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Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

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Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#21

Post by nemo44x »

idoubtit wrote: post #12

The story is great, but there are many inconsistencies. I believe it was decorated to the point the facts were bent to follow the story. After reading the article, I thought that reasearchers learned about the existence of Ajami just recently, far after the colonial powers were gone. That's not true. In 1970, a museum was created in Tombouctou for collecting the documents in Arabic and Ajami. https://en.wikipedia.org…

Historic revisionism has become very popular so as to make everyone feel better about their ancestors place in the annals of history. That everyone was at the same level and made the same amount of contributions to the modern world, etc. And of course it was the singularly evil colonizers and their descendants that stole this history and claimed it for themselves, etc.

To me it’s weird because it’s so unimportant. Who cares which groups of who were advanced or not and what they were doing back then. Anyone who feels better or worse about themselves because of this is weird.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#22

Post by coldtea »

lukeschlather wrote: post #14
coldtea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't any enormous discovery. The particular academic in the article might have learned this thing existed from his father scribbles, but it has been a thing for centuries and has been studied in the past. They could have just learn about it by studing the literature. It's more about getting more publicity for it, and getting the library and digitization program mentioned in the article going. That should have be…

It seems to me like a significant discovery for the researcher. And it seems like he discovered something that is being deliberately hidden. I'm also curious about what "preoccupations" you're referring to. People are preoccupied with alleviating illiteracy in Africa, it's interesting that these illiteracy figures may be inflated, and it makes me wonder what groups are trying to make Africa look more illiterate than…

>It seems to me like a significant discovery for the researcher.

A researcher not being aware of something openly used for centuries and already covered in relevant studies, research literature, symposiums (and even popular articles) well before they learn about it, does not quality them made aware of it as being a "discovery".

That's not how the term "discovery" works in an academic context, and certainly it's not what discovery as implied in the article means.

>People are preoccupied with alleviating illiteracy in Africa, it's interesting that these illiteracy figures may be inflated, and it makes me wonder what groups are trying to make Africa look more illiterate than it is, and why

The use of Ajami (which doesn't affect the kind of illiteracy people are concerned about, or even is widespread enough to be used as a substitute for it), and wouldn't much affect that concern (which is about people being able to participate in the official languages and writing systems of their country, and beyond that, for people going to school in general, beyond reading and writing).

>It seems at least in part some of the people classified as illiterate like it that way, since the government can't monitor your communications if it refuses to acknowledge they exist.

It's a system that has been used for half a millenium. It's not like it keeps any communication unreadable or even more difficult to read from the government (another incorrect information in the article).

The government just doesn't bother with it in any official capacity, precisely because it's not official. The same way some patois dialects are not part of many place's publicized literature, are not taught in school, are not used in official documents, and so on. Aside from that, anybody who knows the target language and is familiar with the arabic alphabet, can easily read it - which is exactly why it was used by "illiterate" people (meaning illiterate in the official, colonial or otherwise, languages and writing systems of their country).

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#23

Post by [deleted] »

lukeschlather wrote: post #16
idoubtit wrote: post #12

The story is great, but there are many inconsistencies. I believe it was decorated to the point the facts were bent to follow the story. After reading the article, I thought that reasearchers learned about the existence of Ajami just recently, far after the colonial powers were gone. That's not true. In 1970, a museum was created in Tombouctou for collecting the documents in Arabic and Ajami. https://en.wikipedia.org…

> But Arabic was well-known, and nobody would have tagged "illiterate" on someone that could write Arabic texts. The article asserts that there are still considerable groups of people carrying on commerce in Ajami, and that the official governments in those regions don't recognize Ajami as existing as a script. Are you saying this is a lie, and that people who read and write Ajami are largely considered literate by t…

[deleted]

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#24

Post by samus »

VeninVidiaVicii wrote: post #2

In this adaptation of Arabic script, it seems like the harakat (vowel markers) are obligatory, and much larger than standard Arabic. I always wondered why the pre-reform Turkish language forfeited vowel identifiers. It works for Arabic, but many other languages need vowels for disambiguation.

The Arabic script has vowel letters, but they are used for long vowels only when writing the Arabic language. However, it is not strictly necessary to use the Arabic script that way. Several other languages use it like an alphabet and employ the vowel letters as such.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#25

Post by parasti »

nemo44x wrote: post #21
idoubtit wrote: post #12

The story is great, but there are many inconsistencies. I believe it was decorated to the point the facts were bent to follow the story. After reading the article, I thought that reasearchers learned about the existence of Ajami just recently, far after the colonial powers were gone. That's not true. In 1970, a museum was created in Tombouctou for collecting the documents in Arabic and Ajami. https://en.wikipedia.org…

Historic revisionism has become very popular so as to make everyone feel better about their ancestors place in the annals of history. That everyone was at the same level and made the same amount of contributions to the modern world, etc. And of course it was the singularly evil colonizers and their descendants that stole this history and claimed it for themselves, etc. To me it’s weird because it’s so unimportant. Wh…

Is it weird or is it just human nature?

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#26

Post by samus »

rpastuszak wrote: post #5
VeninVidiaVicii wrote: post #2

In this adaptation of Arabic script, it seems like the harakat (vowel markers) are obligatory, and much larger than standard Arabic. I always wondered why the pre-reform Turkish language forfeited vowel identifiers. It works for Arabic, but many other languages need vowels for disambiguation.

Interesting, reminds me of Sorani (Kurdish), with a script similar to Perso-Arabic , where only some, short vowels are represented using markers. This means that you end up with less connected characters which makes it visually stand out compared to say, Persian, Arabic or Urdu. examples: - Sorani: سوور sûr for red, که ر kar for donkey (note the double و and ه in the middle of the word), and - Persian: سور sur (an ol…

I have observed that being exposed to learning to read the English alphabet as the first Latin Alphabet leads to bad habits when learning to read other Latin-based scripts later on. Even if English is not the mother tongue of the speaker. Dunno if that is the case for French as well, as it also uses the Latin alphabet in a peculiar way.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#27

Post by 082349872349872 »

etothepii wrote: post #19
BurningFrog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the same way you tell written French from German today.

Surely the lack of a ß gives it away.

Going solely on lack of a ß would characterise swiss german as french.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#28

Post by [deleted] »

idoubtit wrote: post #12

The story is great, but there are many inconsistencies. I believe it was decorated to the point the facts were bent to follow the story. After reading the article, I thought that reasearchers learned about the existence of Ajami just recently, far after the colonial powers were gone. That's not true. In 1970, a museum was created in Tombouctou for collecting the documents in Arabic and Ajami. https://en.wikipedia.org…

[deleted]

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#29

Post by icegreentea2 »

nemo44x wrote: post #21
idoubtit wrote: post #12

The story is great, but there are many inconsistencies. I believe it was decorated to the point the facts were bent to follow the story. After reading the article, I thought that reasearchers learned about the existence of Ajami just recently, far after the colonial powers were gone. That's not true. In 1970, a museum was created in Tombouctou for collecting the documents in Arabic and Ajami. https://en.wikipedia.org…

Historic revisionism has become very popular so as to make everyone feel better about their ancestors place in the annals of history. That everyone was at the same level and made the same amount of contributions to the modern world, etc. And of course it was the singularly evil colonizers and their descendants that stole this history and claimed it for themselves, etc. To me it’s weird because it’s so unimportant. Wh…

Reminder that historical revisionism is fundamentally just about revisiting and challenging common assumptions and doctrine. It's not accurate to ascribe a common socio-political goal to all people practicing revisionism.

It is accurate to say that there are groups who revise history to achieve the purposes you describe.

It would perhaps also be accurate to say that revisionists who propose histories that are more socio-politically palatable would be more generally successful.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#30

Post by schnable »

I don't understand how such a widespread writing system (as asserted in the article) could have been overlooked by the colonial rulers, let alone by anyone until 2004. I'm not saying it's not true, but if it is, the explanation is surely more layered that what can be explained simply by asserting colonialism/Euro-centrism, even if that is the root reason. It would be fascinating, and I'd like to hear it!
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