If you have not seen Karen Babers I Could Speak Until Tomorrow, :Oriki, Women and the Past in a Yoruba Town you would find it useful. I get the impression its a fantastic book. This impressive Amazon review gives an idea of it.
Also very good in animal imagery is Babalola's work on Ijala, Yoruba hunter's poetry.
I particularly like the last stanza, and particularly the first two lines. The poet does not explicitly connect those animal referents with Falola, whether through a metaphor or a simile, but lets the third line do the job, as Falola becomes the monkey whom heights never make lose his breath, scaling with determination and dexterity the tree of knowledge, inhabiting its dizzying upper reaches, at ease in those elevated zones as a person at rest in his living room, as the epithets spiral back upwards, to the guinea fowl flying high in the air, the scholar soaring in the space configured by forms of knowledge, the expanse reshaped moment by moment through the forms of thought, practically infinite in its possibilities, the woodpecker tapping the tree with a rattling sound... does the sound of Fashola's scholarly tapping on the tree of knowledge not reach throughout the world, the tree that reaches from its roots in human exploration to the abyss of cosmic possibilities, ?
thanks
toyin
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 6:34 PM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu> wrote:
'I will seek to delineate and analyze the linguistic Deixis, Implicatures, Presuppositions, and Speech Acts in the oriki.'
... sounds pretty esoteric to me but them I am only a historian.
GE
________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Abdul Bangura [theai@earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 9:58 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Call For Assitance On My Final Essay On Mwalimu Toyin Falola
I am therefore calling upon our Yoruba Linguists Family Members to help me with a few deep structure aspects of the oriki. If you can help, please send me a private E-mail to theai@earthlink.net<mailto:theai@earthlink.net>. Thanks a heap in advance for your good help.
Call for Assistance on My Final Essay on Mwalimu Toyin Falola
Good Greetings USA-Africa Dialogue Family Members:
I pray that your semester is going very well. I also pray to Allah/God (SWT) to bless abundantly the many wonderful USA-Africa Dialogue Family Members who have been very generous in providing me with their assistance in writing two essays on Mwalimu Toyin Falola's work: (1) "Fractal Complexity in Mwalimu Toyin Falola's A Mouth Sweeter then Salt: A Pluridisciplinary Exploration of Cultural Power" and (2) "Religious Tolerance in Mwalimu Toyin Falola's Work: Intercultural Philosophical Correspondences in the Classic Allegory of The Parable of the Three Rings."
I now come to the Family Members to ask for assistance for my final essay on Mwalimu Falola's work, at least for now. The essay is tentatively titled "A Pragmatic Linguistic Analysis of Mwalimu Falola's Oriki (praise name) Ishola." I have copied the oriki below. In this lengthy essay I will seek to delineate and analyze the linguistic Deixis, Implicatures, Presuppositions, and Speech Acts in the oriki.
In Peace Always,
Abdul Karim Bangura/.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Isola
Isola, the scion of Agbo
He who dreams daily of wealth
He who thinks daily of the good things of life
Isola, the scion of Agbo
Isola, spring to your feet
The guinea fowl flies up as free as the air
The woodpecker taps the tree with a rattling sound
Isola, heights never make the monkey lose his breath
Isola, the scion of Agbo (Falola, 2005:163-164).
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