Thursday, April 21, 2005
Term papers
Today was our first day presenting our term papers. It seems that people came up with some pretty interesting and varied topics -- from an Ongist analysis of cultures in The Lord of the Rings to a discussion of modern-day orality as books on tape.
My term paper is entitled, "Language Transcription and Cultural Identity". It's about the cultural transition when a society moves from being oral to being literate. Specifically, I examined the role of the alphabet used in the transcription of oral stories in Guinea. As would be expected with this transition, Guineans lose an aspect of their oral tradition as they become a literate culture. However, perhaps part of their cultural identity may be maintained if their stories are transcribed using an alphabet that matches their language. Below is the complete paper...
Language Transcription and Cultural Identity
My term paper is entitled, "Language Transcription and Cultural Identity". It's about the cultural transition when a society moves from being oral to being literate. Specifically, I examined the role of the alphabet used in the transcription of oral stories in Guinea. As would be expected with this transition, Guineans lose an aspect of their oral tradition as they become a literate culture. However, perhaps part of their cultural identity may be maintained if their stories are transcribed using an alphabet that matches their language. Below is the complete paper...
Language Transcription and Cultural Identity
Sunlight from the open shutters flood the room as I sit at a wobbly wooden desk in the back, observing a unique class learning their lessons. The students in this classroom are not elementary schoolchildren, as the setting would suggest. In fact, they are adults -- parents of the children that normally fill these rows of table-benches. These dedicated members of the parent organization have come for their weekly lesson in literacy, taught by a USAID-sponsored Guinean teacher, Mamadou Fofana. While Guinean schoolchildren are instructed in the country's official governmental language, French, Mr. Fofana teaches in Pulaar, the language spoken almost universally in this part of the country. Pulaar is a language rich in oral tradition and history, yet it has no real written form. The written Pulaar that these students are learning is based on the Roman alphabet -- a sort of forced fit to the puzzle of literacy in this largely oral culture. Sounds from the Peuhl language don't really match up with Roman letters, even after a few extras (what my Peace Corps trainers referred to as "D-bizarre and B-bizarre") have been added. But without an alphabet of their own, one that accurately represents the unique sounds of their mother tongue, Mr. Fofana and his students are almost obligated to use an existing alphabet -- either Roman or Arabic -- if Pulaar and the stories that its oral tradition carries are to survive in this increasingly literate world.
In another part of this West African nation, some members of the Malinké ethnic group of Haute-Guinée have begun to recognize the importance of an indigenous alphabet. In 1949, Souleymane Kanté created an alphabet specific to the Malinké (a.k.a. Mande) language. His aim was to increase literacy among his people as well to provide the means to accurately record Malinké oral history and traditional knowledge (Oyler Reinventing). Though it is unlikely that this alphabet, called N'ko, will ever be as widely used as the Roman and Arabic alphabets, this written form of Malinké has experienced an unexpected popularity, creating a unity among Malinké speakers that crosses political borders. As oral cultures make the transition from orality to literacy, indigenous alphabets such as N'ko may help to maintain cultural identity by allowing for a more accurate expression of native languages.
Like many of its neighbors, Guinea, a country situated on the western coast of the African continent, became a colony of France in the late1800s. French rule brought many changes to the West African nation -- political, technological, and cultural. Along with forced labor, and the exploitation of Guinea's rich natural resources, colonial rulers also imposed their language on the Guinean people (Hudgens and Trillo 479). French was deemed the official tongue in school and in the government. In an effort to "civilize" the Guinean people, colonial rulers aimed to replace local languages almost entirely with their own (Hudgens and Trillo 479).
While the imposed cultural dominance of the French may suggest that oral stories were lost and forgotten, this is not the case. As Emmanuel Obeichina explains, "The superimposition of alphabetic writing upon the oral cultures of Africa in the nineteenth century did not extinguish the oral traditions upon which African cultures and literatures had long been established." In fact, the result of this new, introduced literacy was that many oral stories were recorded and archived (Obeichina). But did transcripts in French, a language so far from their original tongue, really do the oral traditions of Guinea justice?
Souleymane Kanté thought not. In 1944, he took the critical statement of a Lebanese journalist, who claimed that African languages could never be written down and were thus inferior, as a challenge (Oyler Reinventing). With his creation of the N'ko alphabet, Kanté aimed to increase literacy among his Malinké counterparts, making Western knowledge available to them with translations in their own language. In addition, he sought to preserve Malinké cultural heritage, including oral stories and knowledge such as that from traditional healers. (Oyler Reinventing). His took inspiration from a Malinké proverb: "If one takes the roof of one villager's house to cover the house of another villager and it does not fit, then one must build a roof that will fit" (personal interview 59 in Oyler Reinventing).
After Guinea gained its independence in 1958, the new ruler, Sekou Touré, came to agree with Kanté that learning in maternal languages may be the most efficient way to teach the nation's people. However, in instituting his "National Language Program" from 1968-1984, whereby schoolchildren were taught in local languages rather than in French, Touré did not go so far as to adopt N'ko as a standard alphabet for the Malinké language (Oyler Cultural Rev.).
Despite this setback, Kanté continued to promote N'ko on his own. Even without government funding or support, he attracted a large following that continues to this day. As Dianne Oyler points out, "Adults and children voluntarily learned the alphabet because it became culturally important to them." (Cultural Rev.). Kanté and his supporters translated document after document into Malinké using N'ko, making such texts as the Qu'ran accessible to the Malinké lay audience. In addition, N'ko allowed Malinké scholars to transcribe traditional stories and oral knowledge using an alphabet consistent with their own language, thus making the written versions more accurate and complete (Oyler Cultural Rev.)
The widespread embrace of N'ko in Guinea and beyond created a sort of cultural unity among speakers of Malinké and related languages. As Deborah Oyler posits, "Being literate in N'ko has become an important part of the current cultural Mande revival because the possession of N'ko means the repossession of the area's cultural integrity." (Cultural Rev.).
The composition process of oral literature may be now be slightly different because of the introduction of this new culturally sensitive alphabet (Oyler Reinventing) and the influences of the chirographic world. However, N'Ko has preserved Malinké cultural heritage in a way that no other alphabet could. Oral stories and traditional knowledge can now be transcribed in a linguistically appropriate way, helping to maintain their accuracy and cultural nuances.
Few traditional African languages are as fortunate as Malinké to have an alphabet all their own. Regrettably, this means that local languages are being written as Roman or Arabic scripts. And as I witnessed that sunny morning in the classroom of adults, part of the language, and thus part of the culture, is lost even in these determined efforts to preserve it and educate its people. Alphabets like N'ko, which have been created with a specific native language in mind, mean that oral stories are translated more fully and accurately. It is with these truer representations of oral traditions that the cultural identities of oral peoples may be retained.
Works Cited
Works Cited
Hudgens, Jim, and Richard Trillo. West Africa: The Rough Guide. London: Rough Guides, Ltd, 1999.
Obiechina, Emmanuel. Narrative proverbs in the African novel. Research in African Literatures 64(4): 123-141. MSU Libraries. Genl Reference Ctr Gold. Montana State U Libraries, Bozeman, MT. 9 Apr. 2005 http://proxybz.lib.montana.edu:2082/itw/infomark
Oyler, Diane. Re-inventing oral tradition: the modern epic of Souleymane Kante. (transcribing African stories in Nko language). Research in African Literatures 33(i1): 75-95. MSU Libraries. Genl Reference Ctr Gold. Montana State U Libraries, Bozeman, MT. 9 Apr. 2005 http://proxybz.lib.montana.edu:2082/itw/infomark
Oyler, Dianne. A Cultural Revolution in Africa: The Role of Literacy in the Republic of Guinea since Independence. 10 Apr. 2005. <http://www.kanjamadi.com/n>
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
My sub-section of "Boundaries"
Polyphony
From the "Frames" section: in the Buryat story from the Lake Baikal region of Siberia, the hunter helps a Snake Ancestor out of a jam and chooses, as his reward, to gain knowledge of 70 languages. The Snake God acknowledges that he has made a wise choice (instead of choosing gold and riches), but warns him that, "The person who knows 70 languages does not find it easy to live."
A hunter knows the many languages of nature – the languages of the animals, smells, wind, weather, and seasons. But how can he listen to 70 languages all at once?
All of these languages are heard by oral peoples as a sort of polyphonic music (polyphony = Music with two or more independent melodic parts sounded together)
Examples:
From the "Frames" section: in the Buryat story from the Lake Baikal region of Siberia, the hunter helps a Snake Ancestor out of a jam and chooses, as his reward, to gain knowledge of 70 languages. The Snake God acknowledges that he has made a wise choice (instead of choosing gold and riches), but warns him that, "The person who knows 70 languages does not find it easy to live."
A hunter knows the many languages of nature – the languages of the animals, smells, wind, weather, and seasons. But how can he listen to 70 languages all at once?
All of these languages are heard by oral peoples as a sort of polyphonic music (polyphony = Music with two or more independent melodic parts sounded together)
Examples:
- Aborignal Elders can tell where animals are by dreaming about them. The elders go into a trance-like state and hear the "acoustic signature" of each animal (each animal comes in as a different sort of vibration)
- Aboriginees are so conscious of their surroundings that they hear nature/animals as a sort of musical, abstract pattern
- Aboriginal art is similarly filled with abstract patterns. The art is also composed by hearing vibrations. There is no recognizable form there in the first place, but often one is put in after (like a kangaroo or something) for the sake of tourists
- The Babak tribe of pygmies in Gabon practice the art of vocal projection. They use this vocal projection for echolocation in the jungle, hearing direction instead of seeing it.
- Tabla performers in India interpret feelings of energy as music – everything felt is composed as an "order of vibration"
- Tabla performance, as is any developed oral tradition, is really so complex that outsiders really can’t understand it
- The boundary or polyphony comes from the passage of one type of thinking to another. (Compare polyphonic thinking with the univocal thinking of chirographic cultures)
- Polyphonic thinking comes together in the unconscious and must be separated from normal thought
- Polyphonic thinking, in many traditions, all started with the singing of the animals
- This type of thinking allows for "an overall kinship with nature"
Sunday, April 03, 2005
More quiz info from Prof. Sexson
Prof. Sexson's email to the class with more quiz info:
337 students: Please add the following areas of concern from Ong and Yates as preparation for the test on Tuesday.
Ong, p. 145: Which gives us the firmest sense of "closure" : (a) print (b) writing (c) oral performance (d) film
Ong: p. 146: Who else, besides Salman Rushdie, felt the need to declaim the written novel in order to reclaim the feel for the old orla narrator's world?
Ong, 147. According to 2Corinthians, the spirit gives life, but the letter ________
Ong, p. 148: The "round" character is valued most by which tradition, the oral or the written?
Overwhelmingly, the symbols of Camillo's theatre tend to be from: (a) classical myth and the zodiad; (b) the Bible (c) the underworld images of the Middle Ages (d) Virgil's AeneidRead carefully the last paragraph of page 172 in Art of Memory and be prepared to answer questions about what a "Renaissance plan of the psyche" might mean.
Lull: be able to answer questions about Ramon Lull and his memory system as it relates to (a) neoplatonism (b) the abstract vs. images (c) movement (d) the Cabala (Kaballah). Google the term Cabala for more information.
337 students: Please add the following areas of concern from Ong and Yates as preparation for the test on Tuesday.
Ong, p. 145: Which gives us the firmest sense of "closure" : (a) print (b) writing (c) oral performance (d) film
Ong: p. 146: Who else, besides Salman Rushdie, felt the need to declaim the written novel in order to reclaim the feel for the old orla narrator's world?
Ong, 147. According to 2Corinthians, the spirit gives life, but the letter ________
Ong, p. 148: The "round" character is valued most by which tradition, the oral or the written?
Overwhelmingly, the symbols of Camillo's theatre tend to be from: (a) classical myth and the zodiad; (b) the Bible (c) the underworld images of the Middle Ages (d) Virgil's AeneidRead carefully the last paragraph of page 172 in Art of Memory and be prepared to answer questions about what a "Renaissance plan of the psyche" might mean.
Lull: be able to answer questions about Ramon Lull and his memory system as it relates to (a) neoplatonism (b) the abstract vs. images (c) movement (d) the Cabala (Kaballah). Google the term Cabala for more information.
For the Quiz...
Here are the exam questions, as we discussed in class on Thursday (some of this is copied from Jennie's website since I was too lazy to retype it all -- thanks, Jennie):
EPIC POEMS
1. What is it about Nikole that makes her every guy's wish? (She likes to fish)
2. Wayne, Wayne the brain, I si-i-ing of Wayne. (Kristi's poem)
3. What model did Tracy use for repetition? (Leviticus)
4. In her poem about Wesley Friske , Valerie swears the fish was "this big". What model did she use in composing her poem? (Odyssey)
5. What model did Wayne use in his poem, "Peace Corpus Kristi"? (Pantoum -- by the end, each line will have been repeated twice)
ONG, Ch. 4,5,6 and YATES, Ch. 6,7,8
6. What, according to Aristotle, is the difference between an epic and a tragedy?
(Epics- episodic, redundant, too copious. Tragedy- coherently unified, short and organic with a single focus. Aristotle would like the Reader's Digest Condensed versions of books.)
7. What is the reigning perfect piece of literature (if we believe Aristotle) for the 19th and 20th centuries?
(Detective Story. It has conventions similar in all versions: murder, 'who dunnit?', through Process Of Elimination we get the answer. Ong pg 144-148.)
8. Ong pg 139 discussion of Freytag's pyramid.
9. What word could one use to sum up Finnegans Wake?
(Either mememorme, or, remember)
10. Who is the mad grandmother who stutters?
(GGRAMAD, Grammar, Geometry, Rhetoric, Arithmatic, Music, Astronomy, Dialectic. The 7 liberal arts)
11. The words 'in medias res' means____?
("in the middle of things". Oral traditions begin in the middle contrary to Aristotle's ideal story with a beginning, a middle, and an end)
12. What epithet of Homer's which refers to women is used most often?
("of the lovely cheeks")
13. "Amathia" means_____?
(forgetting, to forget everything that is important. To be truly sinful is to be forgetful.)
14. According to Ong, how does one authenticate a written document if one has just entered a literate/written culture?
(attach a symbolic object such as a sword, pg 96 in Ong)
15. Ong discusses the issue of typographic space as in Easter Wings. The poem in this case takes on the shape of wings on the page. Ong page 126
16. Ong Chapter 4 is titled "Writing restructures Consciousness". What does that title mean? (Idea that when you enter a written culture your consciousness is (and must be) completely restructured.)
17. Corrections as Ong discusses them on pg 103.
(Oral performers do not admit mistakes or draw attention to them.)
18. Ong's discussion of Plato on pg 103.
(Plato wrote in dialogue form, one person talking to another in an attempt to simulate oral tradition somewhat, yet, the dialogues are written texts NOT transcriptions of actual discussions.)
19. Ong on pg 104 discusses that writing introduces introspectivity into our culture. With it, we became more interior and isolated. Also, on pg 106 Oral cultures are not hung up with spell checkers and dictionaries. Ong discusses the fantasy that language and the alphabet have to operate in ONE way only.
20. Ong pg 123... in the new world the book is a thing, not an utterance.
21. Ong pg 141: lengthy and climactic plot comes into being only with writing. pg 142: there is an incompatibility between the linear plot and oral memory, the thought of Epos is in remembered tradition. pg 144: ex/ the non-linear Marienbad. Print gives the need for closure.
EPIC POEMS
1. What is it about Nikole that makes her every guy's wish? (She likes to fish)
2. Wayne, Wayne the brain, I si-i-ing of Wayne. (Kristi's poem)
3. What model did Tracy use for repetition? (Leviticus)
4. In her poem about Wesley Friske , Valerie swears the fish was "this big". What model did she use in composing her poem? (Odyssey)
5. What model did Wayne use in his poem, "Peace Corpus Kristi"? (Pantoum -- by the end, each line will have been repeated twice)
ONG, Ch. 4,5,6 and YATES, Ch. 6,7,8
6. What, according to Aristotle, is the difference between an epic and a tragedy?
(Epics- episodic, redundant, too copious. Tragedy- coherently unified, short and organic with a single focus. Aristotle would like the Reader's Digest Condensed versions of books.)
7. What is the reigning perfect piece of literature (if we believe Aristotle) for the 19th and 20th centuries?
(Detective Story. It has conventions similar in all versions: murder, 'who dunnit?', through Process Of Elimination we get the answer. Ong pg 144-148.)
8. Ong pg 139 discussion of Freytag's pyramid.
9. What word could one use to sum up Finnegans Wake?
(Either mememorme, or, remember)
10. Who is the mad grandmother who stutters?
(GGRAMAD, Grammar, Geometry, Rhetoric, Arithmatic, Music, Astronomy, Dialectic. The 7 liberal arts)
11. The words 'in medias res' means____?
("in the middle of things". Oral traditions begin in the middle contrary to Aristotle's ideal story with a beginning, a middle, and an end)
12. What epithet of Homer's which refers to women is used most often?
("of the lovely cheeks")
13. "Amathia" means_____?
(forgetting, to forget everything that is important. To be truly sinful is to be forgetful.)
14. According to Ong, how does one authenticate a written document if one has just entered a literate/written culture?
(attach a symbolic object such as a sword, pg 96 in Ong)
15. Ong discusses the issue of typographic space as in Easter Wings. The poem in this case takes on the shape of wings on the page. Ong page 126
16. Ong Chapter 4 is titled "Writing restructures Consciousness". What does that title mean? (Idea that when you enter a written culture your consciousness is (and must be) completely restructured.)
17. Corrections as Ong discusses them on pg 103.
(Oral performers do not admit mistakes or draw attention to them.)
18. Ong's discussion of Plato on pg 103.
(Plato wrote in dialogue form, one person talking to another in an attempt to simulate oral tradition somewhat, yet, the dialogues are written texts NOT transcriptions of actual discussions.)
19. Ong on pg 104 discusses that writing introduces introspectivity into our culture. With it, we became more interior and isolated. Also, on pg 106 Oral cultures are not hung up with spell checkers and dictionaries. Ong discusses the fantasy that language and the alphabet have to operate in ONE way only.
20. Ong pg 123... in the new world the book is a thing, not an utterance.
21. Ong pg 141: lengthy and climactic plot comes into being only with writing. pg 142: there is an incompatibility between the linear plot and oral memory, the thought of Epos is in remembered tradition. pg 144: ex/ the non-linear Marienbad. Print gives the need for closure.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
March 24 and 29 Notes
We spent the class periods of March 24 and 29 listening to everyone recite the oral poems that they had composed for their "soul mate" in the the class. We heard everything from country music to Irish campfire tales to epic poems in the style of Homer. I was very impressed with the creativity that came out during these presentations -- everyone really did a fantastic job.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
March 22 Notes
"Re-membering Finnegan" article by Professor Sexson:
- don't read Finnegans Wake, perform it
- Finnegans Wake is layered, like hypertext
- The invention of the world wide web is leading to a renewed interest in The Wake
- "no apostrophe please" -- apostrophes are a mark of individual possession, but Finnegans Wake is a book of communal belonging, much as the stories of the oral tradition
- The Wake includes every nursery rhyme
- Thornton Wilder, playwright, is one of the only people who really knew what was going on in The Wake and recognized the genius of the book early on
- Hamlet's father to Hamlet: "Remember me"
- If Finnegans Wake could be summed up in a single word, it would be "remember" (mememorme)
Yates:
- moves from the practical notion of memory to the mystical
Thursday, March 10, 2005
March 10 Notes
The results of Stephanie's research on the 7 liberal arts, using the mnemonic image of an angry, stuttering grandmother:
Grammar
Geometry
Rhetoric
Arithmetic
Music
Astronomy
Dialectic (Logic)
Important Passages from Ong:
p.81: "By contrast with natural, oral speech, writing is completely artificial. There is no way to write 'naturally'. Oral speech is fully natural to human beings in the sense that every human being in every culture who is not physically or physiologically impaired learns to talk."
p. 82 -- artificiality is natural: "...artificiality is natural to human beings. Technology, properly interiorized, does not degrade human life but on the contrary enhances it."
Grammar
Geometry
Rhetoric
Arithmetic
Music
Astronomy
Dialectic (Logic)
Important Passages from Ong:
p.81: "By contrast with natural, oral speech, writing is completely artificial. There is no way to write 'naturally'. Oral speech is fully natural to human beings in the sense that every human being in every culture who is not physically or physiologically impaired learns to talk."
p. 82 -- artificiality is natural: "...artificiality is natural to human beings. Technology, properly interiorized, does not degrade human life but on the contrary enhances it."
- Writing v. Script -- there are many scripts, but only one alphabet. An alphabet mimics sound, not pictures
"The fact is that by using a mechanical contrivance, a violinist or an organist can express something poignantly human that cannot be expressed without the mechanical contrivance."
p. 89:
"Havelock (1976) believes that this crucial, more nearly total transformation of the word from sound to sight gave ancient Greek culture its intellectual ascendancy over other ancient cultures."
- The alphabet imposes a peculiar type of tyranny
- With the extension of power that the alphabet gives, we also lose something
p. 92 -- writing as magic:
"Writing is often regarded at first as an instrument of secret and magic power (Goody 1968b, p. 236). Traces of this early attitude toward writing can still show etymologically: the Middle English 'grammarye' or grammar, referring to book-learning, came to mean occult or magical lore, and through one Scottish dialectical form has emerged in our present English vocabulary as 'glamor' (spell-casting power)."
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
March 8, 2005
We spent much of this class period discussing the Salman Rushdie lecture. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the lecture, as I had another class during that time. However, the class discussion allowed me some insight into what Rushdie had to say:
- Oral Storyteller vs. Novelist: an Oral Storyteller is not as tied to the linear organization as the Novelist, who is bound by the restraints of literature.
- Novel arises with the rise of the middle class
- Stories v. Religion
- Recommended reading: Dickens
- Rushdie's presentation was said to be that of an expert storyteller -- he did not use the characteristically chirographic style of speaking from beginning to middle to end; however, he was able to tie everything together with amazing skill. In addition, he really catered to his audience, reading their reactions and keeping everyone's attention to the very end.
Also during this class period, we were given our next memory assignment, to compose an oral poem about a classmate. This assignment will be due after spring break. It should be 2-3 minutes in length, and memorized, or course. The poem is to include the following elements, drawn from the oral tradition:
- repetition
- epithet (perhaps about eyes and/or hair?)
- rhythm
- invocation of the muse -- something about singing in the first line
- birthplace
- a major achievement of the person
- poem must be agonistic in rhythm or narrative
