Africa Had No Written Language
Manuscripts, scripts, and libraries that predate half of Europe’s — quietly left out of the version most people were taught.
A common myth says that Africa had no written language before Europeans arrived, and that history there was only ever passed on by word of mouth. Oral history is a rich tradition across the continent, but writing has a long African history too.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are among the oldest writing systems in the world. To the south, the Kingdom of Kush developed the Meroitic script. In Ethiopia and Eritrea, Ge'ez has been written for well over a thousand years and is still used in church today. In North Africa, the Tifinagh script of the Amazigh (Berber) peoples has ancient roots and is used again today.
In West Africa, the libraries of Timbuktu hold hundreds of thousands of manuscripts on law, astronomy, medicine and mathematics, many in Arabic and some in African languages written in Arabic script, known as Ajami. In southeastern Nigeria, the Nsibidi symbols were used for centuries. In 1830s Liberia, the Vai script was invented by Momolu Duwalu Bukele.
Africa's past was written down, and much of it survives. This episode brings those scripts and libraries back into view.
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