Reviving Tradition with Innovation: Ajami Readers in Wolof, Mandinka, and Hausa
Frederick S. Pardee School’s Readers in Ajami (RIA) project, led by Prof. Fallou Ngom and Dr. Daivi Rodima-Taylor, has developed three African Ajami Readers – with more than 600 pages of instructional materials. The Wolof, Mandinka, and Hausa Ajami Readers offer a comprehensive multimedia learning experience in combination with the interactive website.
The initiative aims to revive and promote African literature written in Ajami, referring to the use of Arabic script for non-Arabic languages. These resources uncover a wealth of cultural, historical, and political knowledge embedded in Ajami texts, which for centuries have been a key medium of literacy in many African societies. Ajami writing, which remained largely obscure to many due to limited access to its texts, serves as an important tool for grassroots education and communication.
The Ajami Readers and the multimedia website encompasses digitized texts, photo images, video interviews, and interactive exercises in Wolof, Mandinka, and Hausa Ajami – accompanied by Latin-script transcriptions and English translations. These readers are authored by Fallou Ngom, Daivi Rodima-Taylor, Jennifer Yanco, Elhadji Diagne, Mustapha Kurfi, and Ablaye Diakite, with the assistance of numerous people including Ousmane Cisse, Gana Ndiaye, and Bala Saho. The multimedia website was developed with digital specialists Alison Parker, Frank Antonelli, Shawn Provencal, and Mark Lewis from the Geddes Language Center.
Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the project acts as a template for future resources in other African languages, bridging the gap between traditional local knowledge and modern educational tools.
The Ajami Studies Team at Pardee School has been actively engaged in multiple research projects in recent years, contributing to academic journals, blog sites, and the development of multimedia instructional materials and digital archival collections. For a double special issue in Islamic Africa (volumes 14/2, 2023, and 15/1, 2024), the team explored the literatures and literacies of four major West African languages—Wolof, Mandinka, Hausa, and Fula – positioning African Ajami studies within the broader context of participatory multimedia and digital archiving approaches.
To learn more about the initiatives of Frederick S. Pardee School’s African Studies Center, click here.