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A comment on Unearthing long ignored African writing system, researcher finds African history. Parent comment

Re:Unearthing long ignored African writing system, researche... by josh_fyi on Monday January 02, 2023 @08:31AM (#34217618)
Indeed, just as French language and Latin-based orthographies for languages in this reason are the result of a colonial legacy, so too the use of Arabic as a prestige language (mentioned in this article) and an Arabic-based orthography.
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Re:Unearthing long ignored African writing system, researche... by aga98mtl on Monday January 02, 2023 @08:57AM (#34217842)
As far as we know, Senegal was never an arab colony or under direct control. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Senegal#Kingdoms_an...

Calling it an arab colony would be like saying Sweden was a roman colony because they use the roman script.

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Re:Unearthing long ignored African writing system, researche... by RansomStark on Monday January 02, 2023 @04:55PM (#34224201)
But it was conquered by Muslim invaders, not Arabs, but Muslims, specifically the Almoravids [0].

Sweden is not a particularly good example. A better example might be Latvia (or any of the other areas invaded as part of the northern crusades), which was invaded by a group of Catholics spreading the faith[1], Latvia could not be called a colony of the Papacy, but it certainly moved the area into Romes sphere of influence, with all the religion and language that entails.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr_ibn_Umar

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades

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Re:Unearthing long ignored African writing system, researche... by coliveira on Monday January 02, 2023 @10:46AM (#34219126)
Colonization is not the only way to spread a script. Arabic arrived in Africa by several means, not like European colonization.
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