African Languages/Langues Africaines

Volume 1 1975

Various Authors

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138099401
• eBook ISBN: 9781351597098
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Historical & Comparative Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Volume 1 of African Languages include articles originally published in 1975 and written in French and English on educational, literary, cultural, historical and socio-linguistic aspects of language in Africa, as well as descriptive and comparative studies. Among others there are chapters on African oral literature, the standardization of languages and education in Nigeria and a description of Shona spelling.

Reflections on African Oral Literature

B. W. ANDRZEJEWSKI and G. INNES

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS

The aim of this article is to present to the reader our tentative views on the study of African oral literature, a subject which is now slowly gaining its long overdue recognition in academic curricula. Our observations have been arrived at pragmatically without any preconceived theory: they result from extensive field research in Africa, from the study of published materials and from our endeavours to formulate our findings in lectures and seminars. We hope that our views will form a basis for discussion and will stimulate interest in the subject.

It seems to us that one of the important prerequisites in the study of oral literature of any society is to see it in its proper perspective as an art which uses as its medium language in the spoken form. Written literature also uses language as its medium but does so in a ‘solidified’, visual form. The medium is essentially the same, and there is substantial evidence that the difference between preliterate and literate languages is only superficial; in their deep structure there are obvious striking resemblances, which also appear to be common to all languages. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the adoption of literacy changes a pre- literate language in any of its essential characteristics, and the stylistic conventions which develop through long and extensive use of the written form are very much on the surface.

If we take into account what may be assumed to be the total time- scale of human history and prehistory, writing is a comparatively recent invention, the spread of which is still far from complete. Before the Greék, Roman and Arab conquests, writing was known only in a few countries, and even in the present century it is fully practised by not more than half the people of the world.

Writing has, of course, been one of the most vital factors in the development of many civilisations, including our own. It gives remarkably good service as a technology of storage, retrieval, transmission and dissemination of information, but there are no grounds to overrate it in the field of artistic expression at the expense of the purely oral form. There is a tendency among literate people to think that the striking advances in science, technology, philosophy, organisation and management which have created the modern world are, of necessity, parallelled by corresponding developments in the powers of artistic expression through language. The data concerning the oral literatures of various technologically less advanced peoples, marshalled together by such scholars as Chadwick and Chadwick (1932, 1936 and 1940), Finnegan (1970 and 1973) or Queneau (1955) show beyond any doubt that such judgments do not correspond to the facts. Even if we were to concede that the written literatures of modern industrial societies are on the whole more complex and sophisticated (an assumption which is by no means certain), the differences are not very substantial; they are certainly not of the same order as those between a canoe and a nuclear submarine, or between a blowpipe and a hydrogen bomb.

There are cogent reasons to believe that long before writing was invented, language was used not only for practical communication but as a medium of artistic expression. In many languages, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, Italian, French, English, Icelandic and Russian, written literatures were preceded by, and in fact arose from, highly cultivated oral poetry and prose. The Iliad and Odyssey show clear signs of their oral origins and were probably composed and recited in much the same way as the modern Yugoslav oral epics (see Lord, 1960).

Studies undertaken within the last hundred and fifty years have revealed a great wealth of oral literature all over the world; in Africa the amount is vast and even though much has disappeared under the stress of cultural change, there has also been a substantial accretion of new narratives and poems, as well as modifications of many old themes in new creative acts of performance. There is no doubt that a large part of the existing African oral literature has so far escaped the attention even of trained observers. A good example of this is the case of the heroic poetry of the Bahima of Uganda, which remained unknown to the outside world until the publication of Morris (1964). In his review of Morris in Africa, John Middleton commented on this state of affairs: ‘It seems astonishing that literature of this quality and quantity has not been studied and published by the many people who have worked in the Hima and Tutsi region. Dr. Morris has introduced us to a virtually unknown area of research.‘¹

The materials collected by researchers in Africa are scattered in books, many of which are out of print, and in periodicals not easily accessible; moreover, the titles of the books or articles sometimes do not offer any guidance to the reader interested in oral literature, since they are often mainly concerned with social anthropology, ethnography or linguistics. Fortunately, in recent years great advances have been made in the bibliography of oral literature in Africa, thanks to the labours of Bascom (1964), Finnegan (1970) and Gὃrὃg (1968a, 1968b, 1969, 1970 and 1972) in particular.

Throughout this article we use the term ‘oral literature’, since its usage has been firmly established by scholars whose contributions we regard as particularly significant in the discussions of the subject, such as Alexandre (1957), Chadwick and Chadwick (1932, 1936 and 1940), Queneau (1955), Wellek and Warren (1970) and Finnegan (1970). We prefer this term to ‘verbal art’ or ‘oral art’, proposed by various scholars (see Bascom, 1955), and it would, in fact, be conducive to clear thinking in our field if the term ‘literature’ itself were widened as suggested in Kunene (1971: p.XI), when he says: ‘We have reached a stage, in our study of African literature, when it is no longer polite, in academic circles, to raise an eyebrow when mention is made of the existence of literatures – and other arts – in the non-literate Africa of pre-missionary and pre-colonial days. This is, of course, partly due to the enlightened view held in our day, that verbal art is verbal art, whether it be written or oral. What to call this art becomes a technicality, and our enlightenment – nay, our liberation – leads us, in turn, to liberate the term ‘literature’ from its erstwhile over-literal definition, and by common consensus ‘literature’ comes to be used for all verbal art.'

Thus we would have the following terminological arrangement:

1. Literature

1.1. Oral literature

1. 2. Written literature

The oral/written dichotomy, however, is by no means clear-cut. While literature which is composed in written forms and reaches the public as a manuscript or a printed work can be truly described as written, those plays or film scenarios of which the written texts are not available to the public are in many ways reminiscent of oral compositions, especially if the actors take liberties with their scripts, as they often do.

The borderline case par excellence is, of course, the very fact of transcribing oral literature from tape recordings or dictation, when one particular performance or recital is permanently fixed in printed form.

In fact this is unavoidable when what is oral becomes the object of studies conducted through the medium of writing.

Some scholars speak of oral literature as ‘folk literature’, but this is misleading since in Europe, and especially in Great Britain, the study of folklore² has been mainly concerned with the survivals of traditional rural cultures which are of marginal social significance and are rapidly disappearing; thus it has been characterised by an antiquarian and preservationist outlook. In contrast, in many African societies today, oral literature still plays an important, often pivotal, role in current public life, comparable to that played by written literature and the press in industrialised countries. It does not merely consist of anonymous narratives and poems handed down by tradition, but is constantly reinforced both by variations on the old themes and by completely new compositions created by individual authors known to their public. This topical element is particularly prominent in sung poems, whose authors act as commentators on current events and critics of their own society; they can influence public opinion in important issues, as has been demonstrated in such publications as Andrzejewski and Galaal (1963), Andrzejewski and Lewis (1964), Johnson (1974), Leakey (1954), Legum (1963), Schachter (1958) and Whiteley (1968b).

There is certainly nothing antiquarian or socially marginal about the following poem from Guinea, sung by members of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain in 1954 to celebrate the de facto recognition by the French Government of the superior influence of the RDA leader, Sékou Touré, in the country in spite of his defeat in the elections for the French National Assembly.

The RDA is everywhere.

The saboteurs always said

That they are the chiefs.

But a man is a chief

If he is heard by the people.

Sékou says he is not a chief,

But today they wisely gave him power.

It is an undisputed chieftaincy.

People, here is the chieftaincy

Given in the name of all Guinea.

Here is our part of power.

For us wisely to assume.³

In any discussion of oral literature a serious complication results from the fact that most oral poetry is normally sung and not recited in plain voice. Should we then speak of such compositions as ‘songs’ rather than poems? This terminological problem has been raised by Rycroft (1962); Whiteley (1964a) even goes so far as to regard the ‘sung’ and ‘not sung’ dichotomy as more applicable to some African oral literatures than the usual division into poetry and prose (p. 2).

Essentially, whether we treat a particular oral composition as a sung poem or as a song with a poetic text is a matter of emphasis, and it is only natural that the student of oral literature as defined in this paper should concentrate on the verbal content rather than on the singing and the accompanying music, though, ideally, he ought to take both aspects into account. In actual publications of oral material this is sometimes done, but practical problems arise, since very few collectors are fami – liar with the techniques of notation required for transcribing non- European music, and this applies even more to the general reading public.

Thus the term ‘poem’ is perhaps preferable to ‘song’, which has limited connotations in English usage. The reader will in any case be familiar with s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Information for Contributors
• Notes on Contributors
• Language and Education Programme of the International African Institute
• Reflections on African Oral Literature: B.W. ANDRZEJEWSKI and G. INNES
• Narrative Style and the Consecutive: PATRICK R. BENNETT
• Langages secrets chez les Peul: R. P. DOMINIQUE NOYE
• ‘Pakao Book’: An Introduction to Pakao Expansion and Social Structure by Virtue of an Indigenous Manuscript: MATT SCHAFFER
• Jarawan Bantu: IAN MADDIESON and KAY WILLIAMSON
• La variabilité lexicale en bantou: A. COUPEZ
• Standardisation des langues et éducation au Nigéria: C.M. B. BRANN
• A Description of Shona Spelling: K. G. MKANGANWI
• Studies devoted to S.W. Koelle’s Polyglotta Africana: list of orthographic conventions
• Jukunoid Languages in the Polyglotta Africana - Part II, Djukữ: KIYOSHI SHIMIZU
• Bóde, Dg6:djin and Dó:ai in the Polyglotta Africana: RUSSELL G. SCHUH
• Kándin in the Polyglotta Africana: Two languages in one: RUSSELL G. SCHUH
• Programme des langues et de l’enseignement à l’lnstitut Africain International