Title: Translating Orality to Literacy: Writing Both an Audible Text and an Oral Narrative Situation
Abstract:Scholars of African literature have trouble comparing the modem African novel with traditional oral narratives from Africa-and yet for students of the former, the comparison has become necessary.Next ...Scholars of African literature have trouble comparing the modem African novel with traditional oral narratives from Africa-and yet for students of the former, the comparison has become necessary.Next to the fact that the reader often does not understand the language used by an African storyteller (an issue that is a central problem, but one I cannot address here), it is the transcription to the written form that creates seemingly overwhelming obstacles for satisfactory comparison.During the almost 200 years since the publication of the Grimms brothers' Kinder-und Hau.smarchen in 1812, there has been little respect for the oral storyteller.Rarely are their names mentioned in books of folkstories.Moreover, editors found it necessary to make changes to the collected narratives.During the 19th century an editor would, in his ignorance of oral narrating, have varied recurring epithets such as "swift-footed Achilles,'' "square-affluent Uruk," or "honorable Rama."The written language avoids repetition, whereas the spoken language uses them. 1 The result was a written text that did • not depict what the storyteller had told, but rather that which the editors felt he ought to have told. 2 Today we know better, thanks in part to the thorou~ research by Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord on the Balkans. 31 A ve:zy illustralive example of this is found in Harold Scheub, 77te Xhosa "Ntsonu" (Oxford:Read More