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Igawen
A griot (; ; Manding: or (in N'Ko: , or in French spelling); also spelt Djali; or / ; ) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. Griots are masters of communicating stories and history orally, which is an African tradition. Instead of writing history books, oral historians tell stories of the past that they have memorized. Sometimes there are families of historians, and the oral histories are passed down from one generation to the next. Telling a story out loud allows the speaker to use poetic and musical conventions that entertain an audience. This has contributed to many oral histories surviving for hundreds of years without being written down. Through their storytelling, griots preserve and pass on the values of a tribe or people, such as the Senegalese, who are Muslims. The Wolof people in Senegal, many of whom cannot read or write, depend on griots to learn about their culture. The griot is a repository of oral trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soninke Language
The Soninke language (Soninke: ''Sooninkanxanne'', ), also known as Serakhulle or Azer or Maraka, is a Mande languages, Mande language spoken by the Soninke people of West Africa. The language has an estimated 2.3 million speakers, primarily located in Mali and Mauritania, and also (in order of numerical importance of the communities) in Senegal, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea. It enjoys the status of a national language in Mauritania, Mali, Senegal and The Gambia. Phonology Consonants Vowels Long vowels are written double: ''aa'', ''ee'', ''ii'', ''oo'', ''uu''. Dialects Dialects of Soninke include the Berber languages, Berber-inflected Azer dialect. References External links PanAfriL10n page on Soninke [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malinke Empire
The Mali Empire ( Manding: ''Mandé''Ki-Zerbo, Joseph: ''UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. IV, Abridged Edition: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century'', p. 57. University of California Press, 1997. or ''Manden Duguba''; ) was an empire in West Africa from 1226 to 1610. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita () and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa (Musa Keita). At its peak, Mali was the largest empire in West Africa, widely influencing the culture of the region through the spread of its language, laws, and customs. The empire began as a small Mandinka kingdom at the upper reaches of the Niger River, centered around the Manding region. It began to develop during the 11th and 12th centuries as the Ghana Empire, or Wagadu, declined and trade epicentres shifted southward. The history of the Mali Empire before the 13th century is unclear, as there are conflicting and imprecise accounts by both Arab chroniclers and oral trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Bebey
Francis Bebey (, 15 July 1929 in Douala, Cameroon – 28 May 2001 in Paris, France) was a Cameroonian musicologist, writer, composer, and broadcaster. Early life Francis Bebey was born in Douala, Cameroon, on July 15, 1929. Bebey attended college in Douala, where he studied mathematics, before studying broadcasting at the University of Paris. He moved to the United States and continued to study broadcasting at New York University. In 1957, Bebey moved to Ghana at the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, and took a job as a broadcaster. Music career In the early 1960s, Bebey moved to France and started work in the arts, establishing himself as a musician, sculptor, and writer. He was also the first African musician to use electric keyboards and programmable drum machines which he set alongside off the traditional African instruments. His most popular novel was ''Agatha Moudio's Son''. While working at UNESCO from 1961 to 1974, he was able to become the head of the music department in Paris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caste
A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (endogamy), follow lifestyles often linked to a particular occupation, hold a ritual status observed within a hierarchy, and interact with others based on cultural notions of social exclusion, exclusion, with certain castes considered as either more pure or more polluted than others. The term "caste" is also applied to morphological groupings in eusocial insects such as ants, bees, and termites#caste, termites. The paradigmatic ethnographic example of caste is the division of India's Hinduism, Hindu society into rigid social groups. Its roots lie in South Asia's ancient history and it still exists; however, the economic significance of the caste system in India seems to be declining as a result of urbanisation and affirmative action programs. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endogamous
Endogamy is the cultural practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting any from outside of the group or belief structure as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. Its opposite, exogamy, describes the social norm of marriage outside of the group. Endogamy is common in many cultures and ethnic groups. Several religious and ethnic religious groups are traditionally more endogamous, although sometimes mating outside of the group occurs with the added dimension of requiring marital religious conversion. This permits an exogamous marriage, as the convert, by accepting the partner's religion, becomes accepted within the endogamous group. Endogamy may result in a higher rate of recessive gene–linked genetic disorders. Adherence Endogamy can encourage sectarianism and serves as a form of self-segregation. For instance, a community resists integration or completely merging with the surrounding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda
Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda (born 30 October 1957) is a filmmaker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Career Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda was born on 30 October 1957 in Kinshasa. He studied sociology, history and philosophy in Brussels, Belgium. He took courses in filmmaking in France, the United Kingdom and the United States. From 1979 to 1981 he was an instructor in the French Cultural Centre in Lubumbashi. In 1991 he made his first documentary, ''Dix mille ans de cinéma'', and in 1993 released a second documentary on Thomas Sankara. His first fiction film was '' Le Damier – Papa national oyé!'' (The Draughtsmen Clash) made in 1996. He was a member of the board of short films at CNC in France from 1999 to 2001. Balufu was a member of the Input 2000 (International Public Television) in Cape Town, South Africa and a member of CreaTV, Unesco's program for televisions in the South between 2000 and 2003. Bakupa-Kanyinda is a writer and a poet as well as a film director. New York ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2008 for ''Tales of the Out and the Gone''. Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been described by scholars as constituting defining texts for African-American culture. Baraka's career spanned nearly 52 years, and his themes range from Black liberation to White racism. His notable poems include "The Music: Reflection on Jazz and Blues", "The Book of Monk", and "New Music, New Poetry", works that draw on topics from the worlds of society, music, and literature. Baraka's poetry and writing have attracted both high praise and condemnation. In the African-American community, some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bakari Sumano
Bakari Sumano (1935 – July 21, 2003) was head of Malian association of griots (wandering poet-musicians) from 1994 until his death. Biography Bakari Sumano left school in 1955 to become a mechanic's apprentice, but continued to take night classes in history and typing. In 1957, he received a position at the Social Security Office. He went on a career at the National Institute of Social Providence, where he became the principal inspector and regional director of Kayes, Gao, Mopti, Koulikoro, and Bamako before his 1997 retirement. Along with his administrative career, Sumano also assumed the functions of a griot. In 1994, he became head of the Association of Griots of Mali and dedicated himself to restoring the griots (who he preferred to call ''jeli'') to a prominent role in Malian life. He began courtesy visits to foreign heads of state visiting Mali and won recognition for the Association of Griots in the protocol list of the Republic in many official ceremonies. He als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mali Empire
The Mali Empire (Manding languages, Manding: ''Mandé''Ki-Zerbo, Joseph: ''UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. IV, Abridged Edition: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century'', p. 57. University of California Press, 1997. or ''Manden Duguba''; ) was an empire in West Africa from 1226 to 1610. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita () and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa (Musa Keita). At its peak, Mali was the largest empire in West Africa, widely influencing the culture of the region through the spread of Manding languages, its language, laws, and customs. The empire began as a small Mandinka people, Mandinka kingdom at the upper reaches of the Niger River, centered around the Manding region. It began to develop during the 11th and 12th centuries as the Ghana Empire, or Wagadu, declined and trade epicentres shifted southward. The Pre-imperial Mali, history of the Mali Empire before the 13th century is unclear, as there are conflict ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Root Word
A root (also known as a root word or radical) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family (this root is then called the base word), which carries aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Content words in nearly all languages contain, and may consist only of, root morphemes. However, sometimes the term "root" is also used to describe the word without its inflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place. For example, ''chatters'' has the inflectional root or lemma ''chatter'', but the lexical root ''chat''. Inflectional roots are often called stems. A root, or a root morpheme, in the stricter sense, is a mono-morphemic stem. The traditional definition allows roots to be either free morphemes or bound morphem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
