Communication technologies from West Africa

Analysis Paper 1 Ideas

(… posted way after the 9pm deadline…)

Looking to find the methods of communication that prevailed two centuries ago in the part of the world where I come from , my leads naturally led me the language of instruments. Finding written alphabets or anything of the sort would have been rare and a surprise to me because orality was and still is to a certain extent, a major medium of knowledge and information transfer across generations.

In traditional West Africa, the griots are the custodians of oral tradition and through a family pass down heritage chain, have been trained since their earliest childhood to be destined to that role and have developed a massive memory for legends, stories, genealogies of a whole clan, stories that could have happened centuries before they were even born. Their handling of the spoken word is special and the precision and detail in their stories beyond understanding. Griots, who can be found from the Sahelian areas of Northern Senegal to the tropical zones of the Gulf of Guinea, fulfilled many important functions (from singing praises, to being spokespersons, diplomats, musicians, translators all the way to officiating marriages, namings and funerals). The importance of griots in the Senegalese society and West African communities in general, has considerably reduced nowadays; nevertheless I still employ the present tense when talking about them because to this day I see griots in every marriage, naming or traditional ceremony I attend. Géwël is how we call them in Senegal and I shall delve much more on this when writing my analysis paper because of how relevant orality was to communication in Africa [1][2].

THE TAMA

The “Tama”, as it is known in most Senegalese local languages, is a tiny bell shaped drum, also literally called as the armpit drum since it is placed there when being played. The types of drums used for different communication purposes are numerous and preponderant across many African societies and I’ll talk more about them in due time; but the Tama has the specificity of offering so much control to its drummer, allowing itself to be squeezed and loosened at will, varying its pitch like a human voice. If you’ve paid attention enough while watching the cinematic sensation of this year “Black Panther” set in the imaginary African kingdom of Wakanda, you’d have realized that the entire score of the movie has a dormant unusual and drummy background sound that hits spikes and lows all throughout. That is the sound of the Tama. Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson spent weeks in Senegal recording sounds and accompanying Fula singer Baaba Maal -who did the opening vocals of the movie – on tour while delving into the language that these instruments could speak. Like he puts it, the Tama does what no other percussion instrument does, it breathes [3]. Its sound can travel 5 to 11 kms from village to village depending on the time of the day and weather conditions, thus allowing information to be relayed at speeds faster and more efficient than any transportation system or technology of the time (~150 km/h), legitimately giving it some technological edge.

In many 20th century West African classics like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Ahmadou Kourouma’s En Attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages or Hampâté Bâ’s Memoirs, all of which are books I have read, the proportion given to the importance of drums cannot be underestimated. In Things Fall Apart, the name of the drums is never translated in English but written as it is in Ibo as if each was to be given its own identity and they are talked about as living beings. The other important thing is that the drums are beaten with an incurved wooden stick that mimics the shape of a cane. From originally being a communication tool, the Tama has nowadays transitioned to become a folkloric and artistic symbol being used in wrestling contests (mbapatt in wolof), in sabaar (dance congregations), traditional marriages…most happy celebrations. It is also, along with other drums, the lead instrument in modern Senegalese music, which makes the latter recognizable anywhere as a genre called Mbalax – rhythm -.

My analysis paper will really try and research how people in villages understood the language of the talking drum, how and where they were able to learn it, and how that knowledge or that ability to decrypt traveling sounds has been lost throughout the years. My great great grandfather probably could although he must have been illiterate; I have the sense that the introduction of western-style education throughout colonization took away those semaphoric autochtonous capabilities as African kids gradually received schooling and were put away from traditional initiation.

The N’Ko Script

Connecting the scattered descendants of the Mande

The N’Ko Script is a type of alphabet and writing system that was developed around the mid-twentieth century by Souleymane Kante, a Guinean writer who invented it since there was no indigenous African writing system for his language, Manding. Speakers of Manding/ Mande are spread all over Western Africa and the artificial borders created by colonialism ended up separating people from the same ethnic groups. These borders ended up affecting how the language suffered distortions and twists depending on whether the country was Francophone or Anglophone. Those distortions are phonetically visible in how the same family names vary across countries (e.g. Dramé in Senegal vs Drammeh in Gambia) or how French is meshed with Manding in Guinea whereas in Liberia it is with English. Possibly the most known Manding character in the West is Kunta Kinte, the fictional character in Alex Haley’s Roots. The maternal side of my own family is Manding and that is why I found this personally relevant.

The introduction of the alphabet sparked a movement to promote N’Ko literacy amongst the Manding speakers of West Africa and thus through a common alphabet, strengthen a common identity. The Script has notable similarities to the Arabic script and that may be no stranger to the fact that most Mandings (+90%) are practicing Muslims and they were one of the early adopters of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is directionally written from right-to-left, has diacritical marking and its letters connected at the base. It was added to the Unicode in 2006. 

Paths of research for the N’Ko Language would be to see where the inspiration lied in the creation of the characters that make up the alphabet, look deeper into the factors that brought about its existence (orality vs writing) and the potential it has to unite Manding people across West Africa as a communication tool.

– Y.N.

Resources

[1] Communication in Africa and its Influence – Orality And Performance, JRank Article,  Link

[2] L’oralité en Afrique, an article by Mor Dieye , Link 

[3] ‘Black Panther’ Composer Infuses Score With Trove of African Sounds, A Variety Article by Jon Burlingame. Link

[4] Les moyens de communication traditionnels en zone rurale dans l’espace culturel koongo: cas du département du Pool, A thesis by Jean Claude Moussoki , Link 

[5] Traditional systems of communication in Modern African Development, 1987, Africa Media Review Vol. 1, No. 2, 1987. By Des Wilson. Link

[6] ** Mande identity through literacy, the N’ko writing system as an agent of cultural nationalism. Oyler, Dianne White (1994)  Toronto: African Studies Association.

[7] ** The History of N’ko and its Role in Mande Transnational Identity: Words as Weapons. Oyler, Dianne White (November 2005).  Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers.