Ingenuity and elegance in ancient African alphabets

[Troy]

Ted Talks Video:

 

 

From simple alphabets to secret symbolic languages, graphic designer Saki Mafundikwa celebrates the many forms of written communication across the continent of Africa. He highlights the history and legacy that are embodied in written words and symbols, and urges African designers to draw on these graphic forms for fresh inspiration. It's summed up in his favorite Ghanaian glyph, Sankofa, which means "return and get it" -- or "learn from the past."

 

The Book

 

Afrikan Alphabets: The Story of Writing in Afrika Hardcover
by Saki Mafundikwa

 

 

A used version of this book is $450

Afrikan alphabets have a rich cultural and artistic history. Many continue to be in current use today. Their story, however, is little known due largely to their past suppression by colonial powers. This book sets the record straight. Both entertaining and anecdotal, African Alphabets presents a wealth of highly graphical and attractive illustrations. Writing systems across the Afrikan continent and the Diaspora are included, analyzed and illustrated: the scripts of the West Africans - Mende, Vai, Nsibidi, Bamum and the Somali, and Ethiopian scripts. Other alphabets, syllabaries, paintings, pictographs, ideographs, and symbols are compared and contrasted. This informative and beautiful book will be of interest to anyone fascinated with African cultural and art.

 

The Author

Saki Mafundikwa is a graphic designer, typographer and teacher. He holds an MFA from Yale University and has worked and taught in New York City. Returning to Zimbabwe, he founded the country's first graphic design and new media college, the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts. The college opened in 1999 and continues to operate under extremely difficult conditions as the country goes through its most challenging era since independence.

 

[Pioneer1]

This is vey interesting...
I was talking to a man years ago who told me that there were Black people in Arabia who had inhabited that land for generations before the current Arabs occupied it.
He told me they had their own language and writing system in which Arabic is similar and that these people were driven down into Africa.

For years I've heard that Africans had their own writing systems and letters.

Like so many things, it's hard to believe unless you actually see it.




Not to change the subject of the thread but........

If I had the money to do it, I'd support the brother and his efforts in Zimbabwe
If only to help bring these discoveries further into the public light.
You look at so many established universities like Yale, Harvard, Oxford, ect....
Not only do they get public funding but they get a lot of donations from weatlhy sponsors.

I don't believe Black people support eachother enough in academia.

[Troy]

Pioneer, I would go as far as to say that Black people don't support each other in much of anything that really matters.

 

I have no data to support this, just my own experience and observations.

 

But if you look at the our HBCU's you'd quickly see why I have this opinion.

 

We won't even support an independent bookstore for Christ's sake.

 

I do believe that we HAVE to continue to explain to people why it is so important for Black people to support other Black people -- especially those who relate our history and our stories. 

 

Interestingly, many people, even very professionals ones, don't really appreciate why it is important, unless you break it down. 

 

At the end of the day, supporting Blacks in academia, or anywhere else requires sacrifice.  Sacrifice is hard, but where we are headed will be much harder...

[Pioneer1]

Most of our people don't know the value of sacrifice or investment because they involve "delayed gratification", something most AfroAmericans have a problem with
The results are often too far removed from the initial action.

If they don't see the immediate need or immediate benefit of a particular behavior, they don't see the purpose of it period.

This comes from living in dangerous neighborhoods where you don't know if you'll live long enough to enjoy the fruits of your investment or see the results of what you've sacrificed for.

[Delano]

If you live in a war zone you are not likely to delay gratification.

[Pioneer1]

Coming from a decent workingclass environment with 2 good parents, I used to be VERY judgemental of people who couldn't seem to stay out of jail or stay off drugs.
But the older I got and the more I realized what some people had to live with and around on a daily basis, it's a wonder so many survive and maintain their sanity....let alone learn virtues like sacrifice and discipline.

I remember me and my brother would sometimes spend time with our relatives in other parts of Detroit.  Everyone would be outside and you'd hear automatic gunfire and instinct said to duck and run inside but people would laugh and chill like nothing was happening and some even knew WHO was doing the shooting based on how the gun sounded!!

 

Maybe you or Troy should do a book about coming up in and surviving NYC during the 70s and early 80s where shit had to be BUCKWILD...lol.

Those are the times where both Heroin AND Crack hit the community hard.