# Why did most pre-colonial nations of sub-Saharan Africa have no written language? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 3, 2004, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407 "2004-07-03T20:54:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/1 "2004-07-03T20:54:26Z")
Afrocentrists to the contrary, before Africa was colonized by Europeans, most African nations south of the Sahara had no system of writing, the sole exception being Ethiopia, which had and has a homegrown syllabary system to write Amharic. Some of the nations and peoples that converted to Islam did learn to read and write Arabic – but, so far as I know, none of them ever used the Arabic letters to write down their own language or develop a native literature. I find myself wondering: Why? Technologically, pre-colonial Africa was not all that primitive – the Africans were living in the Iron Age when the whole Western Hemisphere was living in the Stone Age. It has been said that when the Europeans came along in the 16th Century, African society was about on the same level of development as Medieval Europe – but that’s not quite true. Medieval Europe had certain things pre-colonial Africa notably lacked: a unifying church, a shared language of scholarship and diplomacy, and above all, the written word. Why is that? Why did most of the African nations never develop writing and literacy and literature? As there is no political or social or otherwise controversial content I can see to this topic, I could post this thread in General Questions – but, since any answers offered are likely to be more theoretical than factual, I think GD is the appropriate forum. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/2 "2004-07-03T21:08:15Z")
For that matter, most of the inhabitants of North and South America didn’t either. I suspect that written language is the exception, rather than the rule. After all, whats the need? If, like most N. American Indians, you can get enough to eat and the other necessities of life, there is no real good reason to develop agriculture. If the only people you ever communicate with are within the range of your voice, there isn’t much reason to write. History is only relevent as far as living memory, if something happened before anyone alive can remember, is it likely to have any real value for survival? All us monkeys is pretty much equally smart (not that you implied otherwise), and we do what we need to do. I suspect its less a matter of inventing writing as inventing something to write on. Not much papyrus available to the Sioux, the Cheyenne, or the Yamamano. If I were going to pick a development to be surprised at the lack of, it would more likely be metal than writing. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/3 "2004-07-03T21:12:21Z")
My guess: no unifying political power on a large scale. With first the Greeks, and later the Romans, someone managed to become politically powerful enough to create a rather large empire. This requires that a common lingua franca exist, so that various parts of the empire can communicate and coordinate things. AFAIK, there never was an sub-Saharan African equivalent of the Roman empire. I know a woman from Zambia that told me there are something like over 80 different indigenous languages spoken in that country. If they all had developed written languages, it wouldn’t have done much good to facilitate communication in the region. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/4 "2004-07-03T21:40:51Z")
This is part of the question I raised a couple of weeks back about the development of culture/civilization. I suspect it does have mostly to do with tribal-oriented peoples simply having no need for writing. Even in medieval Europe, writing was mostly used by clergy and for things like taxation records. The vast, vast majority of the population was illiterate. In fact, the earliest written records we have discovered are basically tax records and such. Without that kind of organized government, you have no reason to write. Now, as to why they didn’t develop beyond a tribal civilization… no agriculture? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/5 "2004-07-03T21:41:49Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > If I were going to pick a development to be surprised at the lack of, it would more likely be metal than writing. Are you sure? The Mayans and the Aztecs had writing systems, but their knowledge of metallurgy was very primitive, and its applications mostly limited to gold, silver and copper jewelry. Really, the whole Western Hemisphere was living in the Stone Age when Columbus landed. The Aztec army fought with “swords” which were really heavy wooden clubs edged with flakes of obsidian. Aztec surgeons used obsidian knives. Yet they had a very expressive system of pictographic writing, and libraries of books written on birch-bark paper. (Few of which survive – the Inquisition burned most of them after the Spanish conquered Mexico.) > [@rfgdxm](#): > > My guess: no unifying political power on a large scale. With first the Greeks, and later the Romans, someone managed to become politically powerful enough to create a rather large empire. This requires that a common lingua franca exist, so that various parts of the empire can communicate and coordinate things. AFAIK, there never was an sub-Saharan African equivalent of the Roman empire. I know a woman from Zambia that told me there are something like over 80 different indigenous languages spoken in that country. If they all had developed written languages, it wouldn’t have done much good to facilitate communication in the region. But the Sumerians of Mesopotamia developed cuneiform writing long before there were any multi-city empires, did they not? Then again, they did have a common language shared by all their independent cities . . . at least, I think they did. In fact there were some empires in pre-colonial Africa – Mali, Songhai, Ghana – none on the scale of the Roman Empire, but empires nevertheless. Why did none of them ever see the need for a lingua france and a system of writing? Or did they? I’ve always thought of “civilization” as something associated with cities, as the root of the word implies, and there were genuine cities in Africa – Great Zimbabwe, for instance. Why no writing? For comparison – in the New World, the Inca Empire had no writing either, but it did develop the _quipu,_ an arrangement of knotted cords for encoding information. Not much use for recording poetry, but perfectly adequate for accounting and administration, which is what they used it for. Hard to see how they could have run their vast Stone Age empire without some such system. But I’ve never heard of any similar system being developed in any African empire – in all of them, so far as I know, if the king wanted to send a message to a far province, he would have had to rely on the memory of a living messenger. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/6 "2004-07-03T21:49:05Z")
You’re all trying too hard. Writing materials like paper, papyrus, the thin pasteoard/plywood stuff the Romans liked to use, sheepskins…they all_decompose_. Sub-Saharan Africa has a humid climate, & a neverending hoard of insect pests, especially termites. Not to mention mold & fungi. Written documents don’t stand a chance. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/7 "2004-07-03T21:50:40Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Sub-Saharan Africa has a humid climate, & a neverending hoard of insect pests, especially termites. Not to mention mold & fungi. > > Written documents don’t stand a chance. The same is true of Southeast Asia, yet Thailand and several other cultures of the region had their own native writing systems. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/8 "2004-07-03T21:53:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The same is true of Southeast Asia, yet Thailand and several other cultures of the region had their own native writing systems. Does Southeast Asia have those giant termite mounds? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/9 "2004-07-03T21:54:21Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > You’re all trying too hard. > > Writing materials like paper, papyrus, the thin pasteoard/plywood stuff the Romans liked to use, sheepskins…they all_decompose_. > > Sub-Saharan Africa has a humid climate, & a neverending hoard of insect pests, especially termites. Not to mention mold & fungi. > > Written documents don’t stand a chance. The earliest written record was clay tablets and (to a lesser extent) stone engravings or paintings, such as the Egyptian records. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/10 "2004-07-03T21:55:33Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > You’re all trying too hard. > > Writing materials like paper, papyrus, the thin pasteoard/plywood stuff the Romans liked to use, sheepskins…they all_decompose_. > > Sub-Saharan Africa has a humid climate, & a neverending hoard of insect pests, especially termites. Not to mention mold & fungi. > > Written documents don’t stand a chance. Not good enough. Most cuneiform that’s been found is on fired clay tablets, which aren’t going to decompose, at least not within any timeframe that’s going to make it an issue. Pre-colonial Africa certainly had pottery. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/11 "2004-07-03T21:55:51Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > The earliest written record was clay tablets and (to a lesser extent) stone engravings or paintings, such as the Egyptian records. Correction: the earliest _surviving_ documents were etc. Paperlike products would be long gone. As would bark. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/12 "2004-07-03T22:00:25Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Correction: the earliest _surviving_ documents were etc. > > Paperlike products would be long gone. > > As would bark. Occam’s razor. Easiest theory: People developed a system to make paper and ink from plant material, but somehow forgot and lost all trace and remembrance of it OR people scratched on soft rocks and clay/mud While it is not impossible for someone to have developed a system of writing, it is not as likely. None of the cultural traits are there. No history, oral or written is available hinting at it. No archeological evidence has been found. Unless you have _any_ evidence that something existed, you may as well say it went down with Atlantis. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/13 "2004-07-03T22:02:27Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Not good enough. Most cuneiform that’s been found is on fired clay tablets, which aren’t going to decompose, at least not within any timeframe that’s going to make it an issue. Pre-colonial Africa certainly had pottery. Also, this is relevant only if archiving for extended periods was the issue. Writing on paper and such would certainly have survived long enough to facilitate communication within the region. Anything thought sufficiently important enough to last a very long time could have been transcribed onto fired clay tablets. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/14 "2004-07-03T22:43:38Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton The Mayans and the Aztecs had writing systems, but their knowledge of metallurgy was very primitive, and its applications mostly limited to gold, silver and copper jewelry. [/quote] I think I’d dispute the “very primitive” appellation. Or at least the “very” part. Many have argued that Andean and Meso-American goldsmithing was superior to that of its Old World contemporaries. Also it might be more appropriate to label them as “early bronze age”, rather than stone age. It’s not an exact parallel to Old World developments, but bronze-work was spreading at the time of the European invasion. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The same is true of Southeast Asia, yet Thailand and several other cultures of the region had their own native writing systems. How are you defining “native”? The writing systems in Southeast Asia derive from that of China, which appears to be one of three areas where writing was independently produced ( the others being Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica ). The answer I think is that writing may just not have been an intuitive idea to the non-literate - it appeared in a very few places and then was diffused ( and evolved as it diffused ). Excluding Ethiopia which developed writing in the early Christian era and had close ties to southern Arabia and Egypt, Sub-Saharan African geography presents an enormous obstacle to cultural diffusion. Not only is it outside the great Eurasian cultural conveyor belt, blocked by the Sahara and a dearth of good ports, but internal communication and travel is for the most far more difficult. Arabic was in fact spreading with Islam through West and East Africa beginning from the 15th century, if not earlier, but slowly. Writing was ( plainly ) not necessary for pre-modern centralized states, day-to-day record-keeping was. But record-keeping need not be literate. Basic arithmetic plus oral tradition are apparently sufficient. The earliest example of “accounting” may be a baboon thigh-bone from the vicinty of Swaziland etched with dozens of slash marks and dating back 35,000 years. Sticks and bits of string were used in counting systems in pre-literate Africa, not unlike the _quipu_ of the Incas. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/15 "2004-07-03T22:45:07Z")
Ack. My apologies - I hope that is decipherable. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/16 "2004-07-03T22:50:41Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > How are you defining “native”? The writing systems in Southeast Asia derive from that of China, which appears to be one of three areas where writing was independently produced ( the others being Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica ). I’ve seen Thai writing – it bears no resemblance to Chinese. If it derived ultimately from anywhere else, my guess would be India. > [@Tamerlane](#): > > The answer I think is that writing may just not have been an intuitive idea to the non-literate - it appeared in a very few places and then was diffused ( and evolved as it diffused ). Excluding Ethiopia which developed writing in the early Christian era and had close ties to southern Arabia and Egypt, Sub-Saharan African geography presents an enormous obstacle to cultural diffusion. Not only is it outside the great Eurasian cultural conveyor belt, blocked by the Sahara and a dearth of good ports, but internal communication and travel is for the most far more difficult. I agree, that’s probably the best explanation. I’ve also read that equatorial sleeping sickness is very hard on horses and other beasts of burden, which is why most African csocieties never had them, which means neither a physical item nor a message could move from point A to point B unless it was carried by a human on foot. Tends to slow things down. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/17 "2004-07-03T22:57:01Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > Occam’s razor. > > Easiest theory: People developed a system to make paper and ink from plant material, but somehow forgot and lost all trace and remembrance of it OR people scratched on soft rocks and clay/mud > > While it is not impossible for someone to have developed a system of writing, it is not as likely. None of the cultural traits are there. No history, oral or written is available hinting at it. No archeological evidence has been found. > > Unless you have _any_ evidence that something existed, you may as well say it went down with Atlantis. But your remarks have little to do with Occam’s razor. Baked clay tablets are permanent records. _But nobody will even **think** of permanent records until temporary ones are invented first._ You have to possess a written language **before** you develop archival techniques, which is what baked clay tablets **are**. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/18 "2004-07-03T23:00:22Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Baked clay tablets are permanent records. > > _But nobody will even **think** of permanent records until temporary ones are invented first._ > > You have to possess a written language **before** you develop archival techniques, which is what baked clay tablets **are**. Actually, I think the Sumerians started writing on clay because they had plenty of clay and it was little work to dig it up, as compared to the work of making some kind of paper or even harvesting dried leaves or bark. And then they found out – or it was obvious to them from the beginning – that their clay tablets could be baked solid, just like bricks. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/19 "2004-07-03T23:01:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I agree, that’s probably the best explanation. I’ve also read that equatorial sleeping sickness is very hard on horses and other beasts of burden, which is why most African csocieties never had them, which means neither a physical item nor a message could move from point A to point B unless it was carried by a human on foot. Tends to slow things down. Can anyone confirm the above about beasts of burden? If so, not only would this tend to explain a lack of written language, but also the low level of societal/technological development in the region. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407/20 "2004-07-03T23:08:54Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Can anyone confirm the above about beasts of burden? If so, not only would this tend to explain a lack of written language, but also the low level of societal/technological development in the region. I read it in _Citadels of Mystery_ (alternate title: _Ancient Ruins and Archaeology_), a popular account of archaeology by L. Sprague de Camp, published sometime in the '60s, I think; can’t put my hands on it right now. The chapter was called, I think, “The Queen of Sheba and King Solomon’s Mines.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-pre-colonial-nations-of-sub-saharan-africa-have-no-written-language/253407.md?page=2)