African oral tradition involves both the material that is spoken—the oral art—and the setting in which it is spoken. Although very old, oral tradition remains alive and meaningful for many Africans. Performers and audiences have adapted oral tradition, adding new content and making use of new communications tools.
What are some African oral traditions?
Folktales and proverbs are both examples of African oral traditions. A folktale is a tale passed down through a people group that is usually based on superstition. They are usually used to teach the morals and values of a culture.
What are examples of oral tradition?
The oral traditions and expressions domain encompasses an enormous variety of spoken forms including proverbs, riddles, tales, nursery rhymes, legends, myths, epic songs and poems, charms, prayers, chants, songs, dramatic performances and more.
What are oral traditions in African literature?
Oral traditions are messages that are transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages may be passed down through speech or song and may take the form of folktales and fables, epic histories and narrations, proverbs or sayings, and songs.
Why are oral traditions so important in Africa?
Why was the oral tradition important in Africa? … So the transmission of knowledge, history and experience in West Africa was mainly through the oral tradition and per- formance rather than on written texts. Oral traditions guide social and human morals, giving people a sense of place and purpose.
What is oral tradition in history?
Oral tradition is the cultural knowledge and information that has been passed down through speech from one generation to the next. Oral tradition can also refer to this mode of communication. Tradition means something that is handed down from generation to generation.
What is the oral tradition in West Africa?
Folktales West Africa’s oral tradition includes hundreds of old stories called folktales. West Africans used folktales to pass along their history and to teach young people morals and values. Many traditional folktales were brought to the Americas by West Africans who were sold into slavery beginning in the 1500s.
Why was oral tradition important in West Africa?
Oral tradition is important in west Africa because modern writers add to the oral legacy some have turned oral traditions to novels. … What functions did music serve in west Africa? Music communicated ideas and values also expressed feelings and celebrated important evens such as weddings,funerals and ceramonies.
What is oral tradition in Bible?
Oral gospel traditions is a theorized first stage in the formation of the written gospels as cultural information passed on from one generation to the next by word of mouth. These oral traditions included different types of stories about Jesus.
What are the three forms of oral tradition?
Usually, three types of oral folk art are distinguished: poetry (song creativity: ritual songs, historical songs and dumy (epic poems), lullabies), prose (tales, legends, narrations, verbal tales, jokes), drama (plays, scenes for folk theater, vertep (portable puppet theatre)).
What are the characteristics of the oral tradition?
Oral tradition gives a great deal of emphasis to the rhythm and repetition of the language. In fact, repetition and rhythm are two of the most important, interrelated characteristics of oral storytelling. Storytellers often repeat words, phrases, refrains, sounds, whole lines and even stanzas.
What is oral literature and examples?
Oral literature is a broad term which may include ritual texts, curative chants, epic poems, musical genres, folk tales, creation tales, songs, myths, spells, legends, proverbs, riddles, tongue-twisters, word games, recitations, life histories or historical narratives.
What are the African oral arts genres?
(1) Oral genres such us love songs, narrative stories, proverbs, cradlesongs, eulo- gies and hymns (poems of praise), epic verses and dirges are examples of Afri- can oral tradition. In addition to these, each African society has songs con- cerning wars, social conflicts, and funerary rites.
What are the advantages of oral tradition?
Oral tradition helps the historian to determine historical trends and events. Through the comparison of several oral traditions, the historian can eliminate biases, inconsistencies or inaccuracies in the written records they are using, to come out with an accurate historical account of the past.
What’s the relationship between oral tradition and written literature?
The oral tradition is the predecessor to written literature. In Western culture, examples of the oral tradition are the Iliad and the Odyssey by…
What is African oral storytelling?
African storytelling: A Communal Participatory Experience
It is a shared communal event where people congregate together, listening, and participating in accounts and stories of past deeds, beliefs, wisdom, counsel, morals, taboos, and myths (Ngugi wa Thiong’o 1982, Utley 2008).