African

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Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populouscontinent. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent

islands, it covers six percent of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4 percent of the total land area.ignatius joseph estroga



People


Egyptians Arabs Moroccans European Phoenicians JewsIndians

• Africa contains a mosaic of peoples, languages and cultures.

• Africans identify first with their tribes or nation, then they avoid or compete with those who speak of different language or culture.


Folklore and religion


Languages

• Afroasiatic languages• Nilo-Saharan languages• Niger–Congo languages

• Indo-Europeanignatius joseph estroga

Education



• Africa has a long and complex literary history.

• Deciding when African literature first appears, or when the tradition begins, are questions

that are ultimately unanswerable.

• Determining which literary forms originate in Africa and which are borrowed from

elsewhere are issues over which literary critics continue to debate.


• Oral literatures have flourished in Africa for many centuries and take a variety of forms including, in addition to the folk tales found in this lesson, myths, epics, funeral dirges, praise poems, and proverbs.




• Dirges, chanted during funeral

ceremonies, lament the departed,

praise his/her memory, and ask for

his/her protection.

• Praise poems are "epithets “ called

out in reference to an object (a

person, a town, an animal, a

deceased , and so on) in celebration

of its outstanding qualities and

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Prominent chiefs might appoint a professional performer to compile their praise poems and perform them on special occasions. Professional performers of praise poems might also travel from place to place and perform for families or individuals for alms or a small fee

Praise poems have a variety of

applications and functions.

Professional groups often create

poems exclusive to them.


Most well known of the African oral forms is

probably the proverb, a short witty or

ironic statement, metaphorical in its formulation, that aims to communicate a response to a particular situation, to offer advice, or to be persuasive.

-often employed as a rhetorical device, presenting its speaker as the holder of cultural knowledge or authority.

-it creates that African culture each time it is spoken and used to make sense of immediate problems and occasions.


REFERENCES

• "African Women Writers: Toward a Literary History." A History of Twentieth-Century African Literatures.

• Harrow, Kenneth. Thresholds of Change in African Literature: The Emergence of a Tradition.

• African Literatures: An Introduction.

• Zell, Hans, M. "Publishing in Africa: The Crises and the Challenge."

• A History of Twentieth-Century African Literatures.

• www.afroasianliterature.wordpress.com


African

Documents

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african culture

century african literatures

african oral forms

praise poemsand

oral literatures