Source: "KEN MFE NE YUOPNKE"
Nouveau Testament et Psaumes en Bamoun.
New Testament and Psalms in Bamoun (1979)
Contributed by
Wolfgang Kuhl - E-mail WKuhl44238@aol.com
Bamum Script (Cameroon)
First line in Bamum Script.
Second line: transcription
Third line: German literal translation
(Note: Cameroon was a German colony from 1884 to 1911)
Note:
Sultan Ibrahim Njoya king of the Bamum (Bamoun) for over 40 years, was a man
of genius. At the end of the nineteenth century, he evolved an independent
system of writing for his own language as well as for a secret "court
language". He was inspired by a dream, in which he was told to draw a man's
hand on a board and then to wash off his drawing and drink the water. After
doing this, he asked his subjects to draw different objects and to name them.
Armed with their results, he experimented until he had created the first
writing sytem containing some 466 pictographic and ideographic symbols.
He then set up a series of schools or "book houses" throughout his kingdom,
at which hundreds of his subjects learned to read and write. An important and
varied collection of literature was compiled, only some of which has been
preserved. Among other works, Njoya compiled a volume on the history and
customs of his kingdom, a book of rules of conduct at his court, a
pharmacopia and a collection of maps of his kingdom. He created a library and
ethographic collection at his palace and encouraged the development of
traditional weaving and dyeing under his patronage.
After the First World War, Njoya's schools and achievements were destroyed by
the Frecnh colonial authorities and he was deposed in 1931 and exiled to
Yaounde where he died a humiliated and broken man two years later.
(Source: Africa and the Written Word, Centre Culturel Français, Paris 1986)
Original Source: "Vaterunser in der Bamumschrift" provided by German
missionary Manfred Göhring in "Der evangelische Heidenbote" ("The Protestant
Pagan's Messenger"), vol. 80, page 41 (1907)
Reprint: Alfred Schmitt, "Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Schrift", Band
II: Abbildungen, Wiesbaden, Germany (1981), ISBN 3-447-02162-4
Information on the Bamum Script:
Contributed by Wolfgang Kuhl - E-mail WKuhl44238@aol.com
1. Afrikan Alphabets
2. Bamún (in Spanish)
3. Memorable Leader: Sultan Sedou Njoya (creator of the Bamum Script)
4. King Njoya
5. African fonts
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