Africa always seems to be on the receiving end in many global interactions, and this situation has existed for eons now. Ravaged by centuries of slavery, followed by colonialism, Africans has suffered a lot. And into this society was born one Cheikh Anta Diop, who would later make immense contributions in the pursuit of an African identity destroyed by eons of interference.
Cheikh Diop was born to a relatively well-off Muslim family in Senegal in 1923, and at 4 years old, started attending madrassas. He later joined a French school and completed his high school education in a French academy. His genius started manifesting at this point. He developed an alphabet for transcribing all African languages while in high school, and had at that point, began writing the history of Africa.
He later went on to complete further studies in Paris where he had planned to study to become an aeronautical engineer. However, he enrolled for a philosophy class instead. As he was pursuing his degree in philosophy, he carried out linguistic research on his native Wolof language and another Senegalese language, Serer. He would later write a thesis that linked Wolof to Ancient Egyptian languages.
After completing his philosophy degree, he joined the faculty of science, where he came out with two degrees in chemistry.
The works he published during this time reignited debate on African renaissance, where his key focus was on the importance of identity and language in bringing together the African nation.
He was an advocate for the use of African languages in instruction and presented in numerous conferences the cultural variations of African civilizations, starting from the ancient times to the modern times.
His goal then was to use his accumulated scientific knowledge to present a case for the correction of aberrations in African history that had come about as a consequence of being narrated by the colonizing European powers. One of these great issues of contention was the determination of the race of the Ancient Egyptians, where he argued that Ancient Egypt (also known by some as Kemet) was a civilization started by black Africans, not European or Hamitic invaders who came into rule over the native population. The determination of the race of Ancient Egypt is yet to be resolved to date.
Treatises such as Living Museum, The Voice of Black Africa, The Struggle in Black Africa, Will there be a Cultural Unity of Black Africa, among many other publications sought to reinforce the significance of languages and a true appreciation of culture to bring Africans together. Much of these works were in the 50s and 60s, when most of Africa was still shackled by colonialism.
On the scientific front, he set up Africa’s second carbon dating lab in Senegal, after specializing in nuclear physics for a couple of years.
Diop later went on to join politics, where he was harassed quite a lot by the then Senegalese president, Leopold Senghor, the founder of the negritude movement that sought to seek unity amongst black peoples on the basis of their shared cultures among other things.
Diop passed on in 86, but his ideas concerning language keep on popping up.
By Matengo Chwanya
Source: Cheikh Anta Diop
Africa Global News Publication
