Ajami script

The term Ajami (Arabic: عجمي‎ ʿaǧamī ), or Ajamiyya (Arabic: عجمية‎ ʿaǧamiyyah), which comes from the Arabic root for "foreign" or "stranger," has been applied to Arabic alphabets used for writing African languages.

Since African languages involve phonetic sounds and systems different from the Arabic language, there have often been adaptations of the Arabic script to transcribe them—a process not unlike what has been done with the Arabic script in non-Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East, and with the Latin script in Africa or with the Vietnamese alphabet.[1]

The West African Hausa is an example of a language written using Ajami, especially during the pre-colonial period when Qur'anic schools taught Muslim children Arabic, and by extension, Ajami. When Western colonizers adopted a Latin orthography for Hausa, Ajami went into decline, and today is employed less frequently than the Latin standard orthography. However, Hausa Ajami is still in widespread use, especially in Islamic circles.

See also

• Hausa language
• Wolofal script
• Aljamiado
• Jawi script
• Perso-Arabic script

External references

• PanAfrican L10n page on Arabic script and "Ajami"
• Omniglot page on Hausa Ajami Script