a, à, ã, aa, b, bb, c, cc, d, dd, e, ee, é, ée, ë, ëe, f, g, gg, i, ii, j, jj, k, kk, l, ll, m, mm, mb, mp, n, nn, nc, nd, ng, nj, nk, nq, nt, ñ, ññ, ŋ, ŋŋ, o, oo, ó, óo, p, pp, q, r, rr, s, t, tt, u, uu, w, ww, x, y, yy

Version used in Dictionnaire wolof-français by Arame Fal et al.

Note: Most links open up in a new browser tab to a corresponding article on Wikipedia.

Wolofal is a derivation of the Arabic script for writing the Wolof language. It is basically the name of a West African Ajami script as used for that language.

Wolofal was the first script for writing the Wolof language. Although the Latin alphabet is the official script of the language in today’s Senegal, Wolofal is still used by many people as a symbol of Islamic Wolof culture.

Wolofal letters	Variants	Latin letters	Pronunciation
ب‎		b	[b]
ݖ‎	چ‎, جۛ‎	c	[c]
د‎		d	[d]
ف‎	ڢ‎	f	[ɸ]
گ‎		g	[ɡ]
ه‎		h	[h]
ج‎		j	[dʒ]
ک‎		k	[k]
ل‎		l	[l]
م‎		m	[m]
ن‎		n	[n]
ݧ‎		ñ	[ɲ]
ݝ‎	ݤ‎	ŋ	[ŋ]
ݒ‎	پ‎	p	[p]
ق‎		q	[q]
ر‎		r	[ɾ]
س‎		s	[s]
ت‎		t	[t]
و‎		w	[w]
خ‎		x	[x]
ي‎		y	[j]

The Garay alphabet was designed in 1961, as a transcription system “[marrying] African sociolinguistic characteristics” according to its inventor, Assane Faye. This alphabet has 25 consonants and 14 vowels. It is used in particular for the writing of the Wolof language, spoken mostly in Senegal, although it’s more often written in the Latin alphabet. It is written from right to left, and distinguishes letter case.

A proposal to encode Garay in Unicode was submitted in 2012.

Click to access 11181-faye-wolof.pdf

For more on the Wolof alphabet click here.