ATLAS OF LANGUAGE

AT-DEP3-0001 · ATLAS 260

Ajami script

The use of Arabic characters to write African languages.

Part of the subject path Writing, Typography and Media

Why is this entry in the Atlas?

E · Selected case R3 · Justified illustrative case

Ajami script provides a comparative case of communities adapting Arabic-derived writing to the requirements and practices of African languages. A text in Arabic-derived letters does not qualify merely by its script if it is not writing the relevant African language.

Colours and admission grounds

The rectangular label identifies the entry function: F – linguistic figure or procedure; A – analytical concept; G – foundational concept; E – selected concrete case. The rounded badge indicates the admission ground: R1 – distinctive contribution; R2 – necessary foundation; R3 – justified illustrative case. This editorial rationale explains the current selection rather than claiming an undocumented original selection history.

Explanation

Ajami refers to practices in which adapted forms of Arabic script are used to write African languages. It is not one uniform script but a family of language- and tradition-specific solutions that may introduce additional characters, diacritics, or new sound values. These systems participate in histories of Islamic learning, trade, administration, poetry, and everyday communication and challenge any equation of African literacy with colonially introduced Latin writing. A page resembling Arabic is not automatically Ajami, since it may represent Arabic itself. Nor should the label conceal the diversity of individual communities. The concept reveals script adoption as cultural and phonological translation: an existing sign system is not merely copied but adapted to other sound worlds and pathways of knowledge.

Movement of thought

1. An African language with its own sound and morphological structures first encounters an established Arabic writing and educational tradition. 2. Writers assign Arabic signs to new sound values and where necessary add diacritics or graphic variants for otherwise missing contrasts. 3. The adapted script circulates in religious, administrative, poetic, or private practices and develops local conventions and archives. 4. A counter-test identifies the language actually represented and separates Ajami from Arabic text, transliteration alone, and a supposedly unitary script. 5. The adopted system returns transformed: its signs now carry other sounds and connect local language with new spaces of memory.

Scientific use case

Graphematics, African studies, manuscript scholarship, and sociolinguistics document sign inventories, sound mappings, genres, dating, and user communities. Digitisation must preserve variants and reader knowledge.

Example

A community adds an extra dot to an Arabic base character in order to write a contrastive sound in its language for which Arabic provides no direct equivalent.

Counterexample

A Qur'anic text copied in Senegal in the Arabic language uses Arabic script but is not Ajami merely because of its location or appearance; an African language must be represented.

Distinction

Distinguish Ajami from Arabic script as a general writing system, Arabic-language text, transliteration, Ottoman Turkish or Persian in Arabic-derived scripts, and a single standardised Ajami.

Effect on thought and perception

Ajami reveals script contact as active adaptation, broadens histories of African literacy, and shows how communities appropriate inherited signs for their own sounds and knowledge practices.

Resonance

A familiar sign begins to sound anew in another language; between inherited form and local voice emerges a script that carries both histories and leaves neither unchanged.

Cite this entry

Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Ajami script“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-DEP3-0001. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-DEP3-0001

https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-DEP3-0001

The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.

Historical background

Boston University’s Ajami project makes accessible African-language literatures written in modified Arabic script. These materials challenge the assumption that Arabic-looking writing must encode Arabic. Ajami is a family of writing practices rather than a single language. The project overview does not supply one origin date for all traditions.

How conceptual history changes the analysis

Separate language, script and transmission. A catalogue can obscure a tradition if it infers the language solely from the shapes of its letters.

Additional example

Hypothetical example: Arabic letters are visible in a manuscript, but linguistic investigation is still needed to identify its language. Letter shapes alone do not settle that question.

References for the historical section

Historical source evidence and Atlas applications remain separate; this import does not assert new first attestations or a fresh exhaustive source verification.