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The writing systems of Africa refer to the current and historical practice of writing systems on the African continent, both indigenous and those introduced.In many African societies, history generally used to be recorded orally despite most societies having developed a writing script, leading to them being termed "oral civilisations" in contrast to "literate civilisations".
The manuscripts are written in Arabic and several African languages, in the Ajami script; this includes, but is not limited to, Fula, Songhay, Tamasheq, Bambara, and Soninke. [3] The dates of the manuscripts range between the late 13th and the early 20th centuries (i.e., from the Islamisation of the Mali Empire until the decline of traditional ...
Ajami (Arabic: عجمي , ʿajamī) or Ajamiyya (Arabic: عجمية , ʿajamiyyah), which comes from the Arabic root for 'foreign' or 'stranger', is an Arabic-derived script used for writing African languages, particularly Songhai, Mandé, Hausa and Swahili, although many other languages are also written using the script, including Mooré, Pulaar, Wolof, and Yoruba.
The numbers are line numbers; Fin de 13 means "end of [line] 13". The glyphs are stylized human, animal, vegetable and geometric shapes, and often form compounds . Nearly all those with heads are oriented head up and are either seen face on or in profile to the right, in the direction of writing.
Old Nubian is one of the oldest written African languages and appears to have been adopted from the 10th–11th century as the main language for the civil and religious administration of Makuria. Besides Old Nubian, Koine Greek was widely used, especially in religious contexts, while Coptic mainly predominates in funerary inscriptions. [ 2 ]
The Vai syllabary is a syllabic writing system devised for the Vai language by Momolu Duwalu Bukele of Jondu, in what is now Grand Cape Mount County, Liberia. [1] [2] [3] Bukele is regarded within the Vai community, as well as by most scholars, as the syllabary's inventor and chief promoter when it was first documented in the 1830s.
Ditema tsa Dinoko (Sesotho for "Ditema syllabary"), also known as ditema tsa Sesotho, is a constructed writing system (specifically, a featural syllabary) for the siNtu or Southern Bantu languages (such as Sesotho, Setswana, IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, SiSwati, SiPhuthi, Xitsonga, EMakhuwa, ChiNgoni, SiLozi, ChiShona and Tshivenḓa).
The earliest mention of the issue of the wrongful enslavement of Muslims in a text written in West Africa is in Muhammad ‘Abd al-Karim al-Magili's replies to Askia Muhammad, ruler of the Songhay Empire, written in 1498. In it, al-Magili wrote, 'As for him whom you find in their hands enslaved but who claims that he is free, then his word is ...