Mande Language
Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997) have argued that 
Olmec civilization was not influenced by Africans and therefore 
Afrocentrism should have no standing in higher education, but in fact 
it can be illustrated that the facial types associated with the Olmec 
people and Meroitic people are identical; and that Olmec figurines 
such as the Tuxtla statuette excavation are inscribed with African 
writing used by the Mande people of West Africa (Wiener, 1922; 
Winters, 1979 , of Manding writing provide the "absolute proof " 
recovered by archaeologists from "controlled excavations in the New 
World" demanded by Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour 
(1997: 419) to "proof"/confirm Olmec and African contact. 

The Olmec spoke a variety of the Mande language, which is still spoken 
in West Africa today. Many scholars refuse to admit that Africans 
early settled America. But the evidence of African skeletons found at 
many Olmec sites, and their trading partners from the Old World found 
by Dr. Andrzej Wiercinski prove the cosmopolitan nature of Olmec 
society. 

The major evidence of the African origing of the Olmecs comes from their 
writing. The writing system used by the Olmec and later adopted by the 
Maya, was first used by Mande speaking people in North Africa and is 
called Libyco-Berber ( eventhough it can not be read in Taurag). The 
first scholar to recognize the african origin of the Olmec writing was 
Leo Wiener, in .Dr. Wiener, highlighted the fact that the writing on 
the Tuxtla statuette was identical to writing used by the Mande 
speaking people. 

In addition to the 
Mande speaking Olmec or Xi people influcing the Mayan languages they 
also influenced the Otomi language of Mexico. 
The Otomi language also shows affinity to the Mande languages. 
Otomi 		English 	Mande 
to 		that 		to 
min 		grab 		mina 
ka, ki 		cut 		te'ge' 
ku 		brother 	koro 
nee 		mouth 		ne 
sine 		'lip' 		sine 'sucking part of the mouth' 
ne 		language 	ne 
sui 		night 		su 
t?i 		son/daughter 	ti 
da 		eye 		do 
ta/ye 		man 		tye/ kye 

Sources:
Delafosse, M. (1899). "Vai leur langue et leur systeme d'ecriture", 
L'Anthropologie, 10. 

Delafosse,M. (1955). Dictionaire mandingue-francaise. Paris 

Delafosse, M. (1955). La langue mandingue et ses dialectes 
(malinke,bambara,dioula). Paris. 

Dieterlen, G. (1957). Essai sur le religion babara. Presses 
Universitaire de France. 

Winters, C.A. (1977). The influence of the Mande scripts on American 
ancient writing systems. Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamental Afrique 
Noire, t 39, SerB , Number 2, pp.405-431. 

Winters, C.A.(1979). Manding writing in the New World--Part 1, Journal 
of African Civilization, Number 1, pp.81-97. 

Winters,C.A. (December 1981/January 1982). Mexico's Black Heritage, 
The Black Collegian, 76-82. 

Zahn, D. (1974). The Bambara. Leiden: E.J. Brill.