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Griot Records
A griot (; ; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: , ''djeli'' or ''djéli'' in French spelling); Serer: kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition and is often seen as a leader due to their position as an advisor to royal personages. As a result of the former of these two functions, they are sometimes called bards. They also act as mediators in disputes. Occurrence and naming Many griots today live in many parts of West Africa and are present among the Mande peoples (Mandinka or Malinké, Bambara, Soninke etc.), Fulɓe ( Fula), Hausa, Songhai, Tukulóor, Wolof, Serer, Unesco. Regional Office for Education in Africa, ''Educafrica, Numéro 11'', (ed. Unesco, Regional Office for Education in Africa, 1984), p. 110Hale, Thomas Albert, ''Griots and Griottes: Masters of Words and Music'', Indiana University Press (1998), p. 176, Mossi, Dagomba, Maur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hausa People
The Hausa ( autonyms for singular: Bahaushe ( m), Bahaushiya ( f); plural: Hausawa and general: Hausa; exonyms: Ausa; Ajami: ) are the largest native ethnic group in Africa. They speak the Hausa language, which is the second most spoken language after Arabic in the Afro-Asiatic language family. The Hausa are a diverse but culturally homogeneous people based primarily in the Sahelian and the sparse savanna areas of southern Niger and northern Nigeria respectively, numbering around 83 million people with significant indigenized populations in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Chad, Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Togo, Ghana, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Senegal and the Gambia. Predominantly Hausa-speaking communities are scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route north and east traversing the Sahara, with an especially large population in and around the town of Agadez. Other Hausa have also moved to large coastal cities in the re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoruba Language
Yoruba (, ; Yor. '; Ajami script, Ajami: ) is a language spoken in West Africa, primarily in South West (Nigeria), Southwestern Middle Belt, and Central Nigeria. It is spoken by the Ethnic group, ethnic Yoruba people. The number of Yoruba speakers is roughly 50 million, plus about 2 million second-language speakers. As a pluricentric language, it is primarily spoken in a dialectal area spanning Nigeria and Benin with smaller migrated communities in Côte d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. Yoruba vocabulary is also used in the Afro-Brazilian religion known as Candomblé, in the Caribbean religion of Santería in the form of the liturgical Lucumí language and various Afro-American religions of North America. Practitioners of these religions in the Americas no longer speak or understand the Yorùbá language, rather they use remnants of Yorùbá language for singing songs that for them are shrouded in mystery. Usage of a lexicon of Yorùbá words and short phrases during ritua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hassaniya Arabic
Hassānīya ( ar, حسانية '; also known as , , , , and ''Maure'') is a variety of Maghrebi Arabic spoken by Mauritanian Arabs and the Sahrawi. It was spoken by the Beni Ḥassān Bedouin tribes, who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and Morocco's southeastern and Western Sahara between the 15th and 17th centuries. Hassānīya Arabic was the language spoken in the pre-modern region around Chinguetti. The language has completely replaced the Berber languages that were originally spoken in this region. Although clearly a western dialect, Hassānīya is relatively distant from other Maghrebi variants of Arabic. Its geographical location exposed it to influence from Zenaga-Berber and Wolof. There are several dialects of Hassānīya, which differ primarily phonetically. Today, Hassānīya is spoken in Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Senegal and the Western Sahara. Phonology The phonological system of Hassānīya is both very innovative and ver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fula Language
Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stretches across some 18 countries in West and Central Africa. Along with other related languages such as Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Atlantic geographic group within Niger–Congo, and more specifically to the Senegambian branch. Unlike most Niger-Congo languages, Fula does not have tones. It is spoken as a first language by the Fula people ("Fulani", ff, Fulɓe, link=no) from the Senegambia region and Guinea to Cameroon, Nigeria, and Sudan and by related groups such as the Toucouleur people in the Senegal River Valley. It is also spoken as a second language by various peoples in the region, such as the Kirdi of northern Cameroon and northeastern Nigeria. Nomenclature Several names are applied to the language, just as to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portuguese Language
Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, while having co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as " Lusophone" (). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology in its lexicon. With approximately 250 million native speakers and 24 million L2 (second language) speakers, Portuguese has approximately 274 million total speakers. It is usually listed as the sixth-most spoken language, the third-most sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Language
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien) largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents, most of which are members of the ''Organisation internationale de la Francophonie'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauritania
Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية الموريتانية), is a sovereign country in West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and the 28th-largest in the world, and 90% of its territory is situated in the Sahara. Most of its population of 4.4 million lives in the temperate south of the country, with roughly one-third concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast. The country's name derives from the ancient Berber kingdom of Mauretania, located in North Africa within the ancient Maghreb. Berbers occupied what is now Mauritania ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dagomba People
The Dagombas are a Gur ethnic group of northern Ghana, numbering more than 2.3 million people. They inhabit the Northern Region of Ghana in the sparse savanna region below the sahelian belt, known as the Sudan. They speak the Dagbani language which belongs to the Mole-Dagbani sub-group of the Gur languages. There are around 1 to 2 million speakers of Dagbani. The Dagomba are historically related to the Mossi people. The Mohi/Mossi now have their homeland in central present-day Burkina Faso. The homeland of the Dagomba is called Dagbon and covers about 20,000 km2 in area. Naa Gbewaa is regarded as the founder of Dagbon. Dagomba are one of the ethnic groups with a sophisticated oral tradition woven around drums and other musical instruments. Thus, most of their history, until quite recently, has been passed down via oral tradition with drummers as professional griots. According to oral tradition, the political history of Dagbon has its origin in the life story of a legend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mossi People
Mossi may refer to: *Mossi people *Mossi language *Mossi Kingdoms * the Mossi, a Burkinabe variant of the Dongola horse *Mossi (given name) *Mossi (surname) See also *Mossie (other) *Mossy (other) Mossy may refer to: Places *Mossy, West Virginia, unincorporated community in Fayette County, West Virginia, United States Given names *Mossy Cade (born 1961), former professional American football player *Mossy Lawler (born 1980), rugby union pl ... * Mozzi (other) {{disambiguation, surname ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It has 193 member states and 12 associate members, as well as partners in the non-governmental, intergovernmental and private sector. Headquartered at the World Heritage Centre in Paris, France, UNESCO has 53 regional field offices and 199 national commissions that facilitate its global mandate. UNESCO was founded in 1945 as the successor to the League of Nations's International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.English summary). Its constitution establishes the agency's goals, governing structure, and operating framework. UNESCO's founding mission, which was shaped by the Second World War, is to advance peace, sustainable development and human rights by facilitating collaboration and dialogue among nations. It pursues this objective t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serer People
The Serer people are a West African ethnoreligious group."Charisma and Ethnicity in Political Context: A Case Study in the Establishment of a Senegalese Religious Clientele" Leonardo A. Villalón, Journal of the , Vol. 63, No. 1 (1993), p. 95, on behalf of the International African Institute They are the third-largest ethnic group in Senegal, making up 15% of the Senegalese pop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
