ENGLISH 298 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1st Reading: Ancient South Arabian Script, African-American Literature, Sub-Saharan Africa

• School: U of M
• Department: English Language And Literature
• Course: ENGLISH 298
• Professor: Walter Cohen

Document Summary

Since the common view is that africa was illiterate until the coming of. European colonizers, a brief correction might be useful here: some of the earliest writing and literature in the narrow sense comes from africa, from egypt, of course. Literacy there dates from 3000 bce, sophisticated prose iction from 2000 bce. The literary tradition is continuous (though in diferent writing systems) until it is displaced by arabic beginning in the. It is a matter of uncertainty, and controversy, how much cultural inluence on the egyptian dynasties comes from up the nile (i. e. south), in sub- The phoenicians are the source of/inspiration behind all european alphabets, beginning with the greek also many other writing systems, including. Anyway, the most important phoenician colony, later an important empire in its own right, is carthage (in present-day tunisia), with which rome fought three. Punic wars in the 3rd and 2nd centuries bce for imperial dominance of the western.