Ngom, who studied Arabic as a second language (the second of 12 languages that the scholar knows), was stunned. He asked his brother, still living in Senegal, t

Ngom, who studied Arabic as a second language (the second of 12 languages that the scholar knows), was stunned. He asked his brother, still living in Senegal, to check with the neighbor to whom their father owed money. Sure enough, his brother reported, the trader had a record of the debt, too, in a similar Arabic-turned-Fula script. What? How do you not know your father can write? How does your brother live somewhere his neighbors write the same language and doesn't know about it? What the hell is going on? This whole story is extremely suspicious.