ASC NEH Ajami Literature Project Develops New Resources
The African Studies Center (ASC), an affiliated center of Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Ajami project – led by Professor Fallou Ngom and Dr. Daivi Rodima-Taylor – is pleased to share new resources that have been developed in the course of its three-year research engagement, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
The project, Ajami Literacy and the Expansion of Literacy and Islam: The Case of West Africa, has digitized a unique selection of manuscripts in Ajami (African language texts written with a modified Arabic script) in four major West African languages (Hausa, Mandinka, Fula, and Wolof), transcribed and translated them into English and French, prepared commentaries, and created related multimedia resources to be made widely available to the scholarly community and the general public. The Ajami literature that has developed in sub-Saharan Africa holds a wealth of knowledge on the history, politics, cultures, and intellectual traditions of the region, but is generally unknown. The history of Ajami refutes the claims that Africa lacks written traditions.
The ASC project is the first systematic comparative approach to several major African languages written in Ajami. It examines the different patterns of Ajami development in these four languages and works of literature, and the multiple forms and custodians of Ajami literacy. It also marks the first time that such varied African Ajami documents have been translated into two major European languages (French and English) and made accessible to communities and scholars globally.
The project’s multi-disciplinary team of scholars and Ajami experts in Africa and the United States has digitized, transcribed, and translated several thousand pages of texts and prepared selected video and audio files that can be accessed on the NEH Ajami website.
Founded in 1953, BU’s ASC has provided a strong foundation in African studies to generations of university professors, economists, health workers, government officials, development personnel, diplomats, and numerous others. Learn more on the ASC website.