Africa

Africa is a continent we all once called home. The region of Earth where humans first evolved, built societies that became empires and lived in its jungles, deserts and savannas cradled humans as just one species in a rich tapestry of plant and animal life, with African tribes, nations and communities acting as custodians or exploiters of their continent's heritage. Later, other groups of humans returned to Africa seeking fortune, slaves or scientific discoveries; peoples who find their roots in Africa now live all over the world as a consequence of colonialism and warfare.

Africa was once the playground of Europe's empires, with others occasionally claiming ownership of its lands and people. As a consequence, today's political boundaries rarely match up with ethnic, linguistic or cultural divides. Africa's 54 countries mostly use European languages or Arabic for official purposes, allowing them to speak both to the descendants of the peoples who exploited them and to new groups who now call Africa home. At the same time, Africa hosts much of the planet's linguistic diversity, as much as a third of all the world's languages. The continent is also a treasure of more material wealth - gold, diamond, coal and other commodities bought and sold legally or on a flourishing black market.

Africa is Earth's second-largest continent, with about 20% of its population - about 900,000,000 people. With only South Africa a developed country, many Africans endure a stand of living well below those of us used to the comforts of the West. Poverty, disease, dictatorship, famine and war are words that seem to occur close to the name of Africa, and it is true that Africans' influence in world affairs is well short of what would be expected given their numbers and natural resources. However, while Africa and the world are still coming to terms with the post-colonial era, the continent is organising itself on African lines - the African Union being an example of co-operation between the states. In the future, Africa is expected to play a significant role in world prosperity as its peoples step out of the shadow of their recent past.

Language and literature

Africa is often stereotyped as the continent of spoken language - of oral history, tribal chants and traditional storytelling. However, though it is true that many African languages are unwritten and many Africans are nonliterate, the cultures of this region have produced substantial works of literature and much eminent scholarship, well before the arrival of European languages and the literacy drives of Christian and other missionaries, aimed at stamping out indigenous beliefs and encouraging Africans to embrace the Bible or the Qu'ran.

Surviving manuscripts detailing African scientific understanding,held in a Timbuktu museum; international teams are working to preserve them.© Photo: Erwin Bolwidt

Academic literature was firmly established in Sub-Saharan Africa by the sixteenth century, particularly once Arabic had spread to many corners of the region. At Timbuktu in modern-day Mali, for example, African scholars produced and archived a vast collection of tomes on mathematics, astronomy, biology and other topics, often developed independently from the rest of the world. Most of these texts were written in Arabic, but some appeared in indigenous languages such as Hausa and Songhai. This information made its way north and westwards into other Islamic areas, and connections were also made and maintained with the Middle East and the wider world. Manuscripts have also turned up as far south as Tanzania, indicating that central Africa was a powerhouse of learning at the time.