Ajami script

The term Ajami (Arabic: عجمي‎‎ ʿaǧamī ), or Ajamiyya (Arabic: عجمية‎‎ ʿaǧamiyyah), which comes from the Arabic root for "foreign" or "stranger," has been applied to Arabic alphabets used for writing African languages, especially those of Hausa and Swahili, although many other African languages were written using the script, among them Yoruba. It is considered an Arabic derived African writing system. Since African languages involve phonetic sounds and systems different from the Arabic language, there have often been adaptations of the Arabic script to transcribe them, a process like what has been done with the Arabic script in non-Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East and South Asia and with the Latin script in Africa or with the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet.[1]

The West African Hausa is an example of a language written using Ajami, especially during the pre-colonial period when Qur'anic schools taught Muslim children Arabic, and by extension, Ajami. When Western colonizers adopted a Latin orthography for Hausa, Ajami went into decline and now is employed less frequently than the Latin standard orthography. However, Hausa Ajami is still in widespread use, especially in Islamic circles.

The use of Ajami for other languages in Muslim communities is more common than outsiders may think. Its use is often in a situation of digraphia, with Ajami used for specific purposes, such as for local herbal preparations in Jula.

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