Most people think of Africa as a "land of oral tradition." It’s a common trope. You’ve probably heard it in history documentaries or read it in textbooks. The narrative usually goes something like this: Europeans brought the Latin alphabet, Arabs brought the script for the Quran, and before that, there was just storytelling around a fire.
Honestly? That’s just wrong.
The history of writing systems of Africa is actually incredibly dense, spanning thousands of years and including everything from complex sacred symbols to modern alphabets invented in the last century to resist colonial erasure. Africa isn't just the "cradle of humanity." It’s one of the most prolific cradles of literacy the world has ever seen.
The Egyptian Elephant in the Room
Let's start with the obvious one. We can't talk about writing without talking about the Nile Valley. Egyptian Hieroglyphs weren't just "pictures." They were a sophisticated phonetic and logographic system. By 3000 BCE, while most of the world was still figuring out basic pottery, Egyptians were recording tax records and poetry.
But here’s what’s wild.
Hieroglyphs eventually evolved into Hieratic and then Demotic, which were more "shorthand" versions for everyday use. Then you have the Meroitic script from the Kingdom of Kush (modern-day Sudan). This is where things get frustrating for historians. While we can "read" the sounds of Meroitic because it looks a bit like Egyptian, we still haven't fully translated the language. It’s a literal linguistic puzzle sitting in the middle of the desert.
Then there’s Ge’ez.
If you go to an Ethiopian Orthodox church today, you’ll see Ge’ez. It’s ancient. It developed in the Aksumite Empire around the 4th century CE. Unlike many other Semitic scripts (like Arabic or Hebrew) that only write consonants, Ge’ez is an abugida. This means each character represents a consonant-vowel combo. It’s elegant. It’s functional. And it’s still very much alive in the liturgy and literature of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The Scripts You’ve Never Heard Of
Most people are shocked to learn that West Africa has a massive history of indigenous writing. Take the Nsibidi script from southeast Nigeria.
It’s old. Like, 400 CE old.
Nsibidi isn't an alphabet. It’s a system of symbols used by the Ekpe secret society. Some symbols are "public" (meaning anyone can understand them), while others are "private" and hold deeper esoteric meanings. During the Atlantic slave trade, Nsibidi didn't die. It actually traveled across the ocean. If you look at the veve symbols in Haitian Vodou or the Anaforuana signs in Cuba, you’re looking at the ghost of Nsibidi. It’s a survival story written in ink and chalk.
🔗 Read more: At Home French Manicure: Why Yours Looks Cheap and How to Fix It
Then there is the Vai script from Liberia.
This one is fascinating because we actually know how it started. In the 1830s, a man named Momolu Duwalu Bukele had a dream. He claimed a tall man in a white robe showed him the characters. He woke up and created a syllabary of over 200 signs. Within a few decades, the Vai people were using it for everything—letters, record-keeping, even translating the Bible and Quran.
Europeans who encountered it were baffled. They couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that a "primitive" group had developed a fully functional writing system without their "help."
The N'Ko Revolution
In 1949, a man named Solomana Kanté was in Ivory Coast. He was tired of people saying Africans were "cultureless" because they didn't have their own writing. He was particularly annoyed that many West Africans were using the Latin or Arabic alphabets to write Manding languages, which didn't quite fit the sounds of the speech.
So, he invented N’Ko.
N’Ko means "I say" in Manding languages. It looks a bit like Arabic because it’s written right-to-left and the letters connect, but it’s its own beast entirely. Today, N’Ko is a powerhouse. There are N’Ko newspapers, books, and even a massive digital presence. If you go to a market in Bamako or Conakry, you’ll see it on storefronts. It wasn't just a way to write; it was a way to claim an identity.
Why Don't We Know These?
Colonization did a number on the writing systems of Africa.
When colonial powers moved in, they brought their own schools and their own alphabets. If you wanted a job in the colonial administration, you had to write in French, English, or Portuguese. Indigenous scripts were often labeled as "pagan" or "savage." In many cases, they were suppressed.
The Tifinagh script is a great example. This is the script used by the Amazigh (Berber) people of North Africa. For centuries, it was relegated to rock art and tattoos. It was a "hidden" script. Only in the last few decades has it seen a massive revival. Now, you can see Tifinagh on official government signs in Morocco and Algeria.
It’s a comeback story thousands of years in the making.
💡 You might also like: Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Menu: Why You’re Probably Ordering Wrong
The Modern Explosion: Adlam and Beyond
Writing isn't just a thing of the past. It’s happening right now.
In the late 1980s, two brothers in Guinea, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry, noticed that their language, Fulfulde (Pulaar), was hard to write in Arabic or Latin. They were just teenagers. They spent their evenings in their bedroom inventing a new alphabet.
They called it Adlam.
The name is an acronym for a phrase that translates to "The alphabet that protects the people from disappearing." They started teaching it to people in markets. They hand-copied books. Fast forward to today, and Adlam is supported by Microsoft and Google. It’s on your smartphone. It started in a kid's notebook and ended up as a global digital standard.
Think about that for a second.
Most people think of languages and scripts as these static, ancient things. But in Africa, writing is a living, breathing tool for resistance and modernization.
The Nuance of "Literacy"
We need to be careful with how we define "writing."
Westerners usually look for an alphabet—A, B, C. But many writing systems of Africa function differently. Some are ideographic, where a symbol represents a concept (like the Adinkra symbols of the Akan people). While many people call Adinkra "art," for the Akan, they are a shorthand for complex philosophical ideas. A single "stamp" on a cloth can represent a whole proverb about the nature of God or the importance of ancestors.
Is that writing?
If it communicates a specific, repeatable idea across distance and time, then yes. It is.
📖 Related: 100 Biggest Cities in the US: Why the Map You Know is Wrong
Why This Actually Matters
Why should you care about ancient scripts or obscure alphabets?
Because the way we write determines how we think. When a culture is forced to use another culture's alphabet, things get lost in translation. Tones aren't captured. Cultural nuances are flattened. By reviving or maintaining indigenous writing systems of Africa, these communities are preserving a specific way of seeing the world.
It's about sovereignty.
If you control the script, you control the story.
How to Explore African Scripts Further
If you’re actually interested in seeing these for yourself, you don't have to go to a museum. The digital world is making these scripts more accessible than ever.
- Check your keyboard settings: On most modern smartphones, you can actually add the "Adlam" or "Tifinagh" keyboard. Try typing in them.
- Support the Endangered Alphabets Project: This is a non-profit that does incredible work documenting and preserving scripts like Vai and Nsibidi.
- Look at modern African art: Many contemporary artists, like Victor Ekpuk, use Nsibidi and other traditional scripts in their work to bridge the gap between the past and the present.
- Follow the "Bichri" movement: Or other West African calligraphy movements that are turning N'Ko and Arabic-based Ajami into high art.
The reality is that Africa has never been a "silent" continent. It has been writing its own story for millennia. We just have to learn how to read it.
The next time someone tells you that African history is purely oral, tell them about the dream of Momolu Duwalu Bukele or the teenage bedroom where Adlam was born. Tell them that the pen has been as much a part of the African landscape as the drum.
Start by looking up the work of Dr. Saki Mafundikwa. His book Afrikan Alphabets is the gold standard for this topic. He spent years traveling the continent, documenting scripts that most people had forgotten. It's a visual feast and a reality check for anyone who thinks literacy belongs to the West.
The world of writing systems of Africa is vast, and we’re only just beginning to rediscover it.
Explore the Unicode Standard for African scripts. If you're a developer or a designer, start thinking about how to incorporate these characters into digital spaces. The more these scripts are used in day-to-day digital communication, the less likely they are to disappear. Use them or lose them.