King Njoya and the Bamum Script:
Sultan Njoya, king of Bamum for over
40 Years, was a man of genius. At the end of the ninetinth century,
Njoya evolved an independent system of writing for his own language
as well as for a secret "court language". He was inspired
by a dream, in which he was told to draw a man's hand on a board,
and then to wash off the drawing and drink the water. After doing
this, he asks his subjects to draw different objekts and to name
them. Armed with their results, he experimented until he had
created his first system of writing, containing some 466 pictographic
and ideographic symbols.
Source: Africa and the Written
Word. Centre Culturel Français. Paris 1986
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