Project Digitizes Works From the Golden Age of TimbuktuThen there's this interesting aside:
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD (New York Times)
Published: May 20, 2008
From Timbuktu to here, to reverse the expression, the written words of the legendary African oasis are being delivered by electronic caravan. A lode of books and manuscripts, some only recently rescued from decay, is being digitized for the Internet and distributed to scholars worldwide.
These are works of law and history, science and medicine, poetry and theology, relics of Timbuktu’s golden age as a crossroads in Mali for trade in gold, salt and slaves along the southern edge of the Sahara. If the name is now a synonym for mysterious remoteness, the literature attests to Timbuktu’s earlier role as a vibrant intellectual center.
In recent years, thousands of these leather-bound books and fragile manuscripts have been recovered from family archives, private libraries and storerooms. The South African government is financing construction of a library in Timbuktu to house more than 30,000 of the books. Other gifts support renovations of family libraries and projects for preserving, translating and interpreting the documents.
Now, the first five of the rare manuscripts from private libraries have been digitized and made available online (www.aluka.org) to scholars and students. At least 300 are expected to be available online by the end of the year.
[...]
Many documents in the graceful Arabic calligraphy are a visual delight. Although the writing is mostly in Arabic, quite a few manuscripts are in vernaculars adapted to the Arabic script, which is sure to pose a challenge for scholars.Hmmm... Garshuni maybe? (Syriac written in Arabic script.) And who knows what else. Hebrew and Greek manuscripts are also known. Background here and keep following the links back.
(Via the Agade list.)
UPDATE (22 May): Bulbul e-mails:
The "quite a few manuscripts ... in vernaculars adapted to the Arabic script" NY Times articles mentions are almost certainly written in what is usually referred to as 'ajami'. This terms is used as aHe then very tactfully points out that my definition of Garshuni above is wrong: it is actually Arabic written Syriac script. Oops! That was a silly mistake. Thanks for the correction. Bulbul has a post on Garshuni/Karshuni here.
designation of the practice to write African languages like Hausa, Yoruba, Wolof and many others and often as a generic term for various modifications of the Arabic script necessary to adequately record the various languages of East Africa. The website
[http://warc-ifap.wikispaces.com/Ajami] is a good overview of the subject. Confusingly enough, in some instances, the term 'ajami' is used as if it referred to a particular language (e.g. "Liste des manuscripts en langues arabe et ajami") which is bound to cause some confusio, just like it so often happens with karshuni/garshuni.