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Imusnawen
Amusnaw (pl. Imusnawen) is a Kabyle term in traditional Kabyle society that designates the repository of oral knowledge of a village or a tribe. The word comes from the root of the verb ''ssen'' (to know). The ''imusnawen'' constitute a chain that transmit traditional knowledge between generations: not only oral literature, like asefru or sayings and aphorisms, but also history, the genealogy of the most prestigious families, customary law etc. Becoming an ''amusnaw'' occurred by election and a two state apprenticeship: first by embodiment of the role and building skills in their environment through verbal commerce and contest, and next by training and assessment from a master poet. Mouloud Mammeri, a famous figure of Berber culture, was the son of the last ''amusnaw'' of At Yenni, and has left a detailed description in his volume of ancient Kabyle poems. Mammeri's translation of ''amusnaw'' is 'wisdom' rather than 'knowledge'. According to his analysis, the members of tradit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kabyle People
The Kabyle people (, or ''Leqbayel'' or ''Iqbayliyen'', , ) are a Berbers, Berber ethnic group indigenous to Kabylia in the north of Algeria, spread across the Atlas Mountains, east of Algiers. They represent the largest Berber population of Algeria and the second largest in North Africa. Many of the Kabyles have emigrated from Algeria, influenced by factors such as the Algerian Civil War, cultural repression by the central Algerian government, and overall industrial decline. Their diaspora has resulted in Kabyle people living in numerous countries. Large populations of Kabyle people settled in France and, to a lesser extent, Canada (mainly Québec) and United States. The Kabyle people speak Kabyle language, Kabyle, a Berber language. Since the Berber Spring of 1980, they have been at the forefront of the fight for the Languages of Algeria, official recognition of Berber languages in Algeria. Etymology The word 'Kabyle' (Kabyle: Iqbayliyen) is an exonym, and a distortion of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kabyle Language
Kabyle () or Kabylian (; native name: ''Taqbaylit'' ) is a Berber languages, Berber language spoken by the Kabyle people in the north and northeast of Algeria. It is spoken primarily in Kabylia Estimating the number of Berber speakers is very difficult and figures are often contested. A 2004 estimate was that 9.4% of the Algerian population spoke Kabyle. The number of diaspora speakers has been estimated at one million. Classification Kabyle is one of the Northern Berber languages, a branch of the Berber languages, Berber language family within Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic. It is believed to have broken off very early from proto-Berber language, Proto-Berber, although after the Zenaga language did so. According to Maarten Kossmann, Kossmann (2020), Kabyle appears to be quite distinct. In several respects, it shares certain linguistic innovations with the Atlas languages, western Moroccan dialect group. However, it is unclear whether these similarities result from an earl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Oral Repositories
Oral repositories are people who have been trusted with mentally recording information constituting oral tradition within a society. They serve an important role in oral cultures and illiterate societies as repositories of their culture's traditional knowledge, values, and morals. Roles People termed as "oral repositories" have been likened to "walking libraries", leading to the saying "whenever an old man dies, it is as though a library were burning down". Roles vary, and can be titular, formal or informal, some professional specialists such as the Caucasian '' ashik'', or more commonly amateurs and knowledgeable generalists such as the '' bulaam'' of the Kuba people. Types of information held by oral repositories includes lineages, oral law, mythology, oral literature and oral poetry (of which oral history is often entwined), folk songs and aural tradition, and traditional knowledge. In many indigenous societies, such as Native American and San, these roles are ful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oral Literature
Oral literature, orature, or folk literature is a genre of literature that is spoken or sung in contrast to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as anthropologists have used varying descriptions for oral literature or folk literature. A broad conceptualization refers to it as literature characterized by oral transmission and the absence of any fixed form. It includes the stories, legends, and history passed through generations in a spoken form. Background Pre-literate societies, by definition, have no written literature, but may possess rich and varied oral traditions—such as folk epics, folk narratives (including fairy tales and fables), folk drama, proverbs and folksongs—that effectively constitute an oral literature. Even when these are collected and published by scholars such as folklorists and paremiographers, the result is still often referred to as "oral literature". The different genr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asefru
The asefru (pl. isefra) is a poetic composition of the Berber literature of Kabylia. It is a sort of short sonnet with a ternary structure, formed by three strophes of three verses each. The rhymes follow the pattern AAB AAB AAB, while the length of the three verses of each strophe is 7 + 5 + 7 syllables. It is a relatively new meter compared to those from traditional poetry, probably born around the middle of the 19th century, and the poet who has indissolubly linked his name to this type of composition is Si Mohand. The asefru is usually read or recited but can also be sung, and numerous examples of isefra sung are present in the repertoire of different Kabyle singers, such as Taos Amrouche Marie-Louise-Taos Amrouche (March 1913 – 2 April 1976) was an Algerian writer and singer. In 1947, she became the first Algerian woman to publish a novel. Biography She was born in Tunis, Tunisia, into a family of Kabyle people, Kabyle ... (for example ''Vaste est la prison'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aphorism
An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tradition from generation to generation. The concept is generally distinct from those of an adage, brocard, chiasmus, epigram, maxim (legal maxim, legal or maxim (philosophy), philosophical), principle, proverb, and saying; although some of these concepts could be construed as types of aphorism. Often aphorisms are distinguished from other short sayings by the need for interpretation to make sense of them. In ''A Theory of the Aphorism'', Andrew Hui defined an aphorism as "a short saying that requires interpretation". A famous example is: History The word was first used in the ''Aphorisms'' of Hippocrates, a long series of propositions concerning the symptoms and diagnosis of disease and the art of healing and medicine. The often-c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Customary Law
A legal custom is the established pattern of behavior within a particular social setting. A claim can be carried out in defense of "what has always been done and accepted by law". Customary law (also, consuetudinary or unofficial law) exists where: #a certain legal practice is observed and #the relevant actors consider it to be an opinion of law or necessity ('' opinio juris''). Most customary laws deal with ''standards of the community'' that have been long-established in a given locale. However, the term can also apply to areas of international law where certain standards have been nearly universal in their acceptance as correct bases of action – for example, laws against piracy or slavery (see '' hostis humani generis''). In many, though not all instances, customary laws will have supportive court rulings and case law that have evolved over time to give additional weight to their rule as law and also to demonstrate the trajectory of evolution (if any) in the judicial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mouloud Mammeri
Mouloud Mammeri () was an Algerian writer, anthropologist and linguist. Biography He was born on December 28, 1917, in Ait Yenni, in Tizi Ouzou Province, French Algeria. He attended a primary school in his native village, then emigrated to Morocco to live in his uncle's house in Rabat. Four years later he returned to Algiers and pursued his studies at Bugeaud College, before continuing his education at Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, intending to join the École Normale Supérieure. Conscripted in 1939 and discharged in October 1940, Mammeri registered at the Faculté des Lettres d’ Alger. Re-conscripted in 1942 after the American landing, he participated in the allied campaigns in France, Italy, and Germany. After the end of the war, he received his degree as a professor of arts and returned to Algeria in September 1947. He taught in Médéa, and then in Ben Aknoun, and published his first novel, ''The Forgotten Hill ''in 1952. He was forced to leave Algiers in 1957 bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berber Culture
Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connections are identified by their usage of Berber languages, most of them mutually unintelligible, which are part of the Afroasiatic language family. They are indigenous to the Maghreb region of North Africa, where they live in scattered communities across parts of Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and to a lesser extent Tunisia, Mauritania, northern Mali and northern Niger. Smaller Berber communities are also found in Burkina Faso and Egypt's Siwa Oasis. Descended from Stone Age tribes of North Africa, accounts of the Imazighen were first mentioned in Ancient Egyptian writings. From about 2000 BC, Berber languages spread westward from the Nile Valley across the northern Sahara into the Maghreb. A series of Berber peoples such as the Mauri, Masaesyli, Massyli, Musulamii, Gaetuli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beni Yenni
Beni Yenni (; ) is a town and commune in Tizi Ouzou Province in northern Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger .... References Communes of Tizi Ouzou Province {{TiziOuzou-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Si Mohand
Si Mohand ou-Mhand n At Hmadouch, also known as Si Mhand, (Icerɛiwen, Tizi Rached, about 1848 - Ain El Hammam, 28 December 1905) was a widely known Berber poet from Kabylie in Algeria. Called the "Kabyle Verlaine" by French scholars, his works were translated by fellow Algerians Mouloud Feraoun, Mouloud Mammeri and Boulifa and one of the translations was ''Les poémes de Si-Mohand'' (1960). Due to difference of information and sources, some details of his life are not clearly known. Biography Born into an important wealthy family and educated in traditional religious teaching (hence the title Si, "Doctor", which is added to his name), his life was marked by the strong repression which followed the Mokrani Revolt against French colonial rule in 1871. He lost everything. His father was sentenced to death, his paternal uncle was sent into exile in New Caledonia, and his family's possessions were forfeited. Unlike his mother and his brothers, who emigrated to Tunis, he preferred to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oral Tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985), reported statements from present generation which "specifies that the message must be oral statements spoken, sung or called out on musical instruments only"; "There must be transmission by word of mouth over at least a generation". He points out, "Our definition is a working definition for the use of historians. Sociologists, linguists or scholars of the verbal arts propose their own, which in, e.g., sociology, stresses common knowledge. In linguistics, features that distinguish the language from common dialogue (linguists), and in the verbal arts features of form and content that define art (folklorists)."Ki-Zerbo, Joseph: "Methodology and African Pre-history", 1990, ''UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
