Abstract
This note introduces the biography and the activities of Moodibbo Bello
Aamadu, a Muslim scholar based in northern Cameroon who has invented an
original alphabet for the writing of Fulfulde. Although Moodibbo Bello’s Fulfulde
alphabet has not been in use beyond a restricted circle of his students, this attempt
constitutes an important addition to our knowledge of indigenous African
writing systems. The apparently curious record of Fulfulde, a language for which
at least three different alphabets (besides ‘ajamī) have been already documented
in the literature, can be explained by the historical role of the Fulfulde-speaking
Muslim scholars as vehicles of literacy across the western, central and eastern Sudan. [This is the abstract which accompanies the essay]