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Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

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Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#91

Post by [deleted] »

seti0Cha wrote: post #43
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…

I have to admit I got discouraged by the implausible narrative and didn't finish reading, so maybe it's addressed, but it seemed very strange to me that this scholar's father, his neighbors, and apparently many others around him, were engaging in writing without him ever noticing. He had "been told that these people were illiterate"...did he not grow up in that community? Why did his brother, who still lives there, n…

[deleted]

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#92

Post by moistly »

coliveira wrote: post #48
nemo44x wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

No “excuse” is needed to bring science to the rest of the world. If you beg to differ, please explain how we would be better served by unscientific approaches to problem-solving.

IMO democracy is the least-worst political system, so no “excuse” is needed there, either.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#94

Post by anthk »

coliveira wrote: post #48
nemo44x wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

Democracy and Science are both good things.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#95

Post by anthk »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #67
shmageggy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The people colonizing those lands certainly cared at the time, and they used such beliefs to justify a lot of pretty awful acts. Given that the modern, western world is built on the legacy of colonialism, it's important (at least to me) to understand whether those motivating beliefs w…

Taking over land, goods and people is a very human thing to do, not localized to europe. There were nations (tribes, kingdoms, whatever) trying to occupy europe too, both from the south and east... and let's not forget the many many internal european wars and conquests. Looking globally, europeans were really that much more advanced (in science, warfare, medicine, logistics,...) than the areas they managed to occupy.…

Rome assimilated tribes and peoples into its own, and the Western world tried to imitate Rome's imperialism, as Spain did 500 years ago.

The rest of the Europeans living up in the North tried to do worse, not to assimilate the enemy culturally to build a bigger Empire, but to truly genocide it.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#97

Post by Cyph0n »

apteroti wrote: post #87
Cyph0n wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Islamic evangelists were also actively burning books and scrolls all over their newly invaded territory because all books were apparently useless except one book! Can you share a source for this claim?

Here's the reference, from the book itself: Nahl, 89: And We have sent down to you the Book as clarification for all things and as guidance and mercy and good tidings for the Muslims. And here they went, they set fire on Big libraries of Egypt and Iran, thousands of years of knowledge went to drain simply becasue the book has knowledge about everything!

I was asking for historical sources, but since you are once again making claims you can’t back up, I’m done here.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#98

Post by aatd86 »

seti0Cha wrote: post #46
aatd86 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it is not also an excuse to not undo the wrongs that often persist with such multi-generational catastrophic human problems. If I knew that everything I have is built on genocide, I would feel pretty wrong. Those who do not are probably a bit strange imho.

> If I knew that everything I have is built on genocide, I would feel pretty wrong. Well, isn't it? Human history is a bloody affair from the first days of farming to today. History is a long series of wrongs. How shall we undo them?

So I assume that you don't think there are persisting systemic inequalities due to such things as slavery?

When a country such as France helps installing the son of a former dictator at the helm of a country in 2022 (which leads to more than 200 people massacred, even on the premises of the US embassy since the regime is lawless) , I think there is a deep unaddressed issue, for instance.

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#99

Post by aatd86 »

jl6 wrote: post #85
seti0Cha wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which wrongs do you think we have yet to recognize? Maybe I'm being naive, but it seems to me that we (by which I mean modern American and European society) have taken a pretty thorough inventory in the last few decades, at least of our own failings.

It’s not enough to recognize wrongs. The aim is to extract a confession that will hold up in court, so your possessions can be redistributed fairly.

Yup and to be more precise it's not even necessarily redistribution of possessions but fairness of opportunity.

Possessions are depreciating assets. Even more when people don't know how to use them.

That won't be a solution but more of a bandaid over the long term if the goal is to reach fairness (equality).

Re: Unearthing a long-ignored African writing system

#100

Post by jccalhoun »

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…

Searching google books for Ajami and Wolfofal brings up a few things from the 20th century but it is hard to tell if they are referring to the writing or it is a name or google's OCR. Most of the hits for Wolfofal writing seems to be from the 21st century https://www.google.com/search?q=Wolofal+writing&sxsrf=ALiCzs...
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