The writing systems of Africa are the current and historical

writing systems A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independe ...

used on the African continent, both those which are indigenous and those which were introduced. In many African societies,

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

was traditionally recorded orally despite most societies having developed a writing script, leading to them being termed ''"oral cultures"'' in contrast to ''"literate cultures"''. However, this generalization misses the significant pre-modern use of written languages in various African cultures and the widespread modern adoption of written language on the continent. Today, the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

is commonly encountered across much of Africa, especially in the regions of Western Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. The

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

is mainly used in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

. Among the indigenous writing systems, the Ge'ez script is widely used in the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

, and the

Tifinagh Tifinagh ( Tuareg Berber language: ; Neo-Tifinagh: ; Berber Latin alphabet: ; ) is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifi ...

script is used in many parts of the

Sahel The Sahel region (; ), or Sahelian acacia savanna, is a Biogeography, biogeographical region in Africa. It is the Ecotone, transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel has a ...

region. Variations of the Arabic-derived

Ajami script Ajami (, ) or Ajamiyya (, ), which comes from the Arabic root for 'foreign' or 'stranger', is an Arabic script, Arabic-derived script used for writing Languages of Africa, African languages, particularly Songhai languages, Songhai, Mandé languages ...

are also notably used in various regions of Subsaharan Africa. There are also several widely used constructed writing systems in wide use today in West Africa, with the most frequently used being the

Vai syllabary The Vai syllabary is a syllabic writing system devised for the Vai language by Momolu Duwalu Bukele of Jondu, in what is now Grand Cape Mount County, Liberia. Bukele is regarded within the Vai community, as well as by most scholars, as the s ...

and the

N'Ko script NKo (ߒߞߏ), also spelled N'Ko, is an alphabetic script devised by Solomana Kante, Solomana Kanté in 1949, as a modern writing system for the Manding languages of West Africa. The term ''NKo'', which means ''I say'' in all Manding languages, i ...

. There are also various notable indigenous African writing systems which are no longer in common use today, the most famous being

Egyptian hieroglyphs Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined Ideogram, ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct char ...

. A significant number of less common writing systems are also of significant local, regional, or historical importance, many of which are described below. While historic writing systems from

are among the oldest in the world, native writing systems and scripts are less common in the cultures of Subsaharan Africa. However, this is not to say that there are not indigenous pre-modern writing systems in the region; the

script has been used by the

Tuareg people The Tuareg people (; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; Endonym and exonym, endonym, depending on Tuareg languages#Subclassification, variety: ''Imuhaɣ'', ''Imušaɣ'', ''Imašeɣăn'' or ''Imajeɣăn'') are a large Berbers, Berber ethnic group, ...

since antiquity, as has the

Geʽez script Geʽez ( ; , ) is a script used as an abugida (alphasyllabary) for several Afroasiatic languages, Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages, Nilo-Saharan languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It originated as an abjad (consonantal alphabet) and was ...

and its derivatives in the

. Other groups have encountered the Latin and Arabic scripts for centuries, but rarely adopted them in a widespread manner until the 19th century as they simply did not find them necessary for their own societies ( Ajamiyya writing being a notable exception).

Indigenous writing systems

Ancient African orthographies

Ancient Egyptian

Perhaps the most famous African writing system is ancient

. These developed later into forms known as

Hieratic Hieratic (; ) is the name given to a cursive writing system used for Ancient Egyptian and the principal script used to write that language from its development in the third millennium BCE until the rise of Demotic in the mid-first millennium BCE ...

Demotic Demotic may refer to: * Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language * Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language * Chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used t ...

and, through Phoenician and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, Coptic. The

Coptic language Coptic () is a dormant language, dormant Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language. It is a group of closely related Egyptian dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Ancient Egyptian language, Egyptian language, and histori ...

is still used today as the

liturgical language A sacred language, liturgical language or holy language is a language that is cultivated and used primarily for religious reasons (like church service) by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives. Some religions, or part ...

in the

Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria The Coptic Orthodox Church (), also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apo ...

and the Coptic Catholic Church of Alexandria. As mentioned above, the Bohairic dialect of Coptic is used currently in the

Coptic Orthodox Church The Coptic Orthodox Church (), also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apo ...

. Other dialects include Sahidic, Akhmimic, Lycopolitan,

Fayyumic Coptic () is a dormant Afroasiatic language. It is a group of closely related Egyptian dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third century AD in Ro ...

, and

Oxyrhynchite Coptic () is a dormant language, dormant Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language. It is a group of closely related Egyptian dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Ancient Egyptian language, Egyptian language, and histori ...

Ancient Meroitic

The Meroitic language and its writing system was used in

Meroë Meroë (; also spelled ''Meroe''; Meroitic: ; and ; ) was an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site is ...

and the wider

Kingdom of Kush The Kingdom of Kush (; Egyptian language, Egyptian: 𓎡𓄿𓈙𓈉 ''kꜣš'', Akkadian language, Assyrian: ''Kûsi'', in LXX Χους or Αἰθιοπία; ''Ecōš''; ''Kūš''), also known as the Kushite Empire, or simply Kush, was an an ...

(in modern day

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

) during the Meroitic period. It was used from 300 BCE to 400 CE. Moroccan stop sign in Arabic and Berber

Tifinagh

The

alphabet is still actively used to varying degrees in trade and modernized forms for writing of

Berber languages The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berbers, Berber communities, ...

(Tamazight, Tamashek, etc.) of the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

, and

regions (Savage 2008). Neo-Tifinagh is encoded in the

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

range U+2D30 to U+2D7F, starting from version 4.1.0. There are 55 defined characters, but there are more characters being used than those defined. In ISO 15924, the code Tfng is assigned to Neo-Tifinagh.

Ge'ez

The

is an

abugida An abugida (; from Geʽez: , )sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabetis a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit ...

that was created in

in the 8th-9th century BC for writing the Geʽez language. The script is used today in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

and

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

for

Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...

, Tigrinya, and several other languages. It is sometimes called ''Ethiopic'', and is known in Eritrea and Ethiopia as the ''fidel'' or ''abugida''. Geʽez or Ethiopic has been computerized and assigned

3.0 codepoints between U+1200 and U+137F (decimal 4608–4991), containing the basic syllable signs for

Geʽez Geez ( or ; , and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea. Today, Geez is used as the main liturgical langu ...

, and Tigrinya, punctuation and numerals.

Nsibidi

Nsibidi Nsibidi (also known as Nsibiri, Nchibiddi or Nchibiddy) is a system of symbols or proto-writing developed by the Ekpe secret society that traversed the southeastern part of Nigeria. They are classified as pictograms, though there have been sugges ...

(also known as "nsibiri", "nchibiddi", and "nchibiddy") is a system of symbols indigenous to what is now southeastern Nigeria that is apparently an

ideographic An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek 'idea' + 'to write') is a symbol that is used within a given writing system to represent an idea or concept in a given language. (Ideograms are contrasted with phonograms, which indicate sounds of speech ...

script, though there have been suggestions that it includes

logographic In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chinese c ...

elements. The symbols are at least several centuries old: early forms appeared on excavated pottery as well as what are most likely ceramic stools and headrests from the

Calabar Calabar (also referred to as Callabar, Calabari, Calbari, Cali and Kalabar) is the capital city of Cross River State, Nigeria. It was originally named Akwa Akpa, in the Efik language, as the Efik people dominate this area. The city is adjac ...

region, with a range of dates from 400 (and possibly earlier, 2000 BC) to 1400 CE.

Adinkra

Adinkra is a set of symbols developed by the Akan, used to represent concepts and aphorisms. Oral tradition attributes the origin of adinkra to Gyaman in modern-day

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

and

Côte d'Ivoire Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest city and ...

. According to

Kwame Anthony Appiah Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah ( ; born 8 May 1954) is an English-American philosopher and writer who has written about political philosophy, ethics, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah is Prof ...

, they were one of the means for "supporting the transmission of a complex and nuanced body of practice and belief".

Adinkra iconography has been adapted into several segmental scripts, including * The Adinkra Alphabet, invented by Charles Korankye in 2015, and expanded and refined over the next several years to accommodate various languages spoken in Ghana and Ivory Coast such as Akan,

Dagbani Dagbani (or Dagbane), also known as Dagbanli or Dagbanle, is a Gur language spoken in Ghana and Northern Togo. Its native speakers are estimated around 1,170,000. Dagbani is the most widely spoken language in northern Ghana, specifically among ...

, Ewe and Ga- a process that culminated with the creation of a standardized font in 2020. * '' Adinkra Nkyea'', a writing system based on the Adinkra symbols.. Some Ghanaians use the Adinkra Nkyea writing system for the Akan Language and its dialects. A Majority of Adinkra Nkyea is derived from the original Adinkra Symbols. Adinkra Nkyea contains some 39 characters, ten numerals, and three punctuation marks. Karaktars

Lusona

Lusona is a system of ideograms that functioned as mnemonic devices to record proverbs, fables, games, riddles and animals, and to transmit knowledge. They originate in what is now eastern

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

, northwestern

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

and adjacent areas of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

Modern orthographies

East Africa

* The Luo script was developed to write

Dholuo The Dholuo dialect () or ''Nilotic Kavirondo'', is a dialect of the Luo group of Nilotic languages, spoken by about 4.2 million Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania, who occupy parts of the eastern shore of Nam Lolwe (Lake Victoria) and areas to the ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

in 2009.

* Somalia: Writing systems developed in the twentieth century for transcribing Somali include the

Osmanya Osmanya (, ), known in Somali as ''Far Soomaali'' (, "Somali writing") and in Arabic as ''al-kitābah al-ʿuthmānīyah'' (; "Osman writing"), is an alphabetic script created to transcribe the Somali language. It was invented by Osman Yusuf Ke ...

Gadabuursi The Gadabuursi (Somali language, Somali: ''Gadabuursi'', Arabic language, Arabic: جادابورسي), also known as ''Samaroon'' (Arabic language, Arabic: ''قبيلة سَمَرُون)'', is a northern Somali clan, a sub-division of the Dir ...

(or Borama), and Kaddare alphabets, which were invented by

Osman Yusuf Kenadid Osman Yusuf Kenadid (; ; 1889 – 14 August 1972) was a Somalis, Somali poet, writer, teacher and ruler. Born in Ceel Huur in 1889, he went on to create the Osmanya alphabet for writing Somali language, Somali. He died on 31 August 1972 in Mogad ...

, Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur and

Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare (, ; 2 March 1934 – 1 February 2015) was a Somali people, Somali inventor, linguist, and researcher in Somali traditions and folklore. Kaddare contributed his linguistic expertise in Somalia's Ministry of information ...

, respectively. The Osmanya script is today available in the Unicode range 10480-104AF rom U+10480 - U+104AF (66688–66735) * An alphasyllabic

script Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

for Oromo in Ethiopia was invented in the late 1950s by Sheikh Bakri Sapalo (1895-1980), and saw limited use.Hayward and Hassan
"The Oromo Orthography of Shaykh Bakri Saṗalō", ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies''
44 (1981), p. 551 * An alphabetic script called Nilerian has been invented by Aleu Majok for

Dinka The Dinka people () are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Mangalla-Bor to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile (two out of three provinces that were formerly part of southern ...

and other languages of South Sudan.

Southern Africa

* In

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

, the Mwangwego alphabet is used to write Malawian languages. * IsiBheqe SoHlamvu (Bheqe Syllabary), also known as ''

Ditema tsa Dinoko Ditema tsa Dinoko (), also known as isiBheqe soHlamvu (), and sometimes known as Xiyinhlanharhu xa Mipfawulo or Xifungho xa Manungu in Tsonga language, xiTsonga and Luṱhofunḓeraru lwa Mibvumo or Vhuga ha Madungo in Venda language, tshiVen� ...

'', is a

featural In a featural writing system, the shapes of the symbols (such as letters) are not arbitrary but encode distinctive feature, phonological features of the phonemes that they represent. The term featural was introduced by Geoffrey Sampson to descr ...

syllabary used to write

Southern Bantu languages The Southern Bantu or siNtu languages are a large group of Bantu languages, largely validated in Janson (1991/92).Tore Janson (1991-92) "Southern Bantu and Makua", ''Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika'' (''SUGIA'') Vol. 12/13: 63-106, Rüdiger Köp ...

Central Africa

* The

Bamum script The Bamum scripts are an evolutionary series of six scripts created for the Bamum language by Ibrahim Njoya, King of Bamum (now western Cameroon). They are notable for evolving from a pictographic system to a semi-syllabary in the space of f ...

was developed largely by Sultan Ibrahim Njoya of the

Kingdom of Bamum The Kingdom of Bamoun (also spelled Bamoum, Bamun, Bamoun, or Mum) was a state in central Africa, part of what is now northwest Cameroon. It was founded by the Bamum people, Bamun, an ethnic group from northeast Cameroon. Its capital was the ancie ...

Northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west— ...

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

. It is a

semi-syllabary A semi-syllabary is a writing system that behaves partly as an alphabet and partly as a syllabary. The main group of semi-syllabic writing are the Paleohispanic scripts of ancient Spain, a group of semi-syllabaries that transform redundant plosi ...

writing system that utilizes the Bamum language. It is rarely used today, but a fair amount of material written in this script still exists. * The Eghap script was used by the Bagam ( Tuchscherer 1999, Rovenchak 2009) of Cameroon * The Mandombe script was invented by Wabeladio Payi in 1978 in what is now

Kongo Central Kongo Central (), formerly Bas-Congo, is one of the 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its capital is Matadi. History At the time of independence, the area now encompassing Kongo Central was part of the greater province of ...

province,

. It is promoted by the

Kimbanguist Church Kimbanguism () is a Christianity, para-Christian new religious movement professed by the African initiated church Jesus Christ's Church on Earth by his special envoy Simon Kimbangu (, EJCSK) founded by Simon Kimbangu in the Belgian Congo (today ...

and used for writing Kikongo,

Lingala Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser de ...

, Tshiluba, Swahili, and other languages. * Zaghawa (Beria) of

Darfur Darfur ( ; ) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju () while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë , and it was renamed Dartunjur () when the Tunjur ruled the area. ...

and

Chad Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North Africa, North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to Chad–Libya border, the north, Sudan to Chad–Sudan border, the east, the Central Afric ...

, developed by Siddick Adam Issa from an earlier proposal by schoolteacher Adam Tajir based on traditional livestock brands.

West Africa

There are various other writing systems native to

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

and

Central Africa Central Africa (French language, French: ''Afrique centrale''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''África central''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''África Central'') is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries accordin ...

. In the last two centuries, a large variety of writing systems have been created in Africa (Dalby 1967, 1968, 1969). Some are still in use today, while others have been largely displaced by non-African writing such as the

and the

. Below are non-Latin and non-Arabic-based writing systems used to write various languages of Africa: * The Adlam alphabet developed for writing the

Fula language Fula ( ),Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani ( ) or Fulah (, , ; Adlam script, Adlam: , , ; Ajami script, Ajami: , , ), is a Senegambian languages, Senegambian language spoken by arou ...

, taught mostly in

Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

but has also been spread in neighboring countries like

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

and

Gambia The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...

. * The Ba script, named for its creator Adama Ba, used to write Fula. * Bassa alphabet of

Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...

* Bété syllabary of

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest List of ci ...

* Dita, used to write Fula. * The

Garay alphabet The Garay alphabet was designed in 1961, as a transcription system " arryingAfrican sociolinguistic characteristics" according to its inventor, Assane Faye. This alphabet has 25 consonants and 14 vowels.Wolof and Mandinka in

and

The Gambia The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...

* Gbékoun script for Fon and other

Languages of Benin Benin is a diverse country linguistically. Of those, French language, French is the official language, and most of the indigenous languages, indigenous languages are considered national languages. Benin is a Francophone country, and in 2023, F ...

. * Gola Script for

and eastern

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

. * Goulsse Alphabet for Gur languages * Several scripts used for the Hausa language * Koré Sèbèli, developed in 2009 by sociologist Mohamed Bentoura Bangoura for writing the

Susu language Susu (endonym: ; ) is the language of the Susu or ''Soso'' people of Guinea and Sierra Leone, West Africa. It is in the Mande language family, and its closest relative is Yalunka. It is one of the national languages of Guinea and spoken mainl ...

of Guinea and Sierra Leone. * Kpelle syllabary of

and

* Loma syllabary of

and

* Masaba, a syllabary invented by Woyo Couloubayi (c.1910-1982) in the early 1930s for the

Bambara language Bambara, also known as Bamana (N'Ko script: ) or Bamanankan (N'Ko script: ; Arabic script: ), is a lingua franca and national language of Mali spoken by perhaps 14 million people, natively by 4.2 million Bambara people and about 10 million ...

of Mali. * Medefaidrin of the Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ Church for Ibibio people. * The Mende Ki-ka-ku or KiKaKui

syllabary In the Linguistics, linguistic study of Written language, written languages, a syllabary is a set of grapheme, written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) mora (linguistics), morae which make up words. A symbol in a syllaba ...

, invented by Kisimi Kamara in

in the early 20th century. It is still used. * Ńdébé, developed between 2009-2020 by Nigerian software engineer Lotanna Igwe-Odunze for the

Igbo language Igbo ( , ; Standard Igbo: ''Ásụ̀sụ́ Ìgbò'' ) is the principal native language cluster of the Igbo people, an ethnicity in the Southeastern part of Nigeria. Igbo languages are spoken by a total of 31 million people. The number of Igbo ...

. *

N'Ko NKo (ߒߞߏ), also spelled N'Ko, is an alphabetic script devised by Solomana Kante, Solomana Kanté in 1949, as a modern writing system for the Manding languages of West Africa. The term ''NKo'', which means ''I say'' in all Manding languages, i ...

, invented in 1949 by

Solomana Kante Solomana Kanté (also written as Sùlemáana Kántε, Souleymane Kanté or Sulemaana Kantè; , 1922 – November 23, 1987) was a Guinea, Guinean writer, neographer, and educator, best known as the inventor of the N'Ko alphabet for the Manding lan ...

, primarily for the

Manding languages The Manding languages (sometimes spelt Manden) are a dialect continuum within the Niger–Congo languages, Niger-Congo family spoken in West Africa. Varieties of Manding are generally considered (among native speakers) to be mutually intelligible ...

. It is apparently in increasing use in

, including some efforts to adapt it to other languages (Wyrod 2008). * The Nwagu Aneke syllabary invented in the 1950s for the

of southeastern

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

. * The Oduduwa script of Benin and Nigeria, invented by Tolúlàṣẹ Ògúntósìn in 2016-2017 for the

Yoruba language Yoruba (, ; Yor. ) is a Niger–Congo languages, Niger-Congo language that is spoken in West Africa, primarily in South West (Nigeria), Southwestern and Middle Belt, Central Nigeria, Benin, and parts of Togo. It is spoken by the Yoruba people. ...

* The

invented by Mɔmɔlu Duwalu Bukɛlɛ for the

Vai language The Vai language, also called Vy or Gallinas, is a Mande language spoken by the Vai people, roughly 104,000 in Liberia, and by smaller populations, some 15,500, in Sierra Leone. Writing system Vai is noteworthy for being one of the few African ...

in what is now

during the early 19th century. It is still used today. * Yoruba Holy Writing for the texts of the

Yoruba religion The Yorùbá religion (Yoruba language, Yoruba: Ìṣẹ̀ṣe), West African Orisa (Òrìṣà), or Isese (Ìṣẹ̀ṣe), comprises the traditional religious and spiritual concepts and practice of the Yoruba people. Its homeland is in pres ...

North Africa

( Tuareg Berber language: ⵜⴼⵏⵗ; Neo-Tifinagh: ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ;

Berber Latin alphabet The Berber Latin alphabet () is the version of the Latin alphabet used to write the Berber languages. It was adopted in the 19th century, using a variety of letters. History The Berber languages were originally written using the ancient ''Libyco- ...

: ''Tifinaɣ''; Berber pronunciation: ifinaɣ is a script used to write the

. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient

Libyco-Berber alphabet The Libyco-Berber alphabet is an abjad writing system that was used during the first millennium BC by various Berbers, Berber peoples of North Africa and the Canary Islands, to write ancient varieties of the Berber language like the Numidian lang ...

. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifinagh, is still favored by the Tuareg Berbers of the

desert in southern

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

, northeastern

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

, northern

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

and northern

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. It covers an area of 274,223 km2 (105,87 ...

for use writing the Tuareg Berber language. Neo-Tifinagh is an alphabet developed by Berber Academy to adopt Tuareg Tifinagh for use with Kabyle; it has been since modified for use across North Africa. Tifinagh_alphabet

Introduced and adapted writing systems

Most written scripts, including Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, were based on previous written scripts and the origin of the

history of the alphabet Alphabetic writingwhere letter (alphabet), letters generally correspond to individual sounds in a language (phonemes), as opposed to having symbols for syllables or wordswas likely invented once in human history. The Proto-Sinaitic script emerged ...

is ultimately Egyptian Hieroglyphs, through Proto-Sinaitic or Old Canaanite. Many other indigenous African scripts were similarly developed from previous scripts.

Phoenician/Punic

The

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

ns from what is now Lebanon traded with North Africans and founded cities there, the most famous being

Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...

. The

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions fo ...

is thought to be the origin of many others, including: Arabic, Greek, and Latin. The Carthaginian dialect is called Punic. Today's

is thought by some scholars to be descended from Punic, but this is still under debate. Additionally, the Proto-Sinaitic Wadi el-Hol inscriptions indicate the presence of an extremely early form of the script in central Egypt (near the modern city of Qena) in the early

2nd millennium BC File:2nd millennium BC montage.jpg, 400x400px, From top left clockwise: Hammurabi, Babylonian king, best known for his Code of Hammurabi, code of laws; The gold Mask of Tutankhamun, funerary mask of Tutankhamun has become a symbol of ancient Egypt ...

Greek

The

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...

was adapted in Egypt to the

Coptic alphabet The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language, the most recent development of Egyptian. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the uncial Greek alphabet, augmented by letters borrowed from the Egyptian Demotic. It was ...

(with the addition of 7 letters derived from ancient

) in order to write the

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

(which is today only a liturgical language of the Coptic Church). An uncial variant of the

was used from the 8th to the 15th century for writing Old Nubian, an ancient variety of the Nubian language.

Arabic

The

was introduced into Africa by the spread of

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

and by trade. Apart from its obvious use for the

Arabic language Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, it has been adapted for a number of other languages over the centuries. The

is still used in some of these cases, but not in others. It was often necessary to modify the script to accommodate sounds not represented in the script as used for the Arabic language. The adapted form of the script is also called Ajami, especially in the

, and sometimes by specific names for individual languages, such as Wolofal, Sorabe, and

Wadaad's writing ''Wadaad's'' writing, also known as ''Wadaad's'' Arabic (), is either a mixture of Arabic and Somali in writing, or the non-standardized adaption of the Arabic script to write the Somali language. Originally, it referred to a non-grammatical Arabi ...

. Despite the existence of a widely known and well-established script in Ethiopia and Eritrea there are a few cases where Muslims in Ethiopia and Eritrea have used the Arabic script, instead, for reasons of religious identity. There are no official standard forms or orthographies, though local usage follows traditional practice for the area or language. There was an effort by

ISESCO The Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO, formerly ISESCO) is a specialized organization that operates under the aegis of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and is concerned with fields of education ...

to standardize Ajami usage. Some critics believe this relied too much on

Perso-Arabic script The Persian alphabet (), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left script, right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is a variation of the Arabic script with four additional letters: (the sounds 'g', 'zh', ' ...

forms and not enough on existing use in Africa. In any event, the effect of that standardization effort has been limited.

Latin

Though the

Latin Script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

was used to write Latin throughout

Roman Africa Roman Africa or Roman North Africa is the culture of Roman Africans that developed from 146 BC, when the Roman Republic defeated Carthage and the Punic Wars ended, with subsequent institution of Roman Empire, Roman Imperial government, through th ...

and a handful of Latin-script inscriptions in the

Punic language The Punic language, also called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite languages, Canaanite language of the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages. An ...

(more commonly written in the Phoenician script, as noted above) also survive, the first systematic attempts to adapt it to African languages were probably those of

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...

on the eve of European colonization (Pasch 2008). These, however, were isolated, done by people without linguistic training, and sometimes resulted in competing systems for the same or similar languages. One of the challenges in adapting the Latin script to many African languages was the use in those tongues of sounds unfamiliar to Europeans and thus without writing convention they could resort to. Various use was made of letter combinations, modifications, and diacritics to represent such sounds. Some resulting orthographies, such as the Yoruba writing system established by the late 19th century, have remained largely intact. In many cases, the colonial regimes had little interest in the writing of African languages, but in others they did. In the case of Hausa in

Northern Nigeria Northern Nigeria (or Arewa, Arewancin Nijeriya) was an autonomous division within Nigeria, distinctly different from the southern part of the country, with independent customs, foreign relations and security structures. In 1962, it acquired t ...

, for instance, the colonial government was directly involved in determining the written forms for the language. Since the colonial period, there have been efforts to propose and promulgate standardized or at least harmonized approaches to using the Latin script for African languages. Examples include the

Lepsius Standard Alphabet The Standard Alphabet is a Latin-script alphabet developed by Karl Richard Lepsius. Lepsius initially used it to transcribe Egyptian hieroglyphs in his ''Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien'' and extended it to write African languages, publish ...

(mid-19th century) and the

Africa Alphabet The Africa Alphabet (also International African Alphabet or IAI alphabet) is a set of letters designed as the basis for Latin alphabets for the languages of Africa. It was initially developed in 1928 by the International Institute of African Lan ...

of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures (1928, 1930). Following independence there has been continued attention to the transcription of African languages. In the 1960s and 1970s,

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

facilitated several "expert meetings" on the subject, including a seminal meeting in Bamako in 1966, and one in Niamey in 1978. The latter produced the

African Reference Alphabet The African Reference Alphabet is a largely defunct continent-wide guideline for the creation of Latin alphabets for African languages. Two variants of the initial proposal (one in English and a second in French) were made at a 1978 UNESCO-organi ...

. Various country-level standardizations have also been made or proposed, such as the

Pan-Nigerian alphabet The Pan-Nigerian alphabet is a set of 33 Latin letters standardised by the National Language Centre of Nigeria in the 1980s. It is intended to be sufficient to write all the languages of Nigeria without using digraphs. History Several hundred ...

. A

for northern

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

includes extended Latin characters and two Greek letters. Such discussions continue, especially on more local scales regarding cross-border languages.

Hebrew

There has been a Jewish presence in North Africa for millennia, with communities speaking a variety of different

languages Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...

. Though some of these are written with the Arabic script (as is the case with Judeo-Tunisian Arabic) or with Ge'ez (as with Kayla and Qwara), many- including Haketia and several forms of

Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic (; ; ) sometimes referred as Sharh, are a group of different ethnolects within the branches of the Arabic language used by jewish communities. Although Jewish use of Arabic, which predates Islam, has been in some ways distinct ...

- have made frequent or exclusive use of the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

Braille

Braille Braille ( , ) is a Tactile alphabet, tactile writing system used by blindness, blind or visually impaired people. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone device ...

, a tactile script widely used by the visually impaired, has been adapted to write several African languages- including those of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and Zambian Braille, Zambia.

Office/computer technology, fonts and standards

Typewriters

There is not much information on the adaptation of typewriters to African language needs (apart from Arabic, and the African languages that do not use any modified Latin letters). There were apparently some typewriters fitted with keys for typing

n languages. There was at least one IBM Selectric typewriter "typeball" developed for some African languages (including Fula language, Fula). Around 1930, the English typewriter was modified by Ayana Birru of Ethiopia to type an incomplete and ligated version of the Amharic alphabet. Typewriters for the Geez script, used in Ethiopia and Eritrea, were mass produced by Olivetti starting in the 1950s. The 1982 proposal for a unicase version of the

made by Michael Mann and David Dalby included a suggested typewriter adaptation.

Early computing and fonts

With early desktop computers it was possible to modify existing 8-bit Latin fonts to accommodate specialized character needs. This was done without any kind of system or standardization, meaning incompatibility of encodings. Similarly, there were diverse efforts (successful, but not standardized) to enable use of Ge'ez alphabet, Ethiopic-Eritrean /Ge'ez on computers. The earliest computer output of the Fidel was developed for a nine-pin dot matrix printer in 1983, by a team that included people from the Bible Society of Ethiopia, churches, and missions. The first item published with this system was a Christian song book, እንዘምር.

Current standards

There was never any ISO 8859 standard for any native African languages. One standard – ISO 6438 for bibliographic purposes – was adopted but apparently little used (curiously, although this was adopted at about the same time as the

, there were some differences between the two, indicating perhaps a lack of communication between efforts to harmonize transcription of African languages and the International Organization for Standardization, ISO standards process).

in principle resolves the issue of incompatible encoding, but other questions such as the handling of diacritics in extended Latin scripts are still being raised. These in turn relate to fundamental decisions regarding orthographies of African languages. A number of contemporary and historic African scripts including Adlam script#Unicode, Adlam, Bamum script#Unicode, Bamum, Bassa Vah alphabet#Unicode, Bassa Vah, Coptic script#Unicode, Coptic, Egyptian hieroglyphs#Encoding and font support, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Garay alphabet#Unicode, Garay, Geʽez script#Unicode, Ge'ez, Medefaidrin#Unicode, Medefaidrin, Mende Kikakui script#Unicode, Mende Ki-ka-ku, Meroitic script#Unicode, Meroitic, N'Ko script#Unicode, N'Ko, Osmanya alphabet#Unicode, Osmanya, Tifinagh#Unicode, Tifinagh, and Vai syllabary#Unicode, Vai are currently included in the Unicode standard, as are individual characters to other ranges of languages used, such as Latin and Arabic. Efforts to encode African scripts, including minority scripts and major historical writing systems like

, are being coordinated by the Script Encoding Initiative.

Notes

References

Sources

* CISSE, Mamadou. 2006. ''Ecrits et écritures en Afrique de l'Ouest''. Sudlangues n°6. http://www.sudlangues.sn/spip.php?article101 * David Dalby, Dalby, David. 1967. A survey of the indigenous scripts of Liberia and Sierra Leone: Vai, Mende, Kpelle, and Bassa. ''African Language Studies'' 8:1-51. * Dalby, David. 1968. The indigenous scripts of West Africa and Surinam: their inspiration and design. ''African Language Studies'' 9:156-197. * Dalby, David. 1969. Further indigenous scripts of West Africa: Manding, Wolof, and Fula alphabets and Yoruba holy-writing. ''African Language Studies'' 10:161-191 * Hayward, Richard J. and Mohammed Hassan. 1981. The Oromo Orthography of Shaykh Bakri Sapalo. ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 44.3:550-556. * * * Mafundikwa, Saki. 2004. ''Afrikan alphabets: the story of writing in Afrika''. West New York, NJ: Mark Batty. * Pasch, Helma. 2008. Competing scripts: the introduction of the Roman alphabet in Africa. ''International Journal for the Sociology of Language'' 191:65-109. * Savage, Andrew. 2008. Writing Tuareg — the three script options. ''International Journal of the Sociology of Language'' 192: 5-14. * Konrad Tuchscherer, Tuchscherer, Konrad. 1999
The lost script of the Bagam. ''African Affairs''
98:55-77. * Unseth, Peter. 2016. The international impact of Sequoyah’s Cherokee syllabary. ''Written Language & Literacy'' 19(1), pp. 75–93. [The impact of Cherokee to Vai and then Vai on others in W. Africa] * Wyrod, Christopher. 2008. A social orthography of identity: the N’ko literacy movement in West Africa. ''International Journal of the Sociology of Language'' 192:27-44.

External links

Scripts of Africa
*
Systèmes alphabétiques des langues africaines
* {{in lang, ru}

Writing systems of Africa,