Unearthed Ajami script dispels colonial myth
Futurity,
Jan 20, 2023
This is a great story for a variety of reasons, though I think it's weird to talk of a Boston University researcher having "discovered" Ajami, a modified Arabic script. This announcement would come as a surprise to the people of west Africa using it today (including his own father and a business associate). What's more interesting (and important) is that this community was deemed "illiterate" because they did not read and write French or English. "He found this modified Arabic script everywhere. Shopkeepers kept records with it and poets wrote sprawling verses in it. Ngom discovered religious texts, medical diagnoses, advertisements, love poems, business records, contracts, and writings on astrology, ethics, morality, history, and geography, all from people who were considered illiterate by the official governmental standards of their countries."
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