Potential writing systems for Africa?

I'm working on an African TL with a POD of 213-212 BC during the Battle of Capua with the 2nd Punic War. From this, a bunch of sub-Saharan civilizations will spring up and spread through the continent. I want to know what you guys think the best or most likely writing systems to spread through Africa. There's Demotic (abjad, for comparison, Arabic is an abjad script), Merotic (alphabet), Coptic (alphabet), Ge'ez (abugida), and Punic (abjad).

Almost all of Sub-Saharan Africa is populated with Niger-Congo speakers and most Niger-Congo languages are tonal. I was thinking the Sahel civilizations would probably be adopt the Punic script but would the alphabet make more sense for tonal languages? And I figure Eastern/Southern Africa would adopt the Ge'ez script based off of Axumite influence. But again, is an abugida the best fit for tonal languges?

What do you guys think?
 
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I think generally scripts would be borrowed with features devised as necessary to fit the language, if it is changed at all. Writing systems are also deeply entwined, in a morphological sense, to the writing mediums. You might see glyphs of a script formed a certain way if the main writing mediums is clay, bark, palm leaves, papyrus etc.
 

Driftless

Donor
I think generally scripts would be borrowed with features devised as necessary to fit the language, if it is changed at all. Writing systems are also deeply entwined, in a morphological sense, to the writing mediums. You might see glyphs of a script formed a certain way if the main writing mediums is clay, bark, palm leaves, papyrus etc.

What mediums were current for writing or drawing in the different parts of Africa at that time? pre-200 BCE
 
I don't see you having too much problems with having Punic penetrating into SSA. OTL many SSA kingdoms and empires were using adapted arabic scripts in their administration. Also I brought this up in another thread, but has anyone ever noticed the similarity between many of the Akan or for example the many Ashanti "gold weights" and the tifinagh scripts? You might have some evidence of script having had influence on the Niger Congo there. (EX: Sokoto and Ashanti empires)
 
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What mediums were current for writing or drawing in the different parts of Africa at that time? pre-200 BCE

Let's see...in through Egypt and Nubia, there was papyrus and stone. I suppose Axum was using papyrus as well. The Kongo Basin area was pre-literate but they wore raffia cloth made from the bark of raffia trees they cultivated so that's an option. The processed bark of the trees could be used. Raffia tree species are present through most of Sub-Sahelian Africa so people could use rough raffia cloth/paper before they move onto actual paper. Maybe the papyrus plant could be transplanted to the Sahel region of the Niger River valley for the Sahel states to use. Clay tablets could also be used in the region, though they'd be inferior to raffia cloth or papyrus.

The ease of which papyrus or raffia can be written on could lead innovators to more "flowing" styles of writing and the use of calligraphy and illumination in literary artwork.


After some more research, I think an alphabet or abugida would be the best style for tonal languages. Alphabets allow the writer to piece together words and make special letters for specific sounds while abugidas are like abjads, except with written vowels, making it easier for a reader to understand the intent of the author.

Does anyone know what the easiest writing style to learn and read is? Are alphabets considered the most flexible of the writing styles?
 
Maybe the papyrus plant could be transplanted to the Sahel region of the Niger River valley for the Sahel states to use. Clay tablets could also be used in the region, though they'd be inferior to raffia cloth or papyrus.

Papyrus does grow in Lake Chad, and is used there for boat-building. It also grows naturally in some African river deltas, and I don't see any reason why it couldn't be cultivated on the Niger floodplain. On the other hand, papyrus doesn't do well in wet climates, so while it might catch on in the Sahel, it probably wouldn't be useful in rainforest environments.

Another possibility is parchment - there's no shortage of hides in West Africa.

In terms of possible scripts, did demotic Egyptian still have determinatives? Those would be very good for a tonal language, because they would distinguish between identically spelled words, and they might also evolve into tonal markers.
 
Papyrus does grow in Lake Chad, and is used there for boat-building. It also grows naturally in some African river deltas, and I don't see any reason why it couldn't be cultivated on the Niger floodplain. On the other hand, papyrus doesn't do well in wet climates, so while it might catch on in the Sahel, it probably wouldn't be useful in rainforest environments.

Another possibility is parchment - there's no shortage of hides in West Africa.

In terms of possible scripts, did demotic Egyptian still have determinatives? Those would be very good for a tonal language, because they would distinguish between identically spelled words, and they might also evolve into tonal markers.

Egyptian hieroglyphics had determinants but I can't find much information on Demotic, if it had determinatives. I'm assuming it did. Demotic was widely used for commercial, legal, administrative, and religious functions. Removing determinatives from the script would make documents unnecessarily vague.

Script adoption would probably come down to which civilization the West Africans have more contact with. Based off OTL and geography, Sahelian states will be the first to form and the rest of West Africa will base a lot of their practices off of them. So which civilization has more to gain from trading with the West Africans? Carthage or Ptolemaic Egypt? I'm leaning more toward Carthage as they'll need a lot of gold to pay their soldiers, mercenaries, and allies after the 2nd Punic War, something western Africa has in abundance. But with Persia largely closing Egypt off from Asia Minor, Egypt may have little choice but to look west and south to increase its wealth. Tales of golden fields and the usage of the camel may be enough to spark Egyptian influence in the region as well.

I do love the idea of an Egyptian influenced Sahel... :D
 
There appears to be at least one indigenous Sub-Saharan ideographic writing system, called Nsibidi IIRC.
Information on it are scant (it seems that it use was connected to secret societies), and it likely developed much later than your POD.
 
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