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The myth that Africa is a continent without writing is just that, a myth, and an inexcusably racist one as well. Quite apart from ancient scripts like hieroglyphics in Egypt and Ge'ez in Ethiopia, since 1830 at least twenty-seven scripts have been invented in West Africa alone.
In fact, over the last two centuries, no other region in the world can rival West Africa for the sheer scale, diversity and dynamism of its indigenous writing traditions. The most widely known of these, and the earliest on record, is the Vai script of Liberia created in ca. 1832.
The high-water mark for West African script invention was arguably the 1920s and 1930s, while the greatest density of indigenous scripts is found in Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone. Here is a tax receipt from Sierra Leone in Mende Kikakui script.
