Afrikan alphabets have a long history and 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. Saki Mafundikwa explores writing systems across the Afrikan continent: among others, the scripts of the West African Mende, Vai, Nsibidi, Bamum and the Somali and Ethiopian scripts. Other alphabets, writing styles, paintings, pictographs, ideographs, and symbols are illustrated and compared. 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.
By Safi Mafundikwa
Texts in English
Softcover book
8 × 8"
192 pages
Published by Mark Batty Publishers
ISBN: 978-0-9772827-6-0
An entertaining and anecdotal text explains the wealth of highly graphical and attractive illustrations. Saki Mafundikwa explores writing systems across the Afrikan continent: among others, the scripts of the West African Mende, Vai, Nsibidi, Bamum and the Somali and Ethiopian scripts. Other alphabets, writing styles, paintings, pictographs, ideographs, and symbols are illustrated and compared. 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.
By Safi Mafundikwa
Texts in English
Softcover book
8 × 8"
192 pages
Published by Mark Batty Publishers
ISBN: 978-0-9772827-6-0