Diachronic analysis of historical Vai script
A description of the data
Samples of the Vai script have been recorded and preserved from 1834 to 1981. The full comparison table with original images is available at [osf link]. For the purposes of this study, however, we have selected the 55 most frequent characters as identified by Rovenchak, Riley and Tombekai. In compiling the shorter 55 character dataset we made several decisions about the original data. Three of the consecutive sources were collected within a very short space of time, namely Koelle 1849, Forbes 1851 and Ndole ca.1850. In the dataset we excluded Koelle 1849 and Forbes 1851 on the basis of Stewart's observation that some of the characters were distorted in the process of their documentation. The Ndole material, meanwhile, is reproduced from a handwritten manuscript by a literate Vai and is thus taken to be more authoritative.
Results
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Experiments using high-frequency Vai characters
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Results
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Discussion
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