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Extract From 10 0> TUfc UNESC© (OURIER The origins ofwriting INTERVIEW WITH ERNEST J. GAINES HERITAGE QUITO, A CITY NEAR TO HEAVEN ENVIRONMENT OMANS GREEN STRATEGY FMNCC: J3FF UISIHU1' *»7» UIGIUM t'lSO C»NM>*; Cllll uiA: WM IwnTmUHO: IFI.H NCTHHUNM: Fl 10 - KHMMK: Ht» cu o Sultan Njoya of Foumban poses in western military uniform in front of a royal costume displayed by his chamberlain (1908). An inspired invention by David Dalby Egyptian hieroglyphics I Whereas the writing revolution the contentious love-affairs. Nsibidi symbols may I linear, visual representation of specific be engraved on calabashes and other domestic may have drawn spoken languages began only 5,000 years ago, objects, painted on walls, printed on cloth or tat¬ inspiration from older the use of graphic symbols to represent objects tooed or painted on the human body. They are and ideas, and to encapsulate magical and reli¬ not associated with any one specific language but African traditions gious values, is almost certainly as old as arti¬ are found in a multilingual area among speakers culate speech itself. of Ekoi, Igbo and Ibibio. It has sometimes been suggested that certain A curious tradition relates that the secrets of traditional African symbols, such as those used Nsibidi were long ago revealed to men by a among the Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana, species of large baboon called idiok. This legend were inspired by Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, is above all reminiscent of the divine baboon by that magnificent explosion of human writing associated with Thoth, the patron of scribes in which took place in northeast Africa. It is more ancient Egypt. These widely separated beliefs probable, however, that the hieroglyphs them¬ about the same animal are unlikely to be pure selves drew an important part of their inspira¬ coincidence, and we are left with two other pos¬ tion, 5,000 years ago, from even older tradi¬ sibilities. Was this a specifically Egyptian belief tions of graphic symbolism in Africa itself. which found its way over thousands of years and Whereas a long tradition of writing seems to have existed northwards and eastwards of the thousands of kilometres to eastern Nigeria, or DAVID DALBY, Sahara and the Nile Valley, southwards stretches was it perhaps an ancient and widely spread of the United Kingdom, is a belief in Black Africa which passed to Egypt former director of the an area whose cultures are associated primarily International African Institute with oral tradition. On the other hand, especially and emeritus reader in African in West Africa, there are strong traditions of languages at the University of graphic symbolism and also many examples of London. He is currently director the modern evolution or design of "new" indige¬ of the Observatoire Linguistique nous systems of writing. in Cressenville, France, where he is compiling a register of the One of the most remarkable examples of world's modern languages the use of graphic symbols in Africa is the com¬ entitled The Key to the plex system of pictograms and ideograms known Logosphere. Among his as Nsibidi (or Nsibiri), used traditionally in the published works are Language Cross River area of southeast Nigeria. The and History in Africa (1970), system is known to have many usages, including The Language Map of Africa (1977) and Africa and the the use of symbols in combination to record 22 Written Word (1986). narratives, especially the evidence recorded in oim/wi mum-mi mtmn\ with the knowledge of traditional graphic sym¬ with hand-made copper dies and compiling bols, a vital element in the elaboration of early texts on the history and customs of his kingdom. pictographic hieroglyphs? Unfortunately Njoya's achievements were £l«HITtf3>HWíTOI mHim i doomed by the outcome of the First World War. bultan Njoya's dream Encouraged under German rule, Njoya's schools rai wwj» i ].u i tb./iiAww i A short distance eastward from the traditional were closed by the post-war colonial authorities, yíitMEmíflnrní j<m and he destroyed his own printing system in area of Nsibidi, across the border in German frustration. He was deposed in 1931 and exiled Cameroon, a remarkable cultural event occurred until his death two years later. The Lord's Prayer written in the just a century ago. This was the progressive Bamun language of Cameroon in elaboration by Sultan Njoya of Foumban of an 1911. The script is known as a-ku independent and original system of writing for A sacred script u-ku, a name derived from its first the Bamum language. The history of Njoya's system raises the possi¬ four characters. Like several other inventors of African bility that the form and sudden appearance of writing systems, Njoya was inspired by a dream, Egyptian writing may be explained in a similar after which he asked his subjects to draw dif¬ way, as the invention primarily of a single man, ferent objects and to name them. Armed with highly enough placed to have the necessary their results, he experimented until he had cre¬ leisure for his task and for the result to have ated his first system of writing, containing some been accepted without opposition among his 466 pictographic and ideographic symbols. own people. Forty years of experimentation and steady There is no evidence of any long evolution of progress led him to the use of his final a-ku-u- hieroglyphic writing in the beginning, and the ku syllabary, named after the first four of its progress of a single inventor could explain the eighty characters. complex structure of the Egyptian script in its Sultan Njoya was certainly a man of genius, earliest recorded form, where different stages of but it was his royal position which enabled him development appear already to be fused into a to see his ideas through to completion by estab¬ single system. lishing schools at which his subjects learned to Just as Njoya is known to have been read and write, elaborating a system of printing impressed, but in no way influenced, by the racing page, the first of these two symbols represents the name Arabic script, so an Egyptian inventor may have "nsibidi", a system of graphic been stimulated by the slightly earlier invention of symbols used traditionally in part a quite different writing system in Mesopotamia. of southeast Nigeria. The second As in the documented cases of several indige¬ represents an idiok, one of the nous writing systems in West Africa, a claim large baboons which supposedly revealed the secret of nsibidi to by its inventor to divine inspiration may be human beings. assumed in the case of the Egyptian script also, and such an origin was certainly the traditional This Egyptian statuette depicts belief throughout the script's history. The sacred Nebmertuf, priest, archivist and and revealed nature of Egyptian writing made it scribe to Amenophis III (c. 1400 immune to any radical restructuring for thou¬ B.C.), humbly sitting at the feet of Thoth, the baboon-headed god sands of years and limited its use to an initiated elite. 23 of writing..
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