Meikal Mumin and Kees Versteegh (Eds), The Arabic Script in Africa. Studies in the Use of a Writing System (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 71), Leiden, Brill, 2014, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol 78, no 3 October 2015, pp. 669-671. (original) (raw)
Related papers
(2018). A Mosaic of Scripts: Arabic Script in Africa from a Comparative Perspective
Review article Quaderni di Studi Arabi - Published by: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino, 2018
Taught from primary school to the university level – where new courses on the globalization of the Arabic writing system have cropped up (Abdallah 2014) – the Arabic script, with all its orthographic peculiarities and multiple facets, continues to shape languages other than Arabic, their communities and specific textual traditions. However, comparative research on the Arabic script as used to write langauges other than Arabic, as well as broader topics such as digraphia and allography, are still rather scarce. This holds particularly true for Africa. One interesting exception is the book The Arabic Script in Africa. The first part of this article is dedicated to situating this book within the wider context of studies on digraphia, allography and specific local adaptations of the Arabic writing systems, while also pointing out the necessity for further research; the second part discusses the case studies presented in this book and their implications.
Arabic script in the linguistic policy of West African States
Since their independence in the sixties, West African countries have elaborated a series of linguistic policies in order to raise the literacy rate that was then very low. Less than a quarter of the total population was considered to be literate in Western terms. The situation has but slightly changed. Exclusive enforced literacy in official languages, the former colonisers’ languages, was a failure. Mass literacy campaigning Roman script for vernacular languages were also ineffective In the nineteen eighties a series of symposia took place in some West African capitals with the collaboration of UNESCO and ISESCO. The aim was to investigate and promote Arabic script as a medium for adult literacy. The attempts to standardize Arabic script for African languages, through the modernization of traditional Koranic schools, were not also successful. They were also carried out in a non- participative, non-integrative manner. I this article, I argue that, by deepen structural and pedagogical reforms of the Traditional Koranic schools, the use of Arabic script might become a powerful and less costly means to achieve literacy in some interior areas of Western Africa.
West African Scripts and Arabic-Script Orthographies in Socio-Political Context
Versteegh, K. and Mumin, M. (eds), The Arabic Script in Africa (Paper first presented at The Arabic Script in Africa: Diffusion, Usage, Diversity and Dynamics of a Writing System, University of Cologne, Germany, 6-7 Apr 2010; New York: Brill) 261-89., 2014
A stretch of the Sahel between the Mossi and Jula in the west and the Sango and Maba in the east is home to the highest concentration of distinct linguistic communities in Africa, dominated however by three major regional languages-Hausa, Fulfulde and Chadian Arabic. 1 These three languages share geography, having overlapping spheres of influence; but they differ in genetics, coming as they do from three different linguistic families (Chadic, Niger-Congo and Semitic respectively). They share certain features of distribution, all having a high proportion of second-language to first-language speakers (Hausa 18:25 million centred in Nigeria, Fulfulde 2:2 million in Cameroon, Chadian Arabic 2:1 million centred in Chad), 2 and national status, being spoken by large proportions of their host countries' populations (Hausa 25% in Nigeria and 80% in Niger, Fulfulde 20% in Cameroon and 8 % in Nigeria, Chadian Arabic 50% in Chad), but they differ greatly in demographics from the massive Hausa urban centres to the Mbororo or 'cattle Fulani' and Shuwa Arab nomads. They share strong historic, cultural and linguistic associations with Islam, but have distinctive histories of engagement with the internal (Sufi/Sunni) and external (Westernization/Arabization) dynamics of this association. Most importantly for this paper, and closely related to all the above other factors, they have in common strong centuries-old traditions of Arabic-script writing which have gradually given way since the early 20th century to Roman-script traditions promoted by Western educational systems and Christian missionaries (so much so, in fact, that in Nigeria and Cameroon today, official literacy statistics relate only to Roman-script literacy, completely disregarding competence with Arabic script), but they each have distinctive sociolinguistic and technical challenges in the 21st century. 1 ISO language codes [hau]; [fuv], [fub] etc. (Fulfulde is considered for our purposes here as one language); and [shu]. 2 Figures are approximations. Second-language speakers' varieties may be deprecated (e.g. 'Middle-belt Hausa' , 'Bongor Arabic').
2023
The international conference Arabic in Africa: Historical and Sociolinguistic perspectives brings together scholars interested in the study of Arabic in Africa. The Arabic language in Africa represents at one and the same time remarkable similarities in terms of language structure and socio-cultural status as well as well-profiled contrasts. Both of these coincide only partially with contemporary political, economic and geographic demarcations, such as have become established in MENA or Maghreb studies. “Arabic in Africa” considers Arabic from different approaches, perspectives and disciplinary frameworks and in quite different sociolinguistic situations. Parameters include demographic weight (e.g. “national nonstandard standard” or very local small variety), institutional status (e.g. official language, national language, minority with no state support) and historical provenance. We welcome contributions that approach Arabic in Africa from historical, descriptive and sociolinguistic perspectives. Topics include but are not limited to: • Basic descriptive and theoretical linguistic perspectives on Arabic in Africa. • Variation, prestige, unbalanced power in Arabic varieties in Africa • Language contact involving Arabic, Arabic-based pidgins and creoles in Africa • Arabic as L2, Arabic as lingua franca in Africa • Arabic in Africa - Arabic in the Middle East: comparative historical and sociolinguistic perspectives • Language politics and policies involving Arabic in Africa • Ajami script, Arabic script in non-Arabic-speaking areas in Africa • Arabic and Islam in Africa During the coffee breaks there will be poster sessions where the conference participants will be able to interact with the presenters and discuss their research. The conference will close with a roundtable discussion where distinguished scholars will synthesize the various ideas and research directions which have been presented and propose the state of the art on Arabic in Africa according to their own perspective. We are honored to count among our invited Raporteurs Prof. Jeffrey Heath (University of Michigan), Prof. Catherine Miller (CNRS, IREMAM), Prof. Fiona Mc Laughlin (University of Florida) and Prof. Stephan Prochazka (University of Vienna) and to have Prof. Jonathan Owens (University of Bayreuth) chairing the discussion. The conference is funded by the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence and the Chair of Arabic Studies of the University of Bayreuth.
USING ARABIC SCRIPT IN WRITING AFRICAN LANGUAGES
25 years ago, Acting upon UNESCO’s pioneering experience of using Arabic script in transcribing African languages, ISESCO took upon itself to carry on this project, initiated in early eighties by the Senegalese Director General of the latter organisation Amadou-Mahtar M’bow with the intention of conducting forcefully literacy programmes in native African languages and rehabilitating related oral traditions and cultures. At the time, the project in question looked extremely complex and very intricate given the number of local languages in presence as well as both social and political hurdles strewn in its way. In the implementation of this ambitious cultural and educational undertaking, ISESCO set forth a number of objectives given here below: 1- To refine the Arabic script, develop it phonetically and technically and adapt it to writing the various languages of Africa in an accurate scientific way; 2- Safeguard the cultural heritage of the African peoples and develop their languages and cultures with the view to keeping pace with the scientific and technological revolution and developments in communication and telecommunications; 3- Secure mutual linkage among the languages of the African peoples by means of adopting a common Standard Arabic Script, being a bond connecting them with the language of the Qur’an and further securing communication and exchange between the speakers of these languages; and 4- The development of an acceptable and simple script for the local languages that were, hitherto, unwritten in order to use these languages in literacy programmes. To implement efficiently this programme, ISESCO adopted a scientific methodology based on the following approach: 1- Determine the frequency of the distinctive features of non-Arabic sounds in the African languages in question in order to design machines for printing these non-Arabic languages in Arabic script; 2- Check the characters adopted on the basis of a scientifically accurate analysis of symbols, and original sound forms of languages, and examine them on various levels with a view of finding the distinctive sound features of the languages in question; 3- Set up acceptable writing symbols in the light of historical, pedagogical, linguistic and aesthetic factors; and 4- Renew the distinctive sound features and the transcription symbols (characters) of special glottal stops. The standardisation of the Arabic script, to allow its use in the transcription of target African languages was not an easy task to undertake, it took seven years of hard labour and several workshops and seminars all over the African continent with the active participation of linguists, educators, literacy experts and officials before agreeing on a set of symbols that became the official Arab-African Alphabet (AAA).