Afrikan Alphabets: The Story of Writing in Afrika

Afrikan alphabets have a long history, fantastic variety, and some continue to be in current use today. They are comparatively little known due largely to their suppression by colonial powers. This book sets the record straight. An entertaining and anecdotal text explains the wealth of highly graphical and attractive illustrations. Writing systems across the Afrikan continent are reviewed: the scripts of the West Africans - Mende, Vai, Nsibidi, Bamum and the Somali, and Ethiopian scripts are included, analyzed and illustrated. Other alphabets, writing styles, paintings, pictographs, ideographs, and symbols are compared and contrasted. All the writing systems are put into the context of their use as a means to impart and record information and to communicate complex ideas.