The Pictograph, the Ideograph and the Syllabary
Saki Mafundikwa, his book, Afrikan Alphabets, rigorously distinguishes among the pictograph, the ideograph and the syllabary. This is a valiant effort to reawaken in a reader like me (held captive in Latin glyphs) that language symbol systems can represent sounds and/or ideas. What is more strange to a westerner is that a single symbol can be broken down into ‘anatomical’ parts—each part with an esoteric meaning beyond the serif. A native Asian reader knows this by heart.
It is clear that Saki Mafundikwa could have bogged himself down with the task of explaining in Latin glyphs concepts not supported by Latin glyphs. To me, when he writes:
The European colonizers claimed Afrikan territory with impunity, and thereby created new historical realities for the colonized. I have taken a cue from them and claimed the word alphabet; so for the title of this book, all writing systems become alphabets—hence Afrikan Alphabets.
he is moving with the Alexandrian speed of a conqueror to quickly complete his task. Without this decision, it is very likely that I would not have this book so I should not condemn while I complain!
It follows that the pictograph, the ideograph and the syllabary are all placed under the umbrella with the Greek root, alphabet. This certainly makes this book more accessible and friendly to young people with a western education.
Now that we have a nice, “classical” umbrella to shade us from the light of the Divine Sun, we can stroll through the wonderful museum of Afrikan Alphabets. With an understanding of the limitations and artificial conditions, my journey was quite pleasant.
Note: this Blog post is a segment from a series of posts about Saki Mafundikwa, his book, Afrikan Alphabets, this follows the previous entry on Friday, January 4th, 2008 here in the kinté space!