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Bamum script and archives project: saving Africa?s written heritage
Dr Konrad Tuchscherer, St John?s University, New York 2005 award - major research project £ 54,800 for 15 months.
At the Bamum Palace Archives ? a small dusty room inside the walls of the palace ? are held over 7000 documents, many of which pre-date the arrival of the first Europeans in 1902. These documents are written in African languages and transcribed in an indigenous African writing system ? the Bamum script of the Cameroon Grassfields.
One book chronicles, from the Bamum perspective, the arrival of the first German military officer and trader. Other books are devoted to the founding of the kingdom, to an invented Bamum religion (fusing Christianity, Islam, and traditional beliefs), to traditional medicine, and even to the art of love. Many leading families in Foumban, the capital of the Bamum Kingdom, also have important documents. One family?s collection includes early Bamum script on banana leaves. Another collection is particularly important, containing thousands of documents on family and kingdom history, transcripts of speeches given by the Bamum King in the early twentieth century, documents dealing with medicine, commentaries on Islam and magic, and ? perhaps of greatest interest ? many beautiful maps of the Bamum Kingdom with place names and geographic features identified in the indigenous Bamum script.
The above documents are all endangered. The documents in the one-room Bamum Palace Archives, for the most part, suffer less from the ravages of environmental destruction than those in private collections, but the environmental damage is still immense. Another threat to documents is theft and sale, fuelled by the international trade in Bamum art and antiquities.
The goal of this project, then, is to transfer the most significant privately owned Bamum script document collections to a rehabilitated Bamum Palace Archives. Microfilm or digital copies of collections ? those in both private hands and in the Bamum Palace Archives ? will be deposited in the library archives of the University of Dschang, which is the nearest university, to be made freely accessible for researchers in Cameroon. The outcome will be saving for future generations the most significant pre-industrial and non-western holding of indigenous script manuscripts in all of sub-Saharan Africa.
In the early twentieth century the Bagam people of Cameroon employed a pre-modern alphabet for record-keeping, correspondence, and for farming calendars. Today not a single document exists in Cameroon in the Bagam script, the alphabet having disappeared without a trace. The only known example of the Bagam script is held in the Haddon Library of Cambridge University, deposited by a British military officer who served in Cameroon in the First World War. Immediate action is necessary if Bamum is not to suffer a similar fate.
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Somalis had a written "indigenous" script called Cismaaniya, which was a very popular in '50s and '60s. However for a practical reason it wasn't chosen, and the competition was either Arabic-based script or Latin. Latin won eventually.
In Cismaaniya or (Osmaniya} standing "Somali writing."
The man who devised up the script writing his name in Osmaniya script (Cismaan Yuusuf Keenadiid).
Looking from afar, it looks similar to Amhara's or Tigrey's scripts.
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For those interested, there is a book that has been written on African scripts. See below:
'Afrikan Alphabets: The Story of Writing in Afrika' by Safi Mafundikwa
Synopsis:
African alphabets have a rich cultural and artistic history. Sadly, their story is little known both within and outside of Africa. The beautifully designed and illustrated book 'Afrikan Alphabets: The Story of Writing in Afrika' sets the record straight in a way that is easily accessible to everyone. Written by Saki Mafundikwa, graphic designer and founder of Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts (ZIVA), the book documents the rich alphabets and visual symbols of Africa and reveals the continent's valuable contributions to the history of visual communication.
For the last twenty years, Saki Mafundikwa periodically researched and travelled across the African continent and Diaspora to present an exceptional account of the alphabets history and usage, including entertaining anecdotes and a wealth of highly graphical and attractive illustrations. Among the alphabets that are analyzed and illustrated are scripts such as Mende, Vai, Nsibidi, Bamum, Tifinagh; and the Somali and Ethiopian scripts. Other alphabets, syllabaries, paintings, pictographs, ideographs, and symbols are also compared and contrasted.
Few people realize that African societies were writing before the arrival of Europeans, in fact at the time Europeans 'discovered' the Vai script of Liberia in the early 19th century, literacy was more widespread among the Vai people than in certain parts of America and Britain. This reality is completely at odds with the popular 'Dark Continent' theory.
Mr. Mafundikwa explains, "The hope is that Africa is seen in a different light, that the prejudices of the past are finally laid to rest in the trash can of history." He adds, "The story of writing in Africa illustrates humanity s desire to create ways of record-keeping and communication. Sadly, most people do not know of Africa s achievements and contributions to history and to humanity. The words 'civilization' and 'writing', to many, are synonymous with 'Westernization'. This informative book will be of interest to anyone fascinated with African culture and art. The author adds, "For most of us Afrikans, history was not necessarily OUR story. My book is an attempt at telling a small part of it."
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This does not prove that "Africa" has indigenous written language. Isn't the hieroglyphs an indigenous African writing system? The only way this find would be significant, as if it "proves" anything, is if you buy into the Eurocentric dichotomy between Sub Saharan/"black Africa" versus Hamitic/Caucasian North Africa (Sforza) where an indigenous African writing system in Sub Saharan Africa would be "proof" that "Africa" has an indigenous written language. We must be careful of the subtle, maybe unintended, messages we send.
Posts: 4165 | From: jamaica | Registered: May 2008
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This is for "those" people. Hence the title. Baby steps for them.
The video I linked includes Egyptian heiroglyphs as African written languages...so there you go.
Posts: 455 | From: Tharsis Montes | Registered: Jan 2009
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posted
Yes. And the Meroitic language which derives from Egyptian. I heard the people of ancient Benin have a chromatographic script. I also heard about the Nsibidi script which dates back to at least 1700 B.C.
Posts: 603 | From: Mobile, Alabama | Registered: Jan 2007
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Though I'm familiar with the bamum script the overwhelming majority of Africans didn't have a written language.
Posts: 2088 | Registered: Feb 2007
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..As did the overwhelming majority of Euros prior to the latin rape of Germanic Europe.
Africa's had way more written languages than Europe.
Written language is almost primarily a state thing and even those that had them had a populace wherein the vast majority were illiterate.
So ... your point is?
Who gives a fuhl-yin rat's ass that the majority of some [for our purposes] arbitrary landmass's people didn't mark things with symbols ... when the same could be said for other areas?
Writing is important in and of itself, as important and innovative as our arts, sciences and tongues (languages) themselves.
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
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