AYNEHA, the writing system of the Songhay language

An alphabet born in 2026 for Songhay, a language spoken along the Niger River in Mali, Niger, Benin and Burkina Faso. Designed from the Songhay of Gao, it gives one character to each sound it retains, and it is written from right to left.

Learn it, write it on your phone, count with its digits: everything is free.

Start learning Write my first word

􏾜􏿌􏾍􏾝􏾚􏾜

reads “ayneha”

Write your first name in AYNEHA

Type the name the way it is pronounced, not the way it is spelled in French: Issiaka becomes isiyaka, Maïga becomes mayga, the sound “oo” is u, “sh” is sh. Transcribe a whole text

27 letters, read from right to left

Five vowels, then twenty-two consonants: this is the alphabetical order of AYNEHA. Diacritics add nasalisation, openness, doubling or a silent consonant. The first letter, A, is on the far right: read the row from right to left. Tap a letter to see its card.

See the full alphabet, diacritics and digits

Try it right now

Free tools that work right in your browser.

Latin → AYNEHA transcriber Keyboard Calculator Number converter Clock and calendar Quiz Glossary (430+ words)

Teaching AYNEHA

Schools, associations, literacy classes: free materials and a form to ask for help or become a partner.

Education space

Learning on paper

An A4 alphabet poster and a 4-page tracing workbook, free to print and share.

The poster The workbook

Your feedback matters

What you like, what bothers you, what you want to see soon: tell us, every message is read.

Give my feedback

Free Android apps

Free apps with no ads, no account and no data collection, to download directly from this site. There is no iPhone (iOS) version yet: on iPhone, use the online tools.

AYNEHA School: learn to read and write AYNEHA, offline.
AYNEHA Keyboard: write in AYNEHA and share your texts as images.
AYNEHA Home: the whole website on your phone, even offline.
AYNEHA Calc, AYNEHA Horloge (clock) and AYNEHA NumConvert (numbers in six scripts).

See the apps

Building an app? The free AYNEHA Keyboard SDK adds the AYNEHA writing system to your Android project.

AYNEHA School New

Learn to read and write AYNEHA on your own, at your own pace and offline: the alphabet letter by letter, diacritics, syllables, digits, tracing with your finger, quizzes and a transcription workshop.

See AYNEHA School

The time in AYNEHA

This clock shows your device's time, the day, the month and the Songhay year, entirely in AYNEHA. The Songhay year is the Gregorian year plus 2001.

Example: in 2026, the Songhay year is 2026 + 2001 = 4027. It is written 􏾀􏽼􏽾􏾃: like letters, digits are read from right to left, so the 4 of the thousands is on the right.

Open the clock and calendar

day

month

Songhay year

Why a writing system of its own?

Today Songhay is written with the Latin alphabet or in Arabic script (Ajami). These borrowed alphabets have to combine letters to note sounds that are foreign to them.

AYNEHA was designed from the Songhay of Gao: one character for each sound retained in its writing system. Its shapes were tried by hand for a long time, with pencil and pen, before becoming a digital font, a keyboard and apps.

Read the story of the project

Featured on Omniglot

AYNEHA is listed in the constructed scripts section of Omniglot, the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages.

See the Omniglot page

Questions?

Is it official? Does it replace the Latin alphabet? Why right to left? The answers are in the FAQ.

Read the FAQ