In order to meet our goals for Unicode encoding, His Highness Sultan Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya, has asked the Bamum Scripts and Archives Project to organize an international conference on the Bamum script which will also address issues of encoding. The conference will be held in Foumban, Cameroon, right on the grounds of the Bamum palace complex. It is hoped that this conference will bring together specialists in the Bamum language and script with computer specialists, information technology experts, fontographers, and Unicode encoding specialists. This conference will create the greatest opportunity for Bamum input, which is naturally important, as the user community has most at stake in this project. The conference will also be an opportunity for specialists in encoding to share their knowledge with the user community. At present, we are hoping that Michael Everson – well known script encoding specialist who has worked previously on proposals for African scripts – will perhaps visit for the conference. Pioneer scholar of African scripts, Dr. David Dalby, has agreed to be the keynote speaker at the event.

One of the outcomes of the conference will be a Unicode encoding proposal for Bamum – backed by the research of scholars, the participation of the user community, and the sanctioning of the Bamum palace.

Lastly, it is worth noting that the neighboring Bagam people, who also possess a script, have approached the Bamum Scripts and Archives Project regarding the possible creation of a computer font and Unicode encoding initiative for their script. The Bamum conference would be an excellent opportunity to commence work on this other script. For more information on the Bagam script, see: Konrad Tuchscherer, “The Lost Script of the Bagam,” African Affairs, 1999, 98, pp. 55-77.