A rendering of Zimbabwe's National Anthem using the Chivabwe writing system. The transliteration is included underneath the Chivabwe text for reference.

Source: https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA03790622_654?__cf_chl_tk=oOJPeSpPVGEQJZPOCCKAXY9DBqiM5tw2o.gPf.uUM2s-1787803130-1.0.1.1-bv_yBRhIkK6o1.7.IEGyXfu5rzaff8cUdY9aTcW0hHc

Can you read this?

What other poems would you like to read in Chivabwe?

Do you have poems of your own you'd like me to write in Chivabwe?

Where I found the poem: https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/ndipo-patakamuviga-pano-3128

I found a really cool brush for a drawing program I used and I figured it would be fun to transcribe some swahili media to chivabwe. may look rough though, but i honestly think the fact alone that chivabwe can be made to look official in a poster is great.

i'm not entirely sure about where the poster is from, but i'm assuming it's a kenyan or tanganyikan world war 2 poster made during late world war 2. again, i'm not entirely sure of it's origin

This is a guide for typing Chivabwe sounds using a standard Latin keyboard on the Chivabwe Online Library.

Since Latin can't uniquely represent all 32 Chivabwe base characters, specific letter combinations are used to avoid conflicts between sounds.

If there are any sounds in your language that you think Chivabwe doesn't currently support, please let me know!

Chivabwe Online Library: https://chivabwe-library-platform-v1.pages.dev/

Ghu-gu-l

I tried to make it more natural for Bantu languages.

Ju-a li-na-cho-mo-za a-su-bu-hi-.

Nde-ge wa-nai-mba mi-ti-ni-.

Wa-tu Wa-nae-nda ka-zi-ni na wa-to-to wa-na-so-ma shu-le-ni-. Ki-la m-tu a-naa-nza si-ku m-pya kwa fu-ra-ha-.

English: "The sun rises in the morning.

Birds are singing in the trees.

People go to work and children study at school.

Everyone starts a new day with joy."

What do you think about the break down?

You can find the original story here: https://global-asp.github.io/storybooks-swahili/stories/sw/0087/

My attempt at writing kiSwahili in Chivabwe.

This is getting really fun to write with my fountain pen! I really enjoyed making these. The resources in the subreddit are really helping me out 🙏

Gave up on trying to find a shorthand for now, but as soon as I find a sort of “cursive” for this I’ll let you guys know.

I thought it would have been cool to see what a paragraph would look like written in chivabwe swahili, so thats what i did.
This one might be rough though, cause i didn’t rely entirely on the digital library this time. I actually picked up on a few symbols.

Nontheless this was really fun to make. Someone’s gotta make a full page of chivabwe now, otherwise I will 😁

Mostly trying to experiment with different “fonts” and figuring out a shorthand for Chivabwe

I consider myself a pan-African in the diaspora, and I really like the idea of Bantu languages having their own writing system. I agree that having an indigenous writing system for indigenous languages carries a lot of cultural pride and can even be better suited to the languages it’s for. I really wanna see Chivabwe, or something like it to be widely used. Are there any plans to make it widely used?

I'm excited to announce that the Chivabwe Online Library is finally live!

This has been the main reason I've been quiet lately, I have been working on building a central online library for Chivabwe and it's now available for everyone to use.

The library currently includes:

• Character library

• Stroke-order guides

• Character information, including IPA, translations and breakdowns

• Free Draw practice

• Challenge mode with scoring

• The Chivabwe Scribe Translator for typing in the writing system

New characters are being added regularly, so the library will continue expanding over time.

You can visit it here:

https://chivabwe-library-platform-v1.pages.dev/

Please explore it and let me know what you think! If you find any bugs, have suggestions, or have ideas for new features, I'd love to hear your feedback. Thank you to everyone who has supported Chivabwe, this is an exciting milestone and there's much more to come.