The Languages of Urban Africa consists of a series of case studies that address four main themes. The first is the history of African urban languages. The second set focus on theoretical issues in the study of African urban languages, exploring the outcomes of intense multilingualism and also the ways in which urban dwellers form their speech communities. The volume then moves on to explore the relationship between language and identity in the urban setting. The final two case studies in the volume address the evolution of urban languages in Africa. This rich set of chapters examine languages and speech communities in ten geographically diverse African urban centres, covering almost all regions of the continent. Half involve Francophone cities, the other half, Anglophone. This exciting volume shows us what the study of urban African languages can tell us about language and about African societies in general. It is essential reading for upper level undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in sociolinguistics, especially those interested in the language of Africa.
Over the last 35 years, practice of Santeria and the Yoruba religion in the United States has grown as the result of African American search for identity and large scale Cuban migration. While the ritual and belief systems of Santeria and the Yoruba Religion are essentially the same, the practical religion of both differs. Both center around questions of group identity and the concerns of their practitioners. This book focuses on the changes in the Yoruba Practical Religion of the Converted in the African American community. Through insighful attention to rich ethnographic detail, the author explores the beliefs, practices, and rituals of this religious community.
A book of prayer for Orisha (Yoruba dieties) written in English by a priestess of Obatala. This book will be useful to anyone interested in African spirituality.
One of the first steps in our spiritual journey is the relationship with Egun. We setup an ancestor alter and faithfully make offerings and discuss our daily happenings, wishes, needs, and dreams. All too often through lack of knowledge from our elders, neglect or lack of communication the door to ancestor communication stays shut. Not because of anything we have done, but what we have not done.We need to open the door into that previously forbidden realm. Know and trust, without fear, a communication with our ancestors... not just a one way monologue, but that two way dialogue, that lets you have a vehicle for knowledge, healing, and informed advice from our long forgotten ancestors.Baba Falokun provides the tools necessary to kick that door open; by using Oriki we can open a door to a level of communication not previously available.As we follow the guide and chant the Oriki for the ancestors to mount the medium, we begin to hear the voices of the past repeating the words with you. Welcome them, the words are thousands of years old and still used today.This is a tool that opens the portals of another dimension. Use them, our ancestors walk with us; don't lose the opportunity to receive a communication. These are a must for anyone doing or wishing to communicate with the other side.
A guide to the history, beliefs, rituals, and culture of a religious tradition that, despite persecution, suppression, and its own secretive nature, has close to a million adherents in the United States alone. Santería is a religion with Afro-Cuban roots, rising out of the cultural clash between the Yoruba people of West Africa and the Spanish Catholics who brought them to the Americas as slaves. With the exile of thousands of Cubans after Castro's revolution in 1959, Santería came to the United States, where it is gradually coming to be recognized as a legitimate faith tradition, one about which most people in America's mainstream know very little. De La Torre explains the worldview, myths, rituals, and history of Santería, and discusses what role the religion typically plays in the life of its practitioners as well as the cultural influence it continues to exert in Latin American communities today.--From publisher description.
In revising his 1985 doctoral dissertation for the New School for Social Research, Gregory has not attempted to incorporate scholarship since then on the Afro-Cuban religion, but has added important recent works to his bibliography. He sets out to understand why practitioners of Santera in New York found its beliefs and practices socially, culturally, and at times politically meaningful in their everyday lives. He traces its vitality to its role as a sociohistorical site of resistance to the political and cultural domination of slavery and more recently, to racially and ethnically based forms of social subordination, both in the US and in Cuba.
The first modern pedagogically oriented reference to the grammar of standard Basque (Euskara Batua), in two parts: Part 1 presents detailed grammar lessons, Part 2 glosses and supplementary materials. A pre-Indo-European language with no known relatives, the Basque language survives in the Basque region of Spain and France, with about half a million native or near-native speakers. The local diversity of the language, with no fewer than eight different dialects, has hindered the development of a supradialectical written tradition. Twentieth-century Basque scholars recognized that the introduction of a standard language for written communication was vital for the continued existence of Basque, and the Euskaltzaindia, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language, has supervised the creation of a new shared form, Euskara Batua (“Unified Basque”), to be used as a written standard. Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar is the first modern pedagogically oriented reference grammar in English for this new standard language. It guides the reader progressively through 33 chapters covering topics that range from orthography and pronunciation to case endings, verb forms, ergativity, and the antipassive and allocutive forms. In addition to information on the various dialects, the book includes thousands of example sentences drawn from Basque literature and extensive vocabulary listings. Most chapters conclude with exercises. Part 1 covers the grammar and Part 2 contains glosses for the example sentences and indexes. This book was prepared for publication after the author's death by Virginia de Rijk-Chan with Armand De Coene and Fleur Veraart and the assistance of linguists at Cornell University, Leiden University, and the University of the Basque Country. The glosses and supplementary material in Part 2 were prepared by Armand De Coene.
Tsilhqút’ín, also known as Chilcotin, is a northern Athabaskan language spoken by the people of the Chilco River (Tsilhqóx) in Interior British Columbia. Until now, the literature on Tsilhqút’ín contained very little description of the language. With forty-seven consonants and six vowels plus tone, the phonological system is notoriously complex. This book is the first comprehensive grammar of Tsilhqút’ín. It covers all aspects of linguistic structure – phonology, morphology, and syntax – including negation and questions. Also included are three annotated texts. The product of decades of work by linguist Eung-Do Cook, this book makes an important contribution to the ongoing documentation of Athabaskan languages.
Gumbo Ya Ya, Aurielle Marie’s stunning debut, is a cauldron of hearty poems exploring race, gender, desire, and violence in the lives of Black gxrls, soaring against the backdrop of a contemporary South. These poems are loud, risky, and unapologetically rooted in the glory of Black gxrlhood. The collection opens with a heartrending indictment of injustice. What follows is a striking reimagination of the world, one where no Black gxrl dies “by the barrel of the law” or “for loving another Black gxrl.” Part familial archival, part map of Black resistance, Gumbo Ya Ya catalogs the wide gamut of Black life at its intersections, with punching cultural commentary and a poetic voice that holds tenderness and sharpness in tandem. It asks us to chew upon both the rich meat and the tough gristle, and in doing so we walk away more whole than we began and thoroughly satisfied. Excerpt from “transhistorical for the x in my gxrls” What I mean is, this country is mine if only because from my mouth I spit its loam and unspun a noose. I won’t exploit the only metaphor they gave us willingly, and instead hunt for other vicious things to make a muse. I earned this country. I owe it nothing. With my infinite, infant hand, I manipulated a death sentence into a compound-complex one. from the umbilical, I bled a life worth writing down and in a century’s time, there will be another word created still for the weeping magic of this same story: a Black gxrl’s first breath.