Despite the fact that the most ancient writing of the world arose on the territory of Africa - Egyptian writing (from 4 thousand BC to the 4th century AD), most of the languages of Africa for a long time remained unwritten.
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Ancient World
In the II-I millennium BC. e. several more types of writing appear in northern Africa :
- Protosinai writing - circa XX — XV centuries BC e., presumably a consonant letter that became the ancestor of Proto-Canaanite , Phoenician, Ugaritic and a number of other scripts.
- Phoenician letter - from the 9th century BC e. for the Phoenician language in the colonies along the Mediterranean coast, consonant ; Towards the end of the millennium it developed into a new-punicic letter , used before ser. 1 thousand n e .;
- Ethiopian writing - from the 4th century BC e. for the Geez language, based on South Semitic ; first consonant, from the 4th century n e. - syllable ; used to this day for several languages of Ethiopia ;
- Libyan writing - known from the II century. BC e., perhaps developed on the basis of the Phoenician; typhinagum, which arose on its basis, is still used for the Berber languages of Morocco , Algeria and Libya ;
- Meroite letter - from the 2nd century in Meroe , south of Egypt , an alphabet based on Egyptian characters; for the Meroite language before the 4th century n e .;
- Coptic writing - from the 3rd century for the Coptic language , the Greek alphabet; used to this day for liturgical books. A variant of the Coptic letter - the Nubian letter - was used for religious texts in the extinct now ancient Nubian language of the hypothetical Nilo-Saharan family .
Middle Ages
In the next millennium, Arabic writing (from the 7th century) became widespread in northern Africa, first only for Arabic , then for other languages: Berber (from the 12th century), languages of West and East Africa (the so-called “ ajam ” ) In the VIII-XI centuries. in Nubia (south of Egypt ) for the Nubian language , the Old Nubian alphabet that arose on the basis of the Coptic was used .
New time
After this, only in the 19th century did new attempts to create writing appear, already under the influence of Arab and European culture (and often in contrast to the latter). They (were) concentrated in several areas of West Africa .
Several such writing systems have gained some distribution:
- NCO (since 1949 for the Mandin languages in Guinea and Mali ),
- bass (from the 1900s to the present),
- Wai (from the 1820s to the present),
- kpelle (in the 1930s - 1940s),
- scrap (in the 1930s - 1940s) in Liberia ,
- Kikakui (1921-1940s) in Sierra Leone ,
- Bamum (in 1896-1950) in Cameroon .
Everything except alphabetic nko and bass is syllable.
Two alphabets were used for specially created languages in the local semi-Christian communities of Nigeria :
- oberi okayme (1930s, in the range of ibibio-efik )
- Yoruba (since 1928).
A few more alphabets remained the property of their authors and sometimes close people:
- allolof for the languages of Wolof ( Senegal , 1960-1974),
- Bethe (1956, Côte d'Ivoire ),
- two systems for the Fula language (1950-60s, Mali ).
Little is known about the other three systems:
- the Bahamas (egap, 1910s, Cameroon ),
- goals (1960s, Liberia )
- guro ( Cote d'Ivoire ).
In the 1920s the Ottoman alphabet for the Somali language was also created, by the 1970s. supplanted by Latin script .
The use of Greek writing in Africa has always been limited to the Greek language, as was originally the case with Latin (during the Roman Empire ). From the 18th century Latin writing begins to apply to local languages.
Thus, at the beginning of the XXI century. in Africa, in addition to Latin and Arabic letters, Ethiopian , typhinagus , NCO , Wai , Bass and very limited Coptic continue to be used.