TED Talk Tuesday #99 – Alphabets for Africa

Watching TED Talks is a popular pastime at CN&CO. We visit TED.com regularly to clear our heads, have a laugh or get inspired. TED Talks open our minds, spark new ways of thinking and can lead to some very interesting conversations. Each week we pick a favourite and publish it on a Tuesday, because we like how “TED Talk Tuesday” sounds. This week’s talk was (not surprisingly) posted by CN&CO word nerd, Colin Ford. 

South Africa is my home. Always has been. Always will be. We 57 million-or-so Saffers share this fascinating continent with more than 1,2 billion fellow Africans. It’s a region incredibly rich in diversity, with histories that remain obscured by so many -isms that I wouldn’t dare mention any lest I leave one out and/or end up on the wrong end of a Twitter war. What’s irrefutable is that what we don’t know far outweighs what we do know.

Take writing, for example. Did you know that ancient African people used various alphabets to write things down? Some of the symbols and letters in these alphabets are amazingly beautiful – and we’re not just talking Egyptian hieroglyphics here.

Check out Saki Mafundikwa’s TED Talk on the ingenuity and elegance of Africa’s ancient alphabets and start wondering how much more there is that you don’t know about our incredible continent…