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2004-2005 Archived Historical Events
African Script Facing Extinction:Case of the A-ka-u-ku and Shümom of the Bamum
by Dr. Konrad Tuchscherer
Press Release - December 14, 2004
On December 14, Dr. Konrad Tuchscherer, a professor from St. John’s University in New York met with the press at the American Embassy to shatter the myth of Africa as an historically illiterate continent. Dr. Konrad revealed that Cameroon has the historical distinction of possessing one of Africa’s few original script traditions. The script, known in its modern form as A-ka-u-ku (after its first 4 letters), was invented by the Bamum around 1896 during the rule of Sultan Ibrahima Njoya, the seventeenth king of the Bamum, who reigned from 1889-1933.
After eight months of research on the script, supported by a Fulbright grant from the U.S. State Department, Tuchscherer revealed that there remain today as few as three people who can read the thousands of books and other documents written in the script that are held in the palace archives in the Bamum capital at Foumban. Only one man, a traditional healer, survives today who uses the script as his only means of writing. This man, who visits the palace archives to consult books on ancient Bamum medicinal remedies, is, as Tuchscherer says, a living national treasure for all of Africa.
Tuchscherer also revealed that a nearly 100 year-old invented spoken language, known as Shümom, is today thriving among the Bamum. Outside scholars have for over twenty years believed that Shümom had fallen into extinction.
Tuchscherer says that unless urgent measures are taken now to teach the script in schools, the ability to read the history of the Bamum as recorded their novel script will be lost forever. As Tuchscherer says, quoting the words of African sage Amadou Hampate Ba, “When an old African dies, a library burns.”