posted
Yes, Africans had developed a wide variety of scripts in the past. Unfortunately many of these did not stand the test of time, due to lack of adequate support from African bourgeois, in encouraging widespread use at administrative level and public institutions, i.e. the after-effects of events, like this one:
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 selfgoverning writing system and a printing 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 (I 895 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 withwhich 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. Two systems of writing were taught at the school: the Royal and the popular scripts. Tragically the most important documents are taken away by colonial masters out of Cameroon and they are housed in the French and British Museums. The Germans and later the French did not want to see the flourishing of a literary tradition among the Bamums. Not only they killed or exiled their leaders; they also violently banned the use of Shumom, thereby condemning the people to colonial dark age.
posted
I have to go, but as a quick reply, in Ethiopia the Ge'ez script is still used.
-------------------- "Oh the sons of Ethiopia; observe with care; the country called Ethiopia is, first, your mother; second, your throne; third, your wife; fourth, your child; fifth, your grave." - Ras Alula Aba Nega. Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
U are right Yom Geez is still used in Africa what a great accomplishment by the Ethiopians very great civilization that can be compared to Rome China Persia Greece i would name Egypt but i consider it a extention of the old Kushite realm.
-------------------- Hikuptah Al-Masri Posts: 526 | From: Aswan Egypt | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
Red herrings, unless I'm missing something here, since no one said "all" indigenous African literatures disappeared. In fact, some of the ones mentioned in Ausar's links, are still being used, but not as widely as they could be used, if there was adequate promotion for them.
And how do you promote this sort of thing?...by making it compulsory to learn them in educational institutions - at the least, side by side with foreign languages, as well as in governmental institutions, and the mass media.
In Ethiopia, for instance, Amharic script is still taught in even some foreign schools for local students, as aside courses, like how French and Spanish are taught in U.S. Amharic is widely and basically, as the primary language, used in the Government and in the mass media. It is a good example, which if many African nations followed, would be a great thing.
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