African Writing Systems Mandombe script Writing is a means by which people record, objectify, and organize their activities and thoughts through images and graphs . Writing is a means to inscribe meanings that are expressed through sounds. Further, writing provides an aspect of historicality. [1] This means that writing facilitates the proper recording and transmissions of events and deeds from one generation to another. Most of the worlds written script originated from the Semitic script. The Greeks converted the Semitic script into what was to become the 'English script' of the western world. Arabic and Hebrew retained the basic format of the Semitic script, employing vowel characters and not letters. Chinese script developed uniquely. It is rather interesting to note that no alphabet is known to have ever been formed by Europeans. We are very familiar with the African Egyptian hieroglyphic script and the African Ethiopian Geez script, which date as old as 3000 BC and 500 BC years respectively. However forgotten by no coincidence are many other ancient African scripts that are unique and expressive in their own ways. Scripts created and used for hundreds of years from Sudan to Nigeria. It appears that one of the main reasons why these great African script were lost in the sands of Historical time, is the direct mechanism of the colonial operation. Colonialism was internationally justified on a premise that the African was less than a human, this stamped by the infamous 1865 'Code Noir'. [2] To this goal, all evidence of African advanced skills would have been suppressed, books destroyed and higher skills silenced. In a time when only the Nobles of the West could read and write, if a slave, who was portrayed as an animal (still written in the US constitution as 3/5ths a human in the 'three-fifths clause' [3]) could read and write in his native language with advanced skill, it would be impossible to maintain his being less than human. Here we look at some of the great forgotten scripts of the African continent. Contents [hide] 1 Ethiopic Script 2 Egyptian Script 3 Sudan Script 4 Afan Oromo script 5 Bassa Script 6 Vai Script 7 Mende Script 8 Nsibidi Script 9 Tifinagh Script 10 Bamun Script 11 Kukakui Script 12 N'ko Script 13 Mandombe Script 14 Shumom Script and Print Press 15 Controversy Ethiopic Script Ethiopic Script Ethiopic is an African Writing System designed as a meaningful and graphic representation of knowledge. It is a component of the African Knowledge Systems and one of the signal contributions made by Africans to the world history and cultures. It is created to holistically symbolize and locate the cultural and historical parameters of the Ethiopian people. The System, in its classic state, has a total of 182 syllographs, which are arranged in seven columns, each column containing 26 syllographs. Ethiopic is a knowledge system because it is brilliantly organized to represent philosophical features, such as ideography, mnumonics, syllography, astronomy, and grammatology. [4] Egyptian Script Egyptian Script Sudan Script Meroitic script By the third century BC a new indigenous alphabet, the Meroitic, consisting of twenty-three letters, replaced Egyptian script. The Meroitic script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë/Kush. It was developed sometime during the Napatan Period (about 700 - 300 BC), and first appears in the 2nd century BC. For a time, it was also possibly used to write the Nubian language of the successor Nubian kingdoms. The Meroitic script is very similar to the Egyptian Writing System. It was used by the Meroe people, a civilization of the Sudan. The system is written from right to left, unlike the Egyptian system which can be written right to left, left to right, and vertically. [5] Afan Oromo script Afan Oromo script It is the language by more than 25 million Oromo and neighboring peoples in Ethiopia and Kenya. Older publications refer to the language as "Galla", a term that is resented by Oromo people and no longer used. Bassa Script Liberian Bassa script HISTORY of the Bassa Script, 500+ BC (Liberia, West Africa) Many people today are unaware of the genius of the African. Although they might admit to a complex verbal language structure, it may come as quite a surprise to many that African people have a multitude of written languages. In Liberia the Bassa people have a written script. The Kpelle, Gola, Lorma, Grebo, Vai and Kissi also are known to have their own written language. Most of these scripts have diminished over time, as a result of abandonment. Had Hanibal visited Liberia in 500 B.C., particularly Kpowin(Tradetown) and Bassa Cove, he would have witnessed the Bassa script in use. The script is called Vah by the Bassas, which is translated to the phrase: To throw sign. Not to be confused with the Vai ethnic group, who also have their own written script as mentioned above. Vah was initially the throwing of sign or signals utilizing the natural environment. Teeth marks would be left on leaves and placed in a discrete location for the intended reader. Messages where also carved in the barks of trees. Eventually this evolved into a complex written language. During the era of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, many Bassas avoided slave traders by utilizing Vah(Bassa Script). During the colonial, and on through to the neo-colonial period in Africa, a decline in the usage of Vah script caused by external cultural forces, almost brought this written portion of the Bassa language to extinction. Dr. Flo Darvin Lewis in the 1900s would re-discover the script in South America. Bassas that were sold into slavery now living in Brazil and the West Indies; kept the tradition of writing alive, passing it from generation to generation. Through his travels, Dr. Lewis was astonished to find out that he, being a Bassa himself, knew nothing of any such writing amongst his people back in Liberia. This discovery put Dr. Lewis on a determined path to learn, teach and revive the script in Liberia. Lewis attended Syracuse University and earned a doctorate in Chemistry, where he was known as the African Prince. Dr. Lewis returned to Liberia by way of Dresden, Germany where a company manufactured the first printing press for the Bassa alphabet. In Liberia, he established an institution for learning Vah. Among his students were, former Senator Edwin A. Morgan, Counselors Zacharia Roberts and Jacob Logan. Fear, mis-trust, sabotage and colonial thinking Liberians would lead to Dr. Lewis’ untimely death; leaving an open legacy yet to be completed. [6] [7] Vai Script Vai script West Africa 1819 The actual origins of this script are enmeshed in mythology. This script said to be invented by inspiration by Momolu Duwalu Bukele at about 1819. Some suggest that he developed this script from coming into contact with the Bassa Liberian script in his sojourns. [8] Mende Script Mende script Sierra Leone Nsibidi Script Nsibidi script The Nigerian Nsibidi is an indigenous adaptable and fluid writing system of two dimensional signs, three dimensional forms of pictographs and ideographs and pantomimed gestures. It originated as an esoteric form of knowledge understood by a select group of people mostly members of a secret society in Southeastern Nigeria which some sources link to the Ejagham and later spread to Efik, Igbo, Ibibio, Efut, Annang and Banyang speaking areas. Some of the signs of the Nsibidi spread to the Caribbean and Brazil during the slave trade. Tifinagh Script Libyan Tifinagh script Libya Bamun Script Cameroon Bamun script Cameroon, West Africa Kukakui Script Kikakui script Sierra Leone N'ko Script Nko script Guinea Mandombe Script Mandombe script Republic of Congo Shumom Script and Print Press Shumom script Shumom Script and Print Press of Cameroon The Shumom people are the people of Cameroon in West Africa. Their country is located between Nigeria in the West, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Congo Brazzaville in the South and Chad and Central African Republic in the North. Within Cameroon, the land of the Shumom people is located in the northern part. It is a land of massif plateau and mountains, valleys and vast forested land, a part of the great equatorial forest of West and Central Africa. Foumban is the administrative capital of the district. In the beginning of the 20th century or perhaps earlier, the people of Cameroon were able to accomplish one of the most remarkable African achievements of the century: the invention of a self-sustaining and self governing writing system and a Bronze cast printing set device to document the histories of the people. Sultan Ibrahim Njoya, whose father was killed resisting the German invaders, led the invention. The invention that started in the late nineteenth century (1895 or 1896) was completed by the beginning of the 20' century in 1903. By the time of the Germans arrival, the writing system was in use in conjunction with the Bamum language, which is a tonal language, which means the meanings of a word will vary depending upon the tone with which the sound of the word is uttered. The system went through seven stages of development. The first stage had over five hundred pictographs and the last stage has had only 35 syllographs, graphs designed to represent all the phonetic and tone sounds in the Bamum language of the Shumom people. King Njoya opened a school in Fumban where many are trained to become literate and promote leaming in their own language. Several manuscripts and documents were produced, including the histories, laws and customs of the people and their neighbors.