Sudanic, West African, wooden tablets

Evidence

"The manuscripts were produced sometime between the late 18th and 20th centuries. While catalogue entries and acquisition notes give little to no information about their provenance, a recent analysis of the colophons and annotations has revealed the vast geographical span of their origin, including present-day Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea (this area is known as the Greater Senegambia region)."

Remarks

The study identifies a corpus of Soninke Ajami manuscripts produced in the Greater Senegambia region between the late 18th and 20th centuries (p. 11). These materials are often classified in library catalogs as 'Sudanic' or 'West African' (p. 11). In the elementary phase of Soninke Islamic education, pupils acquire writing skills by copying Qur'anic passages on wooden tablets, referred to as the 'fire for studies' stage (p. 15). The focus of this reconstruction is on 'Type 3' Ajami manuscripts, which utilize interlinear glosses to provide vernacular translations of primary Arabic texts (p. 11).