![famu-8500 A map showing routes from the slave trade from Africa to North America and Europe.](https://familyvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/famu-8500.png)
Most traditional West African societies, the sources of the vast majority of enslaved Africans in the Americas, had dynamic, vibrant, expressive cultures. The languages spoken were unusually animated, by most European standards. Peppered with proverbs, they were sources of moral and ethical training as well as simple vehicles of communication.