Mandinka Ajami Project Documentation and Presentations
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Item Beyond African orality: digital preservation of Mandinka ʿAjamī archives of Casamance(Wiley, 2019-06-14) Ngom, Fallou; Castro, EleniThis article focuses on the digital preservation of African sources written in Mandinka ʿAjamī, i.e. the enriched form of the Arabic script used to write the Mandinka language for centuries. ʿAjamī writing has been utilized to document intellectual traditions, histories, belief systems, and cultures of non-Arab Muslims around the world. ʿAjamī texts have played critical roles in the spread of Islam in Africa and continue to be used for both religious and non-religious writings. However, African ʿAjamī texts such as those of the Mandinka people of Casamance in southern Senegal are not well known beyond local communities. ʿAjamī texts in Mandinka and other Mande languages are among the least documented. Only a few Mande ʿAjamī texts are available to scholars. Thanks to the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme (EAP), Africa’s rich written heritage in ʿAjamī and other scripts previously unavailable to academics is being preserved and made universally accessible.Item Digital Preservation of Mandinka Ajami Materials of Casamance, Senegal(2018-10-11) Castro, Eleni; Ngom, FallouThis poster outlines the international research collaboration between Boston University, the West African Research Center, and local experts in Senegal during a 15 month project --funded by the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme-- to digitize, curate, and preserve over 14,000 manuscript pages written in Mandinka Ajami and Arabic. Technical workflows and challenges, as well as future research opportunities in this area will be discussed. Ultimately, research outputs from this project, along with documentation will be archived and made available at all three institutions, including the "African Ajami Library", an open access repository of aggregated Ajami materials from all over the continent.Item Field notes from OpenBU & Senegal: Digital collection building(Boston University Libraries, 2018-04-18) Castro, EleniPresentation on the initial work done to digitize Mandinka Ajami manuscripts in southern Senegal. This 19 month project (EAP 1042) is funded by the British Library / Arcadia Endangered Archives Programme.