I do believe I have been convinced that Ajami, certainly needs to receive some scholarly research! But, alas, I also feel that most all documents of any historical value, might well be dust by now?
As in many other things, some are only missed when no one can find any of them!
Perhaps such repositories do exist, here and there?
I certainly hope so!
As redclay wrote;
"Half of the Church based Libraries [Monostaries etc.] in Europe seemingly, have texts written in Ajami. Most have been ignored for centuries."
I may well state right now, that I have never heard of such, but since red has seen things in his travels that most learned historians have never even heard of, then I shall have to take his words as "fact!"
(So many questions, so few answers!)
I have seen only a few. I'm not versed in any of the scripts from that area so I was unable to translate. The examples I viewed were in surprisingly good condition, very readable, a little time darkened as they were on animal skin, but in decent shape overall.
Compared with what's in Ethiopia, Europe is just a small sampling. I have not been fortunate enough to be able to travel there. Opuslola doesn't have to take my word for that one either.
But the collections in Ethiopia are the ones that I consider to be most endangered. The history channel had one of the Hunt for the Grail shows on recently. They showed monks on an Island somewhere in Ethiopia who had parchments dating as far back as 2nd mille. BCE. They were handling them with their bare hands and passing them around like it was yesterdays NY Times. Some of them were so badly darkened they would have to be read with special equipment.
These Documents were kept in a cave under a church. The Narrator described the number he had seen as being "Unimaginable." There are apparently a mix of Ajami, Arabic, Aramaic, hebrew, and early Coptic documents kept there.
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.
I do believe I have been convinced that Ajami, certainly needs to receive some scholarly research! But, alas, I also feel that most all documents of any historical value, might well be dust by now?
As in many other things, some are only missed when no one can find any of them!
Perhaps such repositories do exist, here and there?
I certainly hope so!
As redclay wrote;
"Half of the Church based Libraries [Monostaries etc.] in Europe seemingly, have texts written in Ajami. Most have been ignored for centuries."
I may well state right now, that I have never heard of such, but since red has seen things in his travels that most learned historians have never even heard of, then I shall have to take his words as "fact!"
Half of the Church based Libraries [Monostaries etc.] in Europe seemingly, have texts written in Ajami. Most have been ignored for centuries. The Ethiopian Christian church has repositories all over the country that may contain some of the oldest writings in the world. Many in Ajami.
In French colonial archives from Africa, Ngom says, Ajami documents remain classified as “unreadable Arabic” - based on the mistaken notion that writing in African languages simply did not exist. Some of this misclassification may have even been intentional.
May have been? The idea that no African culture had a writing system came from the Racist Europeans who had to rationalize their colonial presence in another country. Racism, unfortunately, is still with us. As is demonstrated by some of the older posts in this thread.
Edited by red clay - 20-Jul-2010 at 09:51
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.
the ajami script is true.while there were other scripts in africa.this became the most widespread script for african languages.
anyone could type in google the ajami script and see for themselves.you could type in google african scripts and see and read about what scripts africa has now and in the past.it's easy. just do the work,or pick up book.
anyway
quote from above-
But they aren’t the only writings that were produced
in Africa. Starting at least in the 10th century, African holy men who
had converted to Islam and learned Arabic began to modify Arabic writing
to enable them to spread the religion more easily. The resulting Ajami
script - the name comes from the Arabic word for stranger - helped make
Islam accessible to shepherds and other commoners who could not
understand Arabic. In Koranic schools that espoused Africanized versions
of the religion, Ajami displaced Arabic, to the displeasure of
traditionalists.
The script became widespread across the
continent’s north-central waist, the so-called Sudanic belt, and was
adapted for uses far outside Islamic education. Traders would record
business transactions in Ajami, while other people would write secular
poems or compile medical encyclopedias of indigenous treatments. It was
used to write about a dozen languages, including the Wolof spoken by
Ngom’s father, in what today are nearly 20 countries. Though most of its
uses were unofficial, some sultans corresponded with provincial
administrators in the script, Ngom says, meaning that government records
may exist in Ajami. By now, it has been used continuously for more than
1,000 years.
But officially speaking, it has also been widely
ignored. Uncounted Ajami manuscripts squirreled away across the
continent have gone untranslated, even unseen, by scholars. Even in
African countries where it is still used, the script lacks government
recognition. In French colonial archives from Africa, Ngom
says, Ajami documents remain classified as “unreadable Arabic” - based
on the mistaken notion that writing in African languages simply did not
exist. Some of this misclassification may have even been intentional.
So, just why was Arabic at one time used all over Russia?
Why did the Ismamics attack Contantinople from Adrianople?
Adrain(ople) merely means the New City of Adrian! Or do you have a better answer? Constaintin(ople), merely means the New City of the Constant, etc.! Ie, Neopolis, is the same as "nople!", or "New People", etc.?
Of course, according to some of my sources Adrian is but a variation of Arian, etc.! Could this really be the real "Arian" conspiracy?
You might well note that I did out of hand dismiss it! Rather, I said that I wished it was true!
Persians, Pakistanis, Turks, Azeris and many other central asians have all used or use variations of Arabic script modifed to their own languages. Why not Africans?
As a side note, Bosnian converts to Islam also experimented with a modifed Arabic script, but the script never entered into wide spread use.
there were west african kingsoms that became important in ancient times,but not has much has they were later. in the middle ages west african did had the sail,depending on the kingdom. second the mande script goes back further then you think.
here is new info. the mande script goes back to over 1000 years.there were few of them.one was wriitten in mandink the one came later.
anyway here is the recent info.
Subject: the lost script
The lost script By Kenneth J.
Cooper January
10, 2010
It’s a writing system called Ajami, it’s a thousand
years old, and a Boston University professor thinks it could help
unlock the story of a continent
One day while he was living
near Seattle, the Senegal-born linguistics professor Fallou Ngom forgot
to
close a window before a rainstorm passed through, and the next morning
discovered the wind had blown some of his papers to the floor. On one of
them, a sheet several years old, his late father had recorded a debt.
Ngom’s
father was considered illiterate
because he couldn’t read and write in the country’s official language,
French. But like many Senegalese had for centuries, he wrote daily
information in his native tongue using a modified form of Arabic script
known as Ajami. Ngom was struck by the irony: Here
was his “illiterate” father communicating with him years after his
death, in writing.
Ngom realized that this was more than just
a touching personal moment. It also represented an immense opportunity.
Ajami script had been widely used across Africa for day-to-day writing
in a dozen languages, and Ngom knew those writings had been largely
overlooked in the official story of the continent - in part because so
few historians could read them. How many other documents like this
existed across the continent? How many had simply been missed, or
ignored?
Within a year, Ngom shifted his research from French
linguistics, his specialty at Western Washington University, to the
handwritten script of his father. Today Ngom is director of the African
Languages Program at Boston University, and is training the first
generation of American scholars capable of reading Ajami.
What
Ngom hopes is nothing less than to lay the groundwork
for a reinterpretation of much of African history, using this
widespread but little understood writing system to unearth new
information about the daily life of Africans, the spread of Islam, the
continent’s literary traditions, the Atlantic slave trade, and who knows
what else.
Could one writing system have that much
influence? Not all scholars of Africa agree that the impact of Ajami
studies
will be so continental. Some say that since the script was used
primarily to record everyday, local concerns such as business deals and
cultural practices, it is unlikely to be the source of significant new
revelations.
But for Ngom, what little is known about Ajami texts
is reason enough to push deeper. To study Ajami, as he sees it, is to
open the door to a different side of Africa, unlocking an oral tradition
widely assumed to have vanished with its speakers, and offering an
important corrective to the way Africa’s story has
been told.
“What Ajami tells us about Africa is yet to be
known,” Ngom says.
The study of Africa’s history, particularly
the region below the Sahara Desert, has traditionally reflected not only
the biases of its historians, but also the limits of the written
sources available to them. Official African documents tend to be in the
languages of the outsiders who held power - either the Arab invaders who
began arriving on the continent in the seventh century, or the
Europeans who colonized it starting about a millennium later. These
outsiders were there to convert the locals, trade them as slaves, and
mine their natural resources, and colonial writings helped justify those
commercial and religious interests, portraying sub-Sahara Africa as
lacking literacy, history, and civilization.Continued...
The
African-American assertion of black pride in the 1960s brought new
attention to African achievements in art, technology, and
governance, with student protests forcing some revision of college
history curriculums. But the assumptions behind the principal sources of
African history have continued to shape scholarship, as well as broader
perceptions of the continent. The documents preserved in African
archives, for the most part, are still the ones written by its
colonizers.
But they aren’t the only writings that were produced
in Africa. Starting at least in the 10th century, African holy men who
had converted to Islam and learned Arabic began to modify Arabic writing
to enable them to spread the religion more easily. The resulting Ajami
script - the name comes from the Arabic word for stranger - helped make
Islam accessible to shepherds and other commoners who could not
understand Arabic. In Koranic schools that espoused Africanized versions
of the religion, Ajami displaced Arabic, to the displeasure of
traditionalists.
The script became widespread across the
continent’s north-central waist, the so-called Sudanic belt, and was
adapted for uses far outside Islamic education. Traders would record
business transactions in Ajami, while other people would write secular
poems or compile medical encyclopedias of indigenous treatments. It was
used to write about a dozen languages, including the Wolof spoken by
Ngom’s father, in what today are nearly 20 countries. Though most of its
uses were unofficial, some sultans corresponded with provincial
administrators in the script, Ngom says, meaning that government records
may exist in Ajami. By now, it has been used continuously for more than
1,000 years.
But officially speaking, it has also been widely
ignored. Uncounted Ajami manuscripts squirreled away across the
continent have gone untranslated, even unseen, by scholars. Even in
African countries where it is still used, the script lacks government
recognition. In French colonial archives from Africa, Ngom
says, Ajami documents remain classified as “unreadable Arabic” - based
on the mistaken notion that writing in African languages simply did not
exist. Some of this misclassification may have even been intentional.
“One
of the reasons the documents have not been available has to do with
colonial politics and the suspicion in which these documents were held,
because the colonizers couldn’t read them,” says Jennifer Yanco, US
director of the West African Research Association, based at BU. “During
the colonial era, a lot of people hid their libraries.”
So the
documents were buried, Yanco says, or concealed in false adobe walls.
She says African scholars have discovered many, and recognized them as
Ajami, in Nigeria, Ghana, and Mali. Many are religious, she says, but
not all: Some of the documents are lineages, travelogues, and records of
events.
Ngom says he knows of no African universities that teach
Ajami to students.
“It’s just a colonial tradition. There are only a few countries where
African languages are taught,” he says; and when they are taught, it is
done in Latin script. John Hutchinson, Ngom’s predecessor as director of
the African Languages Program, cites just one other university anywhere
with an Ajami program: the School of Oriental and African Studies, part
of the University of London, which teaches Hausa Ajami.
Still,
Ajami is starting to make headway in some corners of academia. Some
African scholars who, like Ngom, learned Ajami on their own, have been
translating and publishing Ajami texts, according to Yanco and Bruce S.
Hall, a history professor at Duke University who focuses on Mali. Those
Africans outnumber the handful of professors at American universities
doing similar work. For the last five years, Ngom has been plodding away
at his research on Ajami literature in Senegal.
The BU program,
several specialists say, offers
more instruction in Ajami than any other traditional institution of
higher education. Under his leadership since 2008, the African Languages
Program has been a pioneer in offering instruction in both Ajami and
Latin scripts. This year, about 30 BU students are learning Wolof,
Hausa, or Pular. Most are graduate students in other departments - such
as anthropology, history, or health - who will undergo five years of
language training, supported primarily by grants from the US Department
of Education. In the future, the program plans to teach Swahili and
Amharic, the language of Ethiopia, in Ajami.
What nobody
knows yet is what kind of information might be out there. Ngom’s hopes
are high. He says he has already found an information-rich genealogy
written in Ajami that goes back to the 12th century, and that other
Ajami texts include Islamic edicts, business records, eulogies, letters
from rulers, legal documents, and poems. From more recent
times, he says, “You also have political satires, criticisms of
colonial governments and traditional leaders.” Content of that last sort
drove Ajami underground.
“I haven’t read one-tenth of
one-thousandth of what’s out there,” Ngom says. “We’ve got a long way to
go, but it’s exciting.”
Others are less optimistic about
Ajami’s potential to change the study of the continent. “Ajami may well
have been set aside for the mundane tasks of life,” says James McCann, a
BU historian who specializes in Ethiopia. He says the writings probably
focus on “the texture and movement and rhythms of local life,” such as
marriages, debts, business transactions, and social issues.
Hall
of Duke University says the Ajami documents are vastly outnumbered by
standard Arabic texts authored in Africa by Africans which are, with
philanthropic help, slowly being cataloged, preserved, and translated in
Timbuktu. The many
thousands of ancient documents found in the onetime center of higher
learning in Mali include some in Ajami.
“How much is there to
learn about history, per se? I don’t know,” Hall says. “I don’t think
they’re going to provide chronicles of events. I don’t think they’re
going to provide diaries of particular individuals, or military or
political histories.”
But Hall suggests that Ajami texts can
at least reveal much about the script’s original purpose - to spread
Islam. “There’s a lot there to learn, I think,” he says. “We don’t have a
great sense of how these ideas were diffused and how Islam spread among
nonelites.”
Ngom, who is Muslim, argues that the script was
far more than a tool of religious conversion, also providing a important
way for Africans to record their culture and the details of their lives
safely out of view of Arab Muslims and European colonists. “The average
village Joe”
writing in Ajami, he says, would have felt free to cover topics left
out of African texts in standard Arabic because they were blasphemous
under traditional Islam, such as indigenous use of amulets to ward off
dangerous spirits. “Ajami does contain things from Arabic literature,
but the reverse is not true,” he says.
In talking about Ajami’s
potential to change our picture of Africa, Ngom makes a comparison to
how the Western estimation of Arab society, at first considered backward
and barbarous, went up once the outsiders learned to read Arabic and
could grasp the Arab contributions to mathematics, science, geography,
and literature.
Language can loom large in the interpretation
of history of a place and a people, even as it can carry personal
messages, like alerting a son to paying his late father’s debt. One by
one, Ngom says, those kinds of communications accumulate into a larger
story, and perhaps one never before
heard.
“From Senegal to Tanzania, if you want to know how
people think, how people heal, how they farm - their way of life,” he
says, “you have to read their own literature.”
The term
Ajami (Arabic: عجمي), or Ajamiyya (Arabic: عجمية), which comes from
the Arabic root for "foreign" or "stranger," has been applied to
Arabic-based orthographies used for writing African languages or Old
Yorba.
Since African languages involve phonetic sounds
and systems different from the Arabic language, there have often been
modifications of the Arabic script to transcribe them -- a process not
unlike what has been done with the Arabic script in non-Arabic
speaking countries of the Middle East, and with the Latin alphabet in
Africa or with the Vietnamese alphabet.
The West
African Hausa is an example of a language written using Ajami,
especially during the pre-colonial period when Qur'anic schools taught
Muslim children Arabic, and by extension, Ajami. When Western colonizers
adopted a Latin orthography for Hausa, Ajami went into decline, and
today is employed less frequently than the Latin standard orthography.
However, Hausa Ajami is still in widespread use, especially in Islamic
circles.
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