Saki Mafundikwa
Harare, Zimbabwe, November, 2000

This is a synopsis of my book: Afrikan Alphabets, the story of writing in Afrika, which is a work in progress-not yet published. Sample images will be posted soon.

Since the completion of my Master's thesis at Yale University in 1985, I have been on a mission to re-write Afrika's history in my own small way as a Graphic Designer. It is now a widely accepted fact that Afrikan art resuscitated a European art that was gasping for air and dying from a lack of creative rejuvenation. When artists like Matisse, Paul Klee and especially Picasso saw Afrikan art, they knew immediately that this was the shot in the arm Europe needed to move on to the next level - bringing about the birth of Modern Art. And yet historians, most artists and others still continue to willfully delude the masses by scant references to Afrika or in the worst case scenarios, total silence. Indeed it is said that facts are stubborn and this is one fact that no one can erase from the pages of history. A history we have to rewrite ourselves in order to set the record straight.

The story of writing is filled with such mischief as well. As far as most "authorities" on the subject are concerned, Afrika's contribution begins and ends with Egyptian hieroglyphics. True, hieroglyphics were important in the development of the Roman alphabet, but it is not the only contribution Afrika made! We also have to rid some people of the wrong thinking that the Roman alphabet is superior to all others. First, what is 'writing' anyway? I found the best possible answer in Albertine Gaur's "A History of Writing" in which she states:

If all writing is information storage, then all writing is of equal value. Each society stores information essential to its survival, the information which enables it to function efficiently. There is in fact no difference between prehistoric rock paintings, memory aids (mnemonic devices), wintercounts, tallies, knotted cords, pictographic, syllabic and consonantal scripts, or the alphabet. There are no primitive scripts, no forerunners of writing, no transitional scripts as such (terms frequently used in books dealing with the history of writing), but only societies at a particular level of economic and social development using certain forms of information storage. If a form of information storage fulfills its purpose as far as a particular society is concerned then it is (for this particular society) 'proper' writing.

So when the Ashante people of Ghana were weaving kente cloth into intricate patterns, with proverbs and other symbols embedded in them, they were "writing" since they were indeed communicating ideas, messages and concepts. Likewise, the rock cave paintings of southern Afrika, which were mainly narratives of memorable events-like the celebration following a big kill in a hunt, were writing as well. In fact, my research has led me to the realization that there is no group of people anywhere in the world that at some given point in their development did not devise a way of communicating-with symbols or pictures: ideographs and pictographs, or actual scripts.

We are being led to believe that the world is becoming one happy global village, well then, it is time Africa commanded the respect she is long due in the village. Only us, Afrikans can ensure that this indeed does happen through our active participation in the process of writing our own history. Telling our own stories.

Due to the proliferation of the personal computer there is an explosion of typography design, young Afrikan designers can reach into their rich heritage and come up with a whole new typographic language. Designers from other cultures can also dig into this brand new bag that's been brought to the table for inspiration. It might seem like I keep talking about designers but the truth of the matter is that this book will benefit the general population since most people's conceptions of Afrika are formed and shaped by Hollywood (Tarzan et al) and the news media's fascination with reporting on Afrika only when there is negative news to report.

Methodology
The area I am concerned with is that part of Afrika south of the Sahara, and the countries whose art and scripts I am going to look at follow below.
I have divided my work into five into sections:
a. records and calendars
b. universal symbols and signs
c. numerical records
d. narrative rock paintings
e. written scripts

A. Liberia and Sierra Leone:
a. The Vai syllabary - 212 characters 1883
b. The Mende syllabary - 195 characters 1921
c. The Loma syllabary - 185 characters 1930
d. The Kpelle syllabary - 88 characters 1930
e. The Bassa 'Vah' alphabet - 30 characters, 5 diacritics 1920
f. The Gola alphabet - 30 characters 1930

B. Guinea, Senegal and Mali,
a. The Mandingo alphabet - 25 characters, 8 diacritics 1950
b. Bambara "Ma-sa-ba" script 1930
c. The Wolof alphabet - 25 characters, 7 diacritics 1960
d. The Fula (Dita) alphabet - 39 characters 1958
e. The Fula (Ba) alphabet
f. The Gerze script

C. Cote d'Ivoire
a. The Bete syllabary - 401 characters 1956
b. The Guro script

D. Cameroon and Nigeria
a. The Bamum syllabary - 80 characters 1895
b. The Bagam or Eghap syllabary - 100 plus characters 1917
c. The Ibibio-Efik alphabet - 34 characters 1930
d. The Yoruba holy alphabet
e. Nsibidi
f. A syllabary found among the Djuka of Suriname

The Vai syllabary (Liberia)

A syllabary is a set of characters each of which denotes a syllable rather than a single sound. The Vai syllabary was devised by Momolu Duwalu Bukele in 1830 near Cape Mount in Liberia. It was actually adapted from ancient ideographs that had been in use two centuries before) and is still prevalent today where Vais use it for informal correspondence.

Vai Syllabary

The Mende script (Sierra Leone)
It is also a syllabary and looks "similar" to the Vai syllabary but unlike the Vai which reads from left to right, the Mende reads from right to left due to it's having been influenced by ancient pictographs and the secret scripts used to transcribe Arabic in the Hodh region of Mauritania. It was devised around 1920 by Kisimi Kamala and is purely phonetic and has 195 characters. The Mende people belong to the Mande group of languages which includes Bambara.

Mende Syllabary

The Bambara "Ma-sa-ba" syllabary (Mali)

A syllabary devised by Woyo Couloubayi in the Kaarta region of Mali in 1930 and has a total of 123 characters.

Bambara Syllabary

The Bamum syllabary (Cameroon)

Sultan Ibrahim Njoya king of the Bamoun for over 40 years, was a man of genius. At the end of the nineteenth century, he evolved an independent system of writing for his own language as well as for a secret "court language". He was inspired by a dream, in which he was told to draw a man's hand on a board and then to wash off his drawing and drink the water. After doing this, he asked his subjects to draw different objects and to name them. Armed with their results, he experimented until he had created his first writing system containing some 466 pictographic and ideographic symbols.

Bamum Syllabary

He then set up a series of schools or "book houses" throughout his kingdom, at which hundreds of his subjects learned to read and write. An important and varied collection of literature was compiled, only some of which has been preserved. Among other works, Njoya compiled a volume on the history and customs of his kingdom, a book of rules of conduct at his court, a pharmacopia and a collection of maps of his kingdom. He created a library and ethnographic collection at his palace and encouraged the development of traditional weaving and dyeing under his patronage.

A ka u ku (Orginal) Syllabary

A ka u ku (Elaborate) Syllabary

A ka u ku (Cursive) Syllabary

After the First World War, Njoya's schools and achievements were destroyed by the French colonial authorities and he was deposed in 1931 and exiled to Yaounde where he died a humiliated and broken man two years later.

See the New York Times October 21, 1997 article: "Inheritors of an Afrikan Kingdom come and gone"

The Nsibidi (Nsibiri) script (Nigeria and Cameroon)

This script was invented by the Ejagham people of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon. The exact time of its invention is not known. Some sources say that sibidi means "cruel" in Ejagham; other sources say it means "bloodthirsty", while yet others say it means "magic". What is clear is that it is a mysterious script used only by secret societies and the rich and powerful. The ideographs represent life among the Ejagham and illustrate how advanced and culturally rich they were.

Nsibidi

There were three types of nsibidi. First, there were common signs that were not secret or mystical-signs representing human relationships and communication. Then there were the "dark signs" representing danger and extremity and these were often black. The colors black and white were used to represent death and freshness respectively. Finally, there were the nsibiri or the very important signs of rank and ritual which were secret and known only by priests and initiates.

Nsibidi signs may be carved on calabashes, painted on walls, printed on cloth or painted or tattooed on the human body.

Nsibidi crosses the Atlantic

The cruel slave trade transported a lot of people from Nigeria and Cameroon who took their Nsibidi secrets with them. Today, nsibidi is still widely used by Cuban blacks and called anaforuana and used by such secret societies as the Abakua.

Anaforuana Symbol

The Somali script (Somalia)

Developed by Isman Yusuf son of the Somali Sultan Yusuf Ali around 1930. This East Afrikan script shows some foreign influences, Arabic in the order of the consonant signs and Roman in the left to right reading direction. There was a big Italian presence in the region at this time and that explains the Roman influence. Yusuf's script had twenty-two consonants and five independent short vowels. The order of the consonant signs is also the same as Arabic. Today the script has been replaced by Arabic.

Somali Syllabary

The Ethiopic script (Ethiopia)

In Ethiopia, Ethiopic, a respected and ancient Semitic script is still used to write Amharic, Ge'ez and Tigrinya. Originally, following Semitic practice, the direction of writing was leftward but it is now left to right due to the influence of the Greek alphabet. About 500 BC Sabeans from South Arabia (Sheba) crossed the Red Sea and founded the Kingdom of Axum (now Ethiopia). They took with them their South Semitic all consonant alphabet. During the fourth century AD, the 22 consonants took on vowel indications for the seven vowel sounds of their Ge'ez language. They were written with small appendages to the consonant letters, with modifications of their shapes. This method of writing vowels is similar to that of Indic alphabets.

Ethiopic Syllabary

Tradition credits one Frumentius with this change. As a youth, he had traveled to India where he may have noted Indic vowel writing. Shipwrecked on his return, he was taken to the king and ultimately became secretary-treasurer. In AD 333 he converted King Ezana to Christianity. He was later named Bishop of Ethiopia and established the national church. He also translated the Bible into Ge'ez. Frumentius' alphabet is still the national alphabet of Ethiopia.

These are the only scripts we are dealing with here, the rest will be covered in the book.

Copyright © 2000 saki mafundikwa