𞠀𞠁𞠂
ki · ka · ku, read right to left
Kikakui, c. 1917
Sierra Leone's own script. Mohamed Turay made the first letters around 1917 at Maka, Barri Chiefdom, Pujehun; his nephew Kisimi Kamara, a tailor from Vaama, added well over a hundred more and taught it from the 1920s. Each sign is a syllable, and its name is its first three: ki, ka, ku. People kept letters, accounts and court records in it.
Bokari Kanneh, a goldsmith in Nyandeyama, Kenema District, kept his diary and accounts in Kikakui in the 1950s. His notebooks are at Yale University. See them at Yale →