Souag Lameen West Africans throughout the region have creatively adapted the Arabic script to write non-Arabic languages, a form of literacy known as Ajami which remains widespread today despite little or no government support. The variety of methods used to extend the Arabic script to fit other phonological systems are of particular interest: methods that appear unmotivated from a purely linguistic perspective can readily be explained as rational adaptations to the parallel educational system in which Ajami is typically learned, an issue often not taken into account in orthography planning. 5000 Jahre Schrift Ajami Arabic script 490 periodical academic journal 2010 7 2011 1860-7462 urn:nbn:de:0009-10-29579 http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0009-10-29579 souag2011