orature
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɒɹətʃə/
ipa: /ˈɔː-/
ipa: /ˈɔɹət͡ʃɚ/
ipa: /ˈɔɹəˌt͡ʃʊ(ə)ɹ/
ipa: /-ˌt(j)ʊ-/
Forms: form: oratures
Etymology: Blend of oral + literature, said to have been coined by the Ugandan linguist and literary theorist Pio Zirimu (died 1977): see the 1972 quotation.
Senses: examples: text: It is because of this that Mr Pio Zirimu, a Ugandan linguist and literary critic, has coined the word ‘orature’.
ref: [1972, Wa Thiong’o [i.e., Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o], Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics, London; Ibadan, Nigeria: Heinemann, →OCLC, page 70:
text: The decolonization of the African mind and imaginagion is a job that must be done. It is a job that requires that our perceptions, our imaginations, and our literary devices be fertilized by the past literatures and oratures of the Pan-African world, and by the literatures and oratures of other lands besides Europe.
ref: 1978, Okike: An African Journal of New Writing, Enugu, Nigeria: Okike Magazine, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1:
text: As it were, Literature is often seen as a branch of Language Arts. Orature is a branch of Literature and hence inevitably falls within Language especially in as far as Language is basically oral. […] Inevitably, a good stock of the words within Orature are taken from written Literature. The text hopes to establish the interrelationship of these branches of Literature and through definition to show the specific application of these terms in Orature.
ref: 1990, Leteipa Ole Sunkuli, Simon Okumba Miruka, “Introduction”, in A Dictionary of Oral Literature, Nairobi, Kenya; Kampala, Uganda: East African Educational Publishers, published 2008, →ISBN, page ix:
text: In the chapter on Aidoo, I note that certain genres of the orature, particularly the dilemma tales, have unresolved endings which call for community response; this is evident in the ending of Song as well.
ref: 1992, Gay [Alden] Wilentz, Binding Cultures: Black Women Writers in Africa and the Diaspora (Blacks in the Diaspora), Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN:
text: There is much at work in this discussion of canon and orature. As a starting point, it is worth noting that the academic discipline of English developed in the colonial era, and it should be equally patent that Eurocentric attempts to define a canon since the 19th century have been "less a statement of the superiority of the Western tradition than a vital, active instrument of Western hegemony." Limiting consideration or admission to the canon to orature is a way of continuing colonialism. It once again keeps American Indians from entering the 20th century and denies to Native literary artists who choose other media any legitimate or "authentic" Native identity.
ref: 1997, Jace Weaver, “Native American Literatures and Communitism”, in That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 23:
text: Blue Marrow by the Cree poet Louise Bernice Halfe has an intriguing textual history. […] Of the changes made to the revised edition, the completely rewritten narrative frame is particularly interesting, especially given the relevance of opening and closing frames in Aboriginal oratures and in oral traditions around the world more generally[…].
ref: 2012, Mareike Neuhaus, “What’s in a Frame?: The Significance of Relational World Bundles in Louise Bernice Halfe’s Blue Marrow”, in Susan Gingell, Wendy Roy, editors, Listening Up, Writing Down, and Looking Beyond: Interfaces of the Oral, Written, and Visual, Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, →ISBN, page 221:
text: This book takes readers into the hitherto unexplored undercurrents of one of the so-called minor genres of African orature—riddles.
ref: 2015 April, Akíntúndé Akínyẹmí, “Introduction”, in Orature and Yorùbá Riddles, New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 1:
synonyms: oral literature
glosses: The oral equivalent of literature: a collection of traditional folk songs, stories, etc., that is communicated orally rather than in writing.