Writing

When they call Tropical Africa a “continent with no writing”, that’s not quite true. Ancient Ethiopians had written language in the 4th century A.D., much earlier than most European peoples. In the Middle Ages, Arabic writing spread together with Islam, along the East African coast and south of Sahara. Not only did they use Arabic script to write in Arabic, but also in African languages – in Swahili, Kanuri, Hausa, Pular-Fulfude, Wolof, Mandinka. They still use it, although not so much as before, because European colonizers brought Latin script to Africa, and little by little it got adapted to almost all of the continent’s languages, adding on special characters for the unusual vowels, consonants and tones.

The Africans also have their own writing systems, not similar to Arabic or Latin. Some of them are rather “protowritings”. With the Nsibidi characters belonging to the secret society of the Efik people in East Nigeria and their neighbors, or the secret writing of the Komo society of Bamana in Mali, one can register a court proceeding, but to write a novel would be hardly possible. However, real writing systems arose with the Vai people of Liberia in the 1820’s, and with the Cameroon’s Bamum in the end of the 19th century. In the 20th century, the Bassa, the Looma, the Mende, the Kpelle, the Maninka and the Fulbe of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia invented their own writing systems – although most of them were soon forgotten. The syllable writing of the Vai, and in particular, the Nko alphabet, created by Sulemana Kante for the Manding languages in 1949, have been more successful.

A signboard in Maninka, Nko writing: “Shop of Sedu  Koneh, merchant and baker”. Mali. V.F. Vydrin. 2005		Scribe copying a manuscript onto parchment.  Dedication Maryam.  Ethiopia. M. Gervers. 2005