Classic Somali literature

[SomaliPhilosopher]

Chimera;942059 wrote:

Niyow, I thought I was flirting.

lool Chimera save your time bro flirting with safferz is hal bacaad lagu lisey. been there done that.

[Chimera]

I resent that.

[Wadani]

Chimera;942059 wrote:

Niyow, I thought I was flirting.

Goormaad market-ka ku soo noqotay. Adeer cidhiidhiga naga daa aanu kaa kalluumaysanee.

[Safferz]

Chimera;942047 wrote:

Umm...that's quite a stretch from what I originally said. I think you're confusing my reference to colonialist tactics with me trying to look for the latter's approval/recognition, when it was their methods I was emphasizing. The same methods post-independence Somali governments and scholars adopted and ran with. In this situation the motivation behind recovering old written literature is justified, as for more than 50 years this important body of work has been horrible neglected in favor of oral literature. If the roles were reversed, I would have been just as passionate about recovering and preserving our oral heritage.

You began this discussion by contesting my classification of Somali society as predominantly oral (a historical fact), and I was asking you what motivation is for calling that into question and emphasizing Somali writing. I am just trying to understand why you de-emphasize the centrality of orality to Somali society, and place written texts on par with oral literature in terms of cultural production when we just don't have the documentary evidence to support that assertion. Recovering new texts will not displace orality's historic primacy either.

 

Chimera;942047 wrote:

Written literature is extremely important for subjects such as history, which is what I'm interested in. One of the reasons we have so much material evidence of a rich history in the form of old cities, castles. mosques and art, but little info on the Somali dynasties and States that constructed them is because of the utter neglect towards our homegrown written sources.

 

Oral literature has helped little to shed light on these enigmatic historic episodes.

That's where you're wrong -- oral history is intrinsic to the field of African history, and a central research method precisely because of the absence/limited number of textual sources. Archaeology, historical linguistics, and oral history are all tools in the Africanist historian's craft, and all of these methods developed because of the challenges of reconstructing history in a continent where orality is dominant.

 

Chimera;942047 wrote:

Wouldn't it be a fallacy if I now insinuated that your motivation behind highlighting Somali women writers and poets is to create your own versions of Jane Austin, and the Bronte Sisters, when in fact you are simply emphasizing the importance of studying the Somali experience from a broader perspective?

What's your point?

[SomaliPhilosopher]

^^^

Chimera;942059 wrote:

Niyow, I thought I was flirting.

That is his point, he has made it clear. lool

[Chimera]

Wadani;942069 wrote:

Goormaad market-ka ku soo noqotay. Adeer cidhiidhiga naga daa aanu kaa kalluumaysanee.

Weligey waan joogay, sxb, haye waan ka leexaana, shukaansiga sii wad. Lakiin, ogoow inaad A-level kaga soo dhigtiid waaye, Safferz ha ku ciyaarin.

[Safferz]

*Blessed;942060 wrote:

Indeed. I've personal interest in this topic, can you recommend any books / links addressing Somali women's poetry for me?

Lidwien Kapteijns' Women's Voices in a Man's World is the only book out there on the topic, and there are several articles -- Amina Adan, "Women and Words: The Role of Women in Somali Oral Literature" (1996), and Zainab Mohamed Jama "Fighting To Be Heard: Somali Women's Poetry" (1991). Zainab Jama has another article published on the topic but I can't remember the title, and she did a master's thesis at SOAS in London on Somali women's poetry that I'm working on tracking down.

[Safferz]

Chimera;942076 wrote:

Weligey waan joogay, sxb, haye waan ka leexaana, shukaansiga sii wad. Lakiin, ogoow inaad A-level kaga soo dhigtiid waaye, Safferz ha ku ciyaarin.

lool you guys! You can stay Chimera

[Safferz]

Blessed, I forgot to add that Hawa Jibril (AUN)'s daughter transcribed, translated and published her mother's poetry as a book called Saa Waxay Tiri (And Then She Said): The Poetry and Times of Hawa Jibril.

[Chimera]

Safferz;942072 wrote:

You began this discussion by contesting my classification of Somali society as predominantly oral (a historical fact)

Actually I had no such intention, I just pointed out the general historical reality, which was the majority of the world was illiterate up until the 1950s, hence we could classify the world as predominantly oral (a historical fact, outside of China)

 

It was a genuine case of trivia.

 

, and I was asking you what motivation is for calling that into question and emphasizing Somali writing.

The attention oral literature is given is at the detriment of our written heritage, that's a good motivation by any standard.

 

I am just trying to understand why you de-emphasize the centrality of orality to Somali society, and place written texts on par with oral

literature in terms of cultural production when

we just don't have the documentary evidence to support that assertion

.

Why is that? Tell me this, and you will have the answer to your own question.

 

Recovering new texts will not displace orality's historic primacy either.

It would in subjects such as history, economics and language,or should I say anthropology. A single manuscript called the Futuh-Al-Habash eclipses anything you can recover in oral literature when it comes to an important historic era that shaped us a people.

 

That's where you're wrong -- oral history is intrinsic to the field of African history, and a central research method precisely because of the absence/limited number of textual sources.

Textual sources that are stored in private libraries that remain unaccessible, of course oral history will by default have its importance increased on that fact alone. However once that textual sources are actually given a proper study, then the study of Somali history becomes much more illuminated and accurate, and the current dependence on oral history becomes less.

 

Archaeology, historical linguistics, and oral history are all tools in the Africanist historian's craft, and all of these methods developed because of the challenges of reconstructing history in a continent where orality is dominant.

As I said before, much of the world was oral, there were a few spots on the globe that practiced mass-literacy such as the Chinese dynasties and the Caliphates of the Islamic Golden Age. This is why you have nationalities and ethnic scholars from around the world going through sources not in their native language to get a better understanding of their own histories, despite the availability of local oral history.

 

In Somalia's case, there are many things we could gain from giving written sources as much attention as oral literature. While we have foreign sources mentioning Somali sultans, they always omit the names of their wives and daughters. A native scholar however would include them, the same way a oral historian does.

 

What's your point?

Our interests in history is not necessarily always based on trying to prove something to the "West", in fact for a people with a small population like ours, living in such a hostile region bordering multiple dangerous empire building waterways, I think our ancestors did quite well, though their modern descendants are a disappointment.

[SomaliPhilosopher]

Blessed Check out https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:hfufGhpYKyAJ:journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/9i/8_jama.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiZcLfpThfJ3LELTrLKOKm9S2euQvnqNMaZv9h9qSShGvp6cRf41H527jvAqwQsoQWmKnANmbmr2YyfI4-2Qu2288hdIz0T2FZDmHWoTmJZpWMjGqTJDEVV7oz3AUJrFb9BkDk7&sig=AHIEtbRP9ebIvYhNoOiD9Yvqf7Mz6AloqA

 

one of the authors safferz mentioned- jama

[SomaliPhilosopher]

tix from halimo kurtin

 

Hashii markay noo dhashoo caano lagal habcaday,

Haweenku se wali hamuuntoodii ay quabeen

 

beautiful and very relevant

[Safferz]

SomaliPhilosopher;942087 wrote:

Blessed Check out

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:hfufGhpYKyAJ:journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/9i/8_jama.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiZcLfpThfJ3LELTrLKOKm9S2euQvnqNMaZv9h9qSShGvp6cRf41H527jvAqwQsoQWmKnANmbmr2YyfI4-2Qu2288hdIz0T2FZDmHWoTmJZpWMjGqTJDEVV7oz3AUJrFb9BkDk7&sig=AHIEtbRP9ebIvYhNoOiD9Yvqf7Mz6AloqA

 

one of the authors safferz mentioned- jama

Thanks SP, that's the second article I was trying to remember.

 

Chimera, let's kill the argument, it's not a debate either of us seems willing to concede.

[Chimera]

Safferz;942093 wrote:

Thanks SP, that's the second article I was trying to remember.

 

Chimera, let's kill the argument, it's not a debate either of us seems willing to concede.

[Safferz]

Chimera;942099 wrote: