International records / OpenAlex research

The Nigerian Qur'anic Manuscript Project: retrieving a unique resource on the Kanuri language and culture

“Many African languages have a long written tradition, e.g. Ge'ez, Kiswahili, Hausa, etc.” reads the summary of panel 21 of the AEGIS conference “African Manuscripts and Museum Collections in Europe”. The list could be extended to include other names familiar to a wider audience, e.g., Fula(ni) (Fulfulde), Manding (Mandenkan, Bambara, Dyula, Mandinka), Wolof, Asante (Akan), Songay. The Kanuri language however, needs some introduction. This is to a certain extent a historical paradox, because Kanuri was in fact the first African language to be extensively documented in the middle of the 19th ce…