Aspects of the Aesthetics of Hausa Verbal Art

Author: Linda Hunter, Chaibou Elhadji Oumarou. Series edited by: Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig †.

Series: Verbal Art and Documentary Literature in African Languages Volume 9

2001
153 pp.
10 b/w photos, appendix
Text language(s): English, Hausa
Format: 160 x 240 mm
340 g
Paperback
€ 34.80

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Hausa belongs to the Chadic languages and is the most widely spoken language in West Africa. The present book focuses on verbal art in Hausa. Important aesthetic aspects, like rhythm, metaphor, tension and morality, are explored. The six chapters deal with those aspects, using abundant examples from narrative, poetics and film.

The figure of the trickster, which is introduced at the start of the book, shows what makes a text a piece of art and a storyteller an artist. The author explains that the trickster is the embodiment of verbal aesthetics. The characteristics of the protagonist are energy, a sharp mind and selfconsciousness which might even turn into arrogance. The protagonist has supernatural powers that are transferred to the artist and his story. In poetics bigness plays an important part, bigness that is not only achieved with pictures but also with the kind of presentation.

For example, the poet Alhaji Mamman Shata (Katsina) uses singers and drummers to accompany his performance, so that the appearence of this ensemble alone is impressive. The individual verses are structured by repetition and parallelism, which contributes to an overall strenghtening of the work. The rhythm betrays the real master of poetics: while the novice does not change the rhythm once chosen, the expert plays on the initially established regularity and creates aesthetic tension by alternating between denial and fulfillment of the expectations of his or her audience. The intended result is a balance between total symmetry and creative asymmetry and the creation of bigness without getting monstrous.

In our programme, further studies on Hausa culture and language, as well as on Berber languages in Niger have been published, see the following links:

Accompanying material:

• From Oral Literature to Video (ISBN 978-3-89645-579-6)
• Goethe-Gedichte (ISBN 978-3-89645-410-2)
• Hausa and the Chadic Language Family (ISBN 978-3-927620-36-0)
• Hausa Comparative Dictionary (ISBN 978-3-927620-53-7)
• Ideology in Practice (ISBN 978-3-927620-51-3)
• Narrator as Interpreter (ISBN 978-3-89645-102-6)

Cross-reference:

• Alltägliche Zauberei (ISBN 978-3-89645-310-5)
• Dialoge, Prosa und Liedtexte aus dem Lehrbuch der Hausa-Sprache (Audio-CD) (ISBN 978-3-89645-007-4)
• Lehrbuch der Hausa-Sprache (ISBN 978-3-89645-006-7)
• Lehrbuch der Hausa-Sprache mit Audio-CD (ISBN 978-3-89645-008-1)

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