Mende Kikakui Alphabet

The Mende Kikakui script is a syllabary used for writing the Mende language of Sierra Leone and Liberia. It was devised by Mohammed Turay, an Islamic scholar, at a town called Maka, inspired in part by  The Arabic abjad  FE8E–FEF1 and in part by the  Vai syllabary  A500–A62B . It was refined by one of his students, Kisimi Kamara, who produced the script as it is known today in 1921. The alphabet had been widely used till 1940s when it was replaced with  The Latin alphabet  0041–007A . Kikakui is still used today, but perhaps by less than 500 people.