Hanifi Rohingya script

Hanifi Rohingya script. The Hanifi Rohingya script is a modern writing system created specifically for the Rohingya language, an Indo-Aryan tongue spoken primarily by the Rohingya people of Rakhine State in Myanmar. Developed in the 1980s by a team led by scholar Mohammad Hanif, it was designed to provide a standardized, native orthography distinct from scripts historically used for the language, such as the Arabic script or the Burmese script. Its creation represents a significant effort in linguistic rights and cultural preservation for a community facing severe political persecution.

History and development

The script's development was spearheaded in the 1980s by Mohammad Hanif, a Rohingya educator and linguist, alongside colleagues including Molana A. Gaffar and Abrar Uzzaman. This initiative emerged from a desire within the Rohingya diaspora, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, to have a distinct written identity separate from the Persian alphabet-based Rohingya Arabic Alphabet. The creators analyzed the phonology of the Rohingya language and drew inspiration from the visual styles of the Arabic script and, to a lesser extent, the Latin script and Burmese script. Key development and promotion work occurred through community organizations like the Rohingya Language Academy and the Rohingya Literature Society.

Structure and characteristics

The Hanifi Rohingya script is an abugida, where each consonant letter carries an inherent vowel sound, typically /ɔ/, which is modified using dedicated diacritic marks. It is written from right to left, similar to the Arabic script. The alphabet comprises 28 primary consonant letters and 10 vowel diacritics. A distinctive feature is its use of six unique characters for nasal vowels, a critical phonological element in the Rohingya language. It also includes a set of digits and employs the sukun diacritic to indicate the absence of a vowel. The script's letterforms are angular and geometric, showing clear influence from Arabic calligraphy.

Usage and adoption

Primary usage of the script is found within the Rohingya diaspora community, especially in refugee camps in Bangladesh, such as those in Cox's Bazar, and in diaspora centers in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Malaysia. It is used in publishing by groups like the Arakan Rohingya Union for producing educational material, religious texts, and community newsletters. Adoption faces challenges due to the Rohingya genocide and the lack of official recognition in Myanmar, where the Burmese language and Burmese script are enforced. However, it is promoted by activists and organizations like the Rohingya Vision TV as a symbol of cultural identity.

Unicode and digital representation

The script was added to the Unicode Standard in version 11.0 (2018), with the block named 'Hanifi Rohingya' spanning code points U+10D00 to U+10D3F. This milestone, championed by the Unicode Consortium with advocacy from groups like the Script Encoding Initiative, enabled its digital representation. Following its encoding, font development began, and support was gradually integrated into operating systems like Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS. Digital adoption allows for its use in social media, mobile applications, and by news outlets such as The Rohingya Post, though widespread text rendering support remains an ongoing challenge.

Comparison with other scripts

Unlike the Arabic script, which requires extensive diacritics to represent Rohingya language sounds and is used for the Rohingya Arabic Alphabet, the Hanifi script has dedicated letters for retroflex consonants and nasal vowels, offering a more phonemic fit. It differs fundamentally from the left-to-right Latin script-based Hanif script (or Rohingyalish) developed earlier, which uses Roman alphabet letters with diacritics. While the Burmese script is the official script of Myanmar, it is poorly suited for the Indo-Aryan phoneme inventory of Rohingya. The Hanifi script's design is most analogous to other modern constructed scripts like the Adlam script for Fula or the Osage script, created for linguistic self-determination.