Gʋlse Script

Gʋlse (Anglicized Goulsse) (literally meaning writing in Mooré) is a modern script for writing Gur languages. The script was developed by Wenitte Apiou and Babaguioue Micareme Akouabou in 2022. Born in Burkina Faso to a Kassena father and a Mossi mother, Apiou was a student of Computer Science at Stanford University when he contacted Babaguioue, also Burkinabè Kassena, and a doctoral candidate in Linguistics with research focus on the Kassena language at the University of Ouagadougou. The script is an alphabet with 30 letters. Gʋlse draws inspiration from ancient writing systems used in the Volta region where Gur languages are spoken, and represents the community’s idea of how these writing systems may have further evolved if Gur peoples had never been colonized. Gʋlse is written from left to right, has no uppercase or lowercase, and uses the standard international Hindu-Arabic numerals.