The Arabic Script in Africa Studies in the use of a writing system, written by Meikal Mumin & Kees Versteegh

2016 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 308-316
Author(s):  
Abdel Wedoud Ould Cheikh
Keyword(s):  
Writing System ◽  
Arabic Script

West African Manuscripts in Arabic and African Languages and Digital Preservation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fallou Ngom
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Digital Preservation ◽  
West African ◽  
Writing System ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Digital Repositories ◽  
World Regions ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
Other World

West African manuscripts are numerous and varied in forms and contents. There are thousands of them across West Africa. A significant portion of them are documents written in Arabic and Ajami (African languages written in Arabic script). They deal with both religious and nonreligious subjects. The development of these manuscript traditions dates back to the early days of Islam in West Africa, in the 11th century. In addition to these Arabic and Ajami manuscripts, there have been others written in indigenous scripts. These include those in the Vai script invented in Liberia; Tifinagh, the traditional writing system of the Amazigh (Berber) people; and the N’KO script invented in Guinea for Mande languages. While the writings in indigenous scripts are rare less numerous and widespread, they nonetheless constitute an important component of West Africa’s written heritage. Though the efforts devoted to the preservation of West African manuscripts are limited compared to other world regions, interest in preserving them has increased. Some of the initial preservation efforts of West African manuscripts are the collections of colonial officers. Academics later supplemented these collections. These efforts resulted in important print and digital repositories of West African manuscripts in Africa, Europe, and America. Until recently, most of the cataloguing and digital preservation efforts of West African manuscripts have focused on those written in Arabic. However, there has been an increasing interest in West African manuscripts written in Ajami and indigenous scripts. Important West African manuscripts in Arabic, Ajami, and indigenous scripts have now been digitized and preserved, though the bulk remain uncatalogued and unknown beyond the communities of their owners.

An Historical Review of the Arabic Rendering of Swahili Together with Proposals for the Development of a Swahili Writing System in Arabic Script (Based on the Swahili of Mombasa)

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahya Ali Omar ◽  
P. J. L. Frankl
Keyword(s):  
Historical Review ◽  
Writing System ◽  
East African ◽  
East African Coast ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
African Coast

This article provides an historical review of the Arabic rendering of Swahili, while Appendix A (Parts I and II) contains proposals for the development of Arabic script to yield a phonologically adequate writing system for a variety of Swahili spoken on the East African coast – the variety known as kiMvita (central Swahili), and spoken from just north of T’akaungu to Mombasa, and thence as far south as Gasi. Parallel possibilities for the refinement of romanised script are not considered in any detail.It should be stressed that kiMvita, the variety of Swahili here described, is not the standardised language. For a number of reasons, the Swahili speech of Zanzibar town, together with the Swahili spoken by Africans from the interior of the continent but resident in Zanzibar, were the varieties of Swahili with which the pioneering standardises of Swahili were familiar.

Cham Language Literacy in Cambodia: From the Margins Towards the Mainstream

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Pérez-Pereiro ◽  
◽  
Jorge López Cortina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
School System ◽  
Language Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
Literary Heritage ◽  
Modified Forms ◽  
Do So

The Cham language has been written since at least the 4th Century. As such it is the oldest attested language of all of the Austronesian languages. This literary heritage was transmitted using locally modified forms of Indian scripts which were also used to write Sanskrit. With the loss of Cham territories to the Vietnamese, many Cham became displaced and the literary culture was disrupted. In addition, the adoption of Islam by the majority of Cham led many of those who continued to write to do so in variations of the Arabic script. However, the literary potential of the language in Cambodia has not been fully realized in either script – with village scholars using it almost exclusively for religious tracts and for very limited local audiences. In 2011, the United States Embassy initiated a program to encourage the protection of Cham culture and heritage. This Cham Heritage Expansion Program ran from 2011 to 2017 and resulted in the operation of 13 schools in which over 2,500 students of different ages were taught the traditional Cham script. This effort was accompanied by the development of a now significant number of local Cham intellectuals throughout the country who are dedicating themselves to the expansion of the use of Cham as a written language in all aspects of daily life. This presentation documents the way in which interest in this long-neglected writing system was rekindled, and the new avenues for personal and communitarian expression that are being opened by the propagation of Cham literacy. It also presents current developments in the formalization of Cham language education in the country, including the possibilities of bringing the language into the school system.

scholarly journals Urdu in Devanagari: Shifting orthographic practices and Muslim identity in Delhi

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rizwan Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Writing System ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
The Difference

AbstractIn sociolinguistics, Urdu and Hindi are considered to be textbook examples of digraphia—a linguistic situation in which varieties of the same language are written in different scripts. Urdu has traditionally been written in the Arabic script, whereas Hindi is written in Devanagari. Analyzing the recent orthographic practice of writing Urdu in Devanagari, this article challenges the traditional ideology that the choice of script is crucial in differentiating Urdu and Hindi. Based on written data, interviews, and ethnographic observations, I show that Muslims no longer view the Arabic script as a necessary element of Urdu, nor do they see Devanagari as completely antithetical to their identity. I demonstrate that using the strategies of phonetic and orthographic transliteration, Muslims are making Urdu-in-Devanagari different from Hindi, although the difference is much more subtle. My data further shows that the very structure of a writing system is in part socially constituted. (Script-change, Urdu, Urdu-in-Devanagari, Hindi, Arabic script, Devanagari, orthography, transliteration)*

Romanisation of Bengali and Other Indian Scripts

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
DENNIS KURZON
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Indian Languages ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
The Status ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Roman Script

AbstractThis article will discuss two attempts at the romanisation of Indian languages in the twentieth century, one in pre-independence India and the second in Pakistan before the Bangladesh war of 1971. By way of background, an overview of the status of writing in the subcontinent will be presented in the second section, followed by a discussion of various earlier attempts in India to change writing systems, relating mainly to the situation in Bengal, which has one language and one script used by two large religious groups – Muslims and Hindus (in modern-day Bangladesh and West Bengal, respectively). The fourth section will look at the language/script policy of the Indian National Congress in pre-independence days, and attempts to introduce romanisation, especially the work of the Bengali linguist S. K. Chatterji. The penultimate section deals with attempts to change the writing system in East Pakistan, i.e. East Bengal, to (a) the Perso-Arabic script, and (b) the roman script.In all cases, the attempt to romanise any of the Indian scripts failed at the national – official – level, although Indian languages do have a conventional transliteration. Reasons for the failure will be presented, in the final section, in terms of İlker Aytürk's model (see this issue), which proposes factors that may allow – or may not lead to – the implementation of romanisation.

scholarly journals Tendency or Trend? The Direction Towards Modern Latin-Like Arabic Script

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hisham S. Alkadi
Keyword(s):  
Main Trend ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
The Past ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
Latin Script ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Level 2

The past few decades have witnessed an aesthetic trend in the Arabic Writing System and its well-known calligraphic arts, which have exploited features of other writing systems, including Latin and Chinese scripts. Although there are great differences between almost every aspect of the Arabic and Latin scripts, this trend has blended certain characteristics of Arabic script with some features of Latin script. This study examines this trend and its experiments and transitions, from the moment it first emerged until the present day. It investigates the motivations underpinning the trend and analyzes its artistic and linguistic characteristics, in which the researcher visually analyzes all possible details and disassembles both orthographic items and calligraphic features into their basic essential scripts. The findings reveal an aesthetic and linguistic trend that is substantial and significant, based on linguistic, cultural, and sociocultural factors, including increased levels of communication, culturalism, advances in technology, transportation, migration, and globalization. Script tools and features are used to divide the main trend into three sub-trends: 1) Script switching, where scripts are interchanged at word-level; 2) Script fusion, where scripts are altered at letter-level; and 3) Faux fonts, which dissolve certain features of Arabic script to mirror Latin script. All of the techniques used to make Arabic script match Latin script have been shown to be culturally-induced and linguistically informative, rather than merely aesthetic. The findings of this study also indicate that this new phenomenon is likely to be in the early stages, with further developments expected to unfold in future.

Zur Verschriftung mündlich tradierter Sprachen in sozialen Netzwerken: Der Gebrauch des Tarifit auf Facebook

Glottotheory ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naima Tahiri
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
The Other ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
Group Members

AbstractIt isn’t particularly difficult to use one’s own language in computer-mediated communication, when the language has a written culture. However, the situation is different, when the language is only an orally transmitted language and one wants to use it for communication in New Media. There is a lack of unified rules, to which one can orientate oneself. The native speakers of Tarifit, who want to use their language in computer-mediated communication as well (like in Facebook groups), are in such a situation. There are many Facebook groups of Rifian Berbers, but the communication within these groups is usually not only in Tarifit. In groups with cultural topics on the other hand, a dominance of Tarifit can be observed. This includes groups, which have been created specifically for the culturally typical rhyme-songs of the Rif, the so-called “izran”.The analysed corpus of the present study originates from such a group. The initiated standardization processes for Berber in Morocco have not had any impact on the language use in social networks yet. The Berber script Tifinagh, introduced in Morocco’s education system in 2003, has never been used for communication between group members. The Arabic script is rarely used. This behavior can have different reasons, which are discussed below. It can be observed, that the Latin writing system is often chosen for the notation of Tarifit. Instead of using diacritics, the Latin characters are complemented by Arabic numerals when certain sounds have no corresponding graphemes. The choice of the writing system requires a constant assignment of graphemes to the sounds, but the notations are often characterized by the absence of uniform spelling and by neutralisations between phonemes.

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