practical topics such as infant care and water filtration. <\/p>\n

While attending university in Conakry, Guinea\u2019s capital city, the brothers started a group called Winden Jangen<\/a> \u2014 Fulfulde for \u201cwriting and reading\u201d \u2014 and continued developing ADLaM. Abdoulaye left Guinea in 2003, moving to Portland with his wife and studying finance. Ibrahima stayed behind, completing a civil engineering degree, and continued working on ADLaM. He wrote more books and started a newspaper, translating news stories from the radio and television from French to Fulfulde. Isshaga, a shopkeeper, photocopied the newspapers and Ibrahima handed them out to Fulbhe people, who were so grateful they sometimes wept. <\/p>\n

But not everyone was pleased by the brothers\u2019 work. Some objected to their efforts to spread ADLaM, saying Fulbhe people should learn French, English or Arabic instead. In 2002, military officers raided a Winden Jangen meeting, arrested Ibrahima and imprisoned him for three months. He was not charged with anything or ever told why he was arrested, Abdoulaye said. Undeterred, Ibrahima moved to Portland in 2007 and continued writing books while studying civil engineering and mathematics. <\/p>\n

ADLaM, meanwhile, was spreading beyond Guinea. A palm oil dealer, a woman the brothers\u2019 mother knew, was teaching ADLaM to people in Senegal, Gambia and Sierra Leone. A man from Senegal told Ibrahima that after learning ADLaM, he felt so strongly about the need to share what he\u2019d learned that he left his auto repair business behind and went to Nigeria and Ghana to teach others. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018This is changing people\u2019s lives,\u2019\u201d said Ibrahima, now 43. \u201cWe realized this is something people want.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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ADLaM comes online<\/h2>\n

The brothers also understood that to fully tap ADLaM\u2019s potential, they needed to get it onto computers. They made inquiries about getting ADLaM encoded in Unicode, the global computing industry standard for text, but got no response. After working and saving for close to a year, the brothers had enough money to hire a Seattle company to create a keyboard and font for ADLaM. Since their script wasn\u2019t supported by Unicode, they layered it on top of the Arabic alphabet. But without the encoding, any text they typed just came through as random groupings of Arabic letters unless the recipients had the font installed on their computers.<\/p>\n

Following that setback, Ibrahima made a fateful decision. Wanting to refine the letters the Seattle font designer developed, which he wasn\u2019t happy with, he enrolled in a calligraphy class at Portland Community College. The instructor, Rebecca Wild, asked students at the start of each course why they were taking her class. Some needed an art credit; others wanted to decorate cakes or become tattoo artists. The explanation from the quiet African man with the French accent stunned Wild. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was mind-blowing when I heard the story of why he was doing this,\u201d said Wild, who lives in Port Townsend, Washington. \u201cIt\u2019s so remarkable. I think they deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for what they\u2019re doing. What a difference they\u2019ve made on this planet, and they\u2019re these two humble brothers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wild was struck by Ibrahima\u2019s focus and assiduousness in class. \u201cHe was always a star student,\u201d she said. \u201cHe had this skill set and unending patience. He worked and worked and worked in class on the assignments, but at the same time, he was taking all this stuff he was learning in class back to ADLaM.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Hand-drawn<\/em><\/p>\n

Wild helped Ibrahima get a scholarship to a calligraphy conference at Reed College in Portland, where he met Randall Hasson, a calligraphy artist and painter. Hasson was seated at a table one afternoon, giving a lettering demonstration with another instructor, and Ibrahima came over. A book about African alphabets rested on the table. Ibrahima picked it up, commented that the scripts in the book weren\u2019t the only African alphabets and offhandedly mentioned that he and his brother had invented an alphabet. <\/p>\n

Hasson, who has extensively researched ancient alphabets, assumed Ibrahima meant that he and his brother had somehow modified an alphabet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018You mean you adapted an alphabet?\u2019\u201d Hasson recalled. \u201cI had to ask him three times to be sure he had actually invented one.\u201d<\/p>\n

After hearing Ibrahima\u2019s story, Hasson suggested teaming up for a talk on ADLaM at a calligraphy conference in Colorado the following year. The audience sat rapt as Hasson told Ibrahima\u2019s story, giving him a standing ovation as he walked to the stage. During a break earlier in the day, Ibrahima asked Hasson to come and meet a few people. They were four Fulbhe men who had driven almost 1,800 miles from New York just to hear Ibrahima\u2019s talk, hoping it would finally help get ADLaM the connections they sought.<\/p>\n

Hasson was so moved after speaking with them that he walked away, sat down in an empty stairwell and cried. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt that moment,\u201d he said, \u201cI began to understand how important this talk was to these people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ibrahima made connections at the conference that got him introduced to Michael Everson, one of the editors of the Unicode Standard. It was the break the brothers needed. With help from Everson, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye put together a proposal for ADLaM to be added to Unicode. <\/p>\n

Andrew Glass is a senior program manager at Microsoft who works on font and keyboard technology and provides expertise to the Unicode Technical Committee. The ADLaM proposal and the Barry brothers\u2019 pending visit to the Unicode Consortium<\/a> generated much interest and excitement among Glass and other committee members, most of whom have linguistics backgrounds. Glass\u2019s graduate studies focused on writing systems that are around 2,000 years old, and like other linguists he uses a methodological, technical approach to analyze and understand writing systems. <\/p>\n

But here were two brothers with no training in linguistics, who developed an alphabet through a natural, organic approach \u2014 and when they were children, no less. New writing systems aren\u2019t created very often, and the chance to actually talk with the inventors of one was rare. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou come across things in these old writing systems and you wonder why it\u2019s the way it is, and there\u2019s nobody to ask,\u201d Glass said. \u201cThis was a unique opportunity to say, \u2018Why is it like this? Did they think about doing things differently? Why are the letters ordered this way?\u2019 and things like that.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Microsoft worked with designers to develop a font for Windows and Office called Ebrima that supports ADLaM and several other African writing systems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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It was during the Unicode process that ADLaM got its new name. The brothers originally called their alphabet Bindi Pular, meaning \u201cPular script,\u201d but had always wanted a more meaningful name. Some people in Guinea who\u2019d been teaching the script suggested ADLaM, an acronym using the first four letters of the script for a phrase that translates to \u201cthe alphabet that will prevent a people from being lost.\u201d The Unicode Technical Committee approved ADLaM in 2014 and the alphabet was included in Unicode 9.0, released in June 2016. The brothers were elated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very exciting for us,\u201d Abdoulaye said. \u201cOnce we got encoded, we thought, \u2018This is it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But they soon realized there were other, possibly even more challenging hurdles ahead. For ADLaM to be usable on computers, it had to be supported on desktop and mobile operating systems, and with fonts and keyboards. To make it broadly accessible, it also needed to be integrated on social networking sites.<\/p>\n

The brothers\u2019 script found a champion in Glass, who had developed Windows keyboards for several languages and worked on supporting various writing systems in Microsoft technology. Glass told others at Microsoft about ADLaM and helped connect the Barry brothers to the right people at the company. He developed keyboard layouts for ADLaM, initially as a project during Microsoft\u2019s annual companywide employee hackathon. <\/p>\n

Judy Safran-Aasen, a program manager for Microsoft\u2019s Windows design group, also saw the importance of incorporating ADLaM into Microsoft products. Safran-Aasen wrote a business plan for adding ADLaM to Windows and pushed the work forward with various Microsoft teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a shoestring collaboration of a few people who were really interested in seeing this happen,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a powerful human interest story, and if you tell the story you can get people onboard. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to have an impact on literacy throughout that community and enable people to be part of the Windows ecosystem, where before that just wasn\u2019t available to them,\u201d Safran-Aasen said. \u201cI\u2019m really excited that we can make this happen.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"PhotographADLaM creators Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry in Portland, Oregon.<\/em><\/p>\n

Microsoft worked with two type designers in Maine, Mark Jamra and Neil Patel<\/a>, to develop an ADLaM component for Windows and Office within Microsoft\u2019s existing Ebrima font, which also supports other African writing systems. ADLaM support is included in the Windows 10 May 2019 update, allowing users to type and see ADLaM in Windows, including in Word and other Office apps. <\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s support for ADLaM, Abdoulaye said, \u201cis going to be a huge jump for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

ADLaM is also supported by the Kigelia<\/a> typeface system developed by Jamra and Patel, which includes eight African scripts and is being added to Office later this year. The designers wanted to create a type system for a region of the world lacking in typeface development, where they say existing fonts tend to be oversimplified and poorly researched. They consulted extensively with Ibrahima and Abdoulaye to refine ADLaM\u2019s forms, painstakingly working to execute on the brothers\u2019 vision within the boundaries of font technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was their life\u2019s work that they started when they were kids,\u201d Patel said. \u201cTo get it right is a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

And to many Africans, Jamra said, a script is more than just an alphabet. \u201dThese writing systems are cultural icons,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like the Latin script. They really are symbols of ethnic identity for many of these communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also a means of preserving and advancing a culture. Without a writing system it\u2019s difficult for people to record their history, to share perspective and knowledge across generations, even to engage in the basic communications that facilitate commerce and daily activities. There is greater interest in recent years in establishing writing systems for languages that didn\u2019t have them, Glass said, to help ensure those languages remain relevant and don\u2019t disappear. He pointed to the Osage script, created by an elder in 2006 to preserve and revitalize the language, as an example. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a big push among language communities to develop writing systems,\u201d Glass said. \u201cAnd when they get them, they are such a powerful tool to put identity around that community, and also empower that community to learn and become educated. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think ADLaM has tremendous potential to change circumstances and improve people\u2019s lives. That\u2019s one of the things that\u2019s really exciting about this.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Keeping a culture alive <\/h2>\n

Ibrahima and Abdoulaye don\u2019t know how many people around the world have learned ADLaM. It could be hundreds of thousands, maybe more. As many as 24 countries have been represented at ADLaM\u2019s annual conference in Guinea, and there are ADLaM learning centers in Africa, Europe and the U.S. On a recent trip to Brussels, Ibrahima discovered that four learning centers had opened there and others have started in the Netherlands. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was really surprised. I couldn\u2019t imagine that ADLaM has reached so many people outside of Africa,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Abdoulaye \u201cBobody\u201d Barry (no relation to ADLaM\u2019s creator) lives in Harlem, New York and is part of Winden Jangen, now a nonprofit organization based in New York City. He learned ADLaM a decade ago and has taught it to hundreds of people, first at mosques and then through messaging applications using an Android app. The script has enabled Fulbhe people, many of whom never learned to read and write in English or French, to connect around the world and has fostered a sense of sense of cultural pride, Barry said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is part of our blood. It came from our culture,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is not from the French people or the Arabic people. This is ours. This is our culture. That\u2019s why people get so excited.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Close-up<\/p>\n

Suwadu Jallow emigrated to the U.S. from Gambia in 2012 and took an ADLaM class the Barry brothers taught at Portland Community College. ADLaM is easy for Fulfulde speakers to learn, she said, and will help sustain the language, particularly among the African diaspora. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow I can teach this language to someone and have the sense of my tribe being here for years and years to come without the language dying off,\u201d said Jallow, who lives in Seattle. \u201cHaving this writing system, you can teach kids how to speak (Fulfulde) just like you teach them to speak English. It will help preserve the language and let people be creative and innovative.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jallow is pursuing a master\u2019s in accounting at the University of Washington and hopes to develop an inventory-tracking system in ADLaM after she graduates. She got the idea after helping out in her mother\u2019s baby clothing shop in Gambia as a child and seeing that her mother, who understood little English and Arabic, could not properly record and track expenses. ADLaM, she said, can empower people like her mother who are fluent in Fulfulde and just need a way to write it. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to increase literacy,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe knowledge is power, and if you\u2019re able to read and write, that\u2019s a very powerful tool to have. You can do a lot of things that you weren\u2019t able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fulbhe people in Guinea historically produced a considerable volume of books and manuscripts, Abdoulaye Barry said, using Arabic to write in their language. Most households traditionally had a handwritten personal book detailing the family\u2019s ancestry and the history of the Fulbhe people. But the books weren\u2019t shared outside the home, and Fulbhe people largely stopped writing during French colonization, when the government mandated teaching in French and the use of Arabic was limited primarily to learning the Koran. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything else was basically discounted and no longer had the value that it had before the French came,\u201d Abdoulaye said.<\/p>\n

Having ADLaM on phones and computers creates infinite possibilities \u2014 Fulbhe people around the world will be able to text each other, surf the internet, produce written materials in their own language. But even before ADLaM\u2019s entry into the digital world, Fulfulde speakers in numerous countries have been using the script to write books. Ibrahima mentions a man in Guinea who never went to school and has written more than 30 books in ADLaM, and a high school girl, also in Guinea, who wrote a book about geography and another about how to succeed on exams. The president of Winden Jangen, Abdoulaye Barry (also no relation to Ibrahima\u2019s brother), said many older Fulbhe people who weren\u2019t formally educated are now writing about Fulbhe history and traditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, everybody can read that and understand the culture,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only way to keep a culture alive is if you read and write in your own language.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018The kids are the future\u2019<\/h2>\n

Though ADLaM has spread over several continents, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye aren\u2019t slowing down their work. Both spend much of their spare time promoting the script, traveling to conferences and continuing to write. Ibrahima, who sleeps a maximum of four hours a night, recently finished the first book of ADLaM grammar and hopes to build a learning academy in Guinea. <\/p>\n

On a chilly recent day in Abdoulaye\u2019s home in Portland, the brothers offer tea and patiently answer questions about ADLaM. They are unfailingly gracious, gamely agreeing to drive to a scenic spot on the Willamette River for photos after a long day of talking. They\u2019re also quick to deflect praise for what they have accomplished. Ibrahima, who sometimes wakes up to hundreds of email and text messages from grateful ADLaM learners, said simply that he\u2019s \u201cvery happy\u201d with how the script has progressed. For his brother, the response to ADLaM can be overwhelming. <\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Having this writing system, you can teach kids how to speak Fulani just like you teach them to speak English. It will help preserve the language and let people be creative and innovative.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s very emotional sometimes,\u201d Abdoulaye said. \u201cI feel like people are grateful beyond what we deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The brothers want ADLaM to be a tool for combating illiteracy, one as lasting and important to their people as the world\u2019s most well-known alphabets are to cultures that use them. They have a particular goal of ADLaM being used to educate African women, who they said are more impacted by illiteracy than men and are typically the parent who teaches children to read. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we educate women we can help a lot of people in the community, because they are the foundation of our community,\u201d Abdoulaye said. \u201cI think ADLaM is the best way to educate people because they don\u2019t need to learn a whole new language that\u2019s only used at school. If we switched to this, it would make education a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t happened yet, but ADLaM has fostered a grassroots learning movement fueled largely through social media. There are several ADLaM pages on Facebook, and groups with hundreds of members are learning together on messaging apps. Abdoulaye said he and Ibrahima used to hear mostly about adults learning ADLaM, but increasingly it\u2019s now children. Those children will grow up with ADLaM, using the script Abdoulaye and Ibrahima invented all those years ago in their bedroom. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat makes us believe ADLaM is going to live,\u201d Abdoulaye said. \u201cIt\u2019s now settled into the community because it\u2019s in the kids, and the kids are the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published on 7\/29\/2019 \/ Photos by Brian Smale \/ \u00a9 Microsoft <\/em><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Deborah Bach Audio by Sara Lerner How a new alphabet is helping an ancient people write its own future When they were 10 and 14, brothers Abdoulaye and Ibrahima Barry set out to invent an alphabet for their native language, Fulfulde, which had been spoken by millions of people for centuries but never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[640,122],"class_list":["post-97474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-language","tag-story-labs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}