(1/16)Africa never developed writing! What a colonialist lie. Of course its griot-bards and their oral epics are magnificent but it has developed several writing systems too - Africa is rich in both🖤I will list a few of them. The first one is well known, Egyptian Hieroglyphs: 
(2/16)The Meroitic Alphabet(Sudan): This system represents syllables rather than single letters and it was developed for the language of the powerful Kingdom Of Kush when they decided to stop using Egyptian Hieroglyphs for their own language.
(3/16) Vai (Liberia): Invented 200 years ago by Momolu D. Bukele, this brilliant script is considered among the most successful "new alphabets" of Africa. Fascinatingly, he might have been influenced by the Cherokee syllabary brought to Liberia by part-Cherokee black returnees.
(4/16)The Old Nubian Alphabet(Sudan/Egypt) was developed in the Kingdom of Makuria as a Greek and Meroitic influenced script. During the middle ages it coexisted with the Greek, Coptic and Arabic alphabets and languages, proving the impressive knowledge of its users.
(5/16)Adynkra (Ghana/Ivory Coast). Used to convey meaning through proverbs rather than simple words, they were used by Akan royalty and priesthood for messages and important events.Their development slowed with British colonisation but their use as decorations is still widespread
(6/16)Tifinagh Berber Script (Sahara). Many have heard about Sahara people such as the Tuareg, but few know that they developed a 3000+ years old script - found even in an ancient queen's tomb. While hieroglyphics disappeared, this script survived and it's even having a revival.
(7/16)Bamum Script (Cameroon). In the late 1800s King Njoya decided to create an alphabet specific for his language and to spread it from the royal capital of Fumban to all his people. After an initial success, his endeavour was cut short by the colonial imposition of French.
(8/16) Coptic (Egypt/Sudan). Developed after the spread of Greek Classical culture through Asia and Africa, this is basically an Africanised version of the Greek alphabet that was used in Egypt by 200BC. It still survives today as a ritual writing for holy scriptures.
(9/16) Ge'ez (Ethiopia/Eritrea)Like Arabic script it has roots in the Egyptian Sinai peninsula, but it went its own way, and became the main alphabet of Ethiopia's antiquity. It's now used by several of its main languages. Ethiopian black "Beta Israel"Jews use it occasionally too
(10/16) Lusona (Angola/Congo/Zambia): This ancient ideographic script was used mostly as a memory device to remember long stories and facts. The one showed below for instance, helps trace the origins of the universe. It appears on historical cloths as well.
(11/16) Latin & Arab script: although originally not African, it's worth mentioning that these European and Middle-Eastern scripts often got modified and Africanised in many ways such as for this Ashanti(Ghana) 19th century cloth or with the 19th century Yoruba Latin Alphabet.
(12/16) N'ko(Guinea/West Africa): Solomana Kanté developed this language in 1949 as rebuttal to the frequently heard statement that "Africans were culture-less people", little did it know that by now, together with Vai, it's probably the most successful "new alphabet" of Africa.
(13/16) ADlaM (Guinea/West Africa): brothers Abdoulaye & Ibrahima Barry were just 10 and 14 when they decided to come up with a better way than Arabic to write their language, Fulani, in the 80s. With 40 million speakers across the continent, the script's prospects are bright.
(14/16) Nsibidi (Nigeria). This logographic script is unfortunately poorly documented as its knowledge dropped steeply upon contact with colonialism. It's more than half a millennium old and its sacred version was used by the Leopard Masquerade Society(Ekpe) to uphold traditions.
(15/16) Mandombe(Congo): this script is not even half a century old and it has a peculiar history.A Congolese professor created this script after inspiration from a dream in which he met a prophet. It allows to better transcribe some central African languages better than Latin.
(16/16) New African Scripts: several other scripts were developed in the last years such as the Mwangwego(Malawi), Nwagu Aneke(Nigeria), Luo(Kenya), Zaghawa (Chad/Sudan) to name a few. With such a complex and sprawling writing history who knows what will come next! ✍️🏿📜🖤💥
