Language vai

The language vai (sometimes also called Gallinas, Gallines, Vei or Vy) is a language spoken mainly in western Liberia and the eastern borderlands of Sierra Leone. It is one of the Mandé languages that spread through West Africa, standing out for its prestige as a commercial language since the 15th century. It stands out for having been one of the few sub-Saharan languages that has developed its own writing system, the Vai syllabary.

It has around 189,000 speakers in Liberia and 23,000 in Sierra Leone.