Oral literature

Necat Çetin "Siediti e ascolta. Racconti brevi della tradizione orale kurda." Traduzione italiana dall'originale in Kurmanji
Siediti e ascolta. È il titolo del volume di Necat Çetin, ricercatore kurdo, tradotto dal Kurmanji, la principale lingua kurda, e rielaborato servendosi del Turco come lingua-ponte, grazie a un lungo e paziente lavoro di ricostruzione a quattro mani insieme a Laura Anania, reso possibile dal decisivo sostegno finanziario di Antrocom Onlus e dalla sensibilità dell'Editore Pentàgora. Necat ha percorso per più di dieci anni i villaggi dell'Anatolia sud-orientale, nell'ambito di un progetto di ricerca collettiva sulle tradizioni culturali più profonde del popolo kurdo, una ricerca che allora assumeva un carattere rivoluzionario. In questo modo era riuscito a raccogliere una quantità notevole di testimonianze di ogni genere: annotazioni, registrazioni, fotografie, interviste, disegni... e racconti. Migliaia e migliaia di documenti, che sarebbero stati poi rielaborati in previsione di una pubblicazione. Ma in quegli anni non era per niente facile occuparsi di questi argomenti; parte del materiale venne confiscato, parte fu bruciato dalla madre di Necat, che conviveva ormai da troppo tempo con il timore che l'impegno dei suoi figli continuasse a portarli ad affrontare la durezza delle repressione. Si è salvato soltanto un fascicolo di racconti della tradizione orale, prestato a un amico e non restituito, finito casualmente tra le mani di un editore di Istanbul, che coraggiosamente nel 2003 decise di pubblicarlo con il titolo del racconto più lungo, Pixço, andando incontro a una conseguente condanna (in quegli anni in Turchia era vietato pubblicare in lingua kurda). Ma l'edizione originale è stata pubblicata senza la revisione del testo da parte dell'Autore e si trattava soltanto di appunti destinati a un approfondimento. Questa edizione italiana, nella quale a ogni racconto segue la sua versione originale in Kurmanji, rende ragione di questo prezioso lavoro di grande interesse antropologico, completando il lavoro almeno su quanto si è salvato. Dal corpo dei racconti emerge intatto la gestione della vita del villaggio, uno stile di vita, una collocazione spazio-culturale genuina, scevra da condizionamenti legati alla religione del macro-contesto con il quale la cultura kurda ha dovuto misurarsi da secoli. Emerge chiaramente la matrice laica, fortemente terrena, che la caratterizza, legata ad una forma religiosa originaria ben diversa dalle religioni rivelate, che, benché duramente messa alla prova nel corso dei secoli, talvolta riaffiora. İl testo è arricchito da una mappa indicativa realizzata espressamente da una disegnatrice e da diverse riproduzioni di opere di due artisti kurdi, tra i quali Halise Çetin,la sorella di Necat. Necat Çetin, SIEDITI E ASCOLTA: Racconti brevi della tradizione orale curda Pentàgora, giugno 2015 - 220 pagine, 12 euro Per ordinare il libro: https://www.delfinoenrileeditori.com/librerie/  - 019.811800

Una raccolta di favole ascoltate da Şoreş Baran, un ragazzo kurdo di Turchia, direttamente dalla voce degli anziani dei villaggi e trascritte dopo il lavoro nei campi per la raccolta del tabacco.
Un repertorio da cui emerge un' umanità varia e arguta, appartenente a una cultura contadina molto ricca, tramandata oralmente, ancora oggi.
Arricchiscono il testo i disegni di Zennun Karakaş, giovane kurdo rifugiato  per anni a Roma, recentemente trasferitosi in Germania.
La traduzione di ogni racconto è affiancata dal testo originale in kurdo kurmanci.
Il libretto è indirizzato alle scuole primarie, allievi e insegnanti, e si presta a diversi livelli di lettura e di approfondimento.
La pubblicazione di questo libretto fa parte di un grande progetto, https://www.docentisenzafrontiere.org/it/cosa-facciamo/territori/progetti-comunitari/siria-alan-s-rainbow-un-luogo-di-studio-e-di-vita-per-gli-orfani-di-kobane.html , voluto e finanziato dall'Associazione Docenti Senza Frontiere, info@docentisenzafrontiere.org , con il contributo della Provincia di Trento.

Olaus Sirmas poems: Comparative analysis of the poetics and structure

In 1673, the university professor and assessor of the Swedish Antikvitetskollegium Johannes Schefferus published a Latin book Lapponia, which includes two poems given by Olaus Sirma, a Saami born in Sodankylä, student at the University of Uppsala, and later a clergyman in Enontekiö. The character of the poems by Sirma has been disputed: were these poems individual artistic creations or examples of an indigenous folklore genre of this later assimilated Saami group? Was Sirma documenting his own oral tradition, using and modifying it for literary purposes or creating something new?

Combining perspectives from linguistics, folklore studies, and ethnomusicology, the article compares the results of poetic analyse with 17th century learned poetics and with later oral poetics in nearby cultures (Saami, Finnish, Swedish, Russian). Two poems seem to represent two different song genres or styles. The first one, based on rhymed couplets, may be affected by the will to show this poetic scheme, popular in both oral and literary poetry of the time, applies also to Saami poetry, but the poems does not exhibit most essential characteristics and ideals of 17th century literary poetry. The structural logic of the second song, based on versatile verse structure (ABC), is closer e.g. to later Skolt Sami leuʹdd-songs than any literary patterns.

In this paper I offer a comparative assessment of the ox-hide purchase narrative (tale type AT 2400, ATU 927C*; Motif K185.1) in Native North America. Drawing on my own fieldwork and the beginnings of a historic-geographic treatment, I consider the story from the perspective of work on historical consciousness in Native North America and treat it as an opportunity to establish a link between folkloristics and other fields concerned with interpreting the legacies of colonialism.

The importance of rain and rain animals in the lore of San-and Khoe-speaking peoples in southern Africa is well-known, especially via studies of rock paintings. The figure of the 'Rain Bull', !Khwa, in the nineteenth century oral narratives of the /Xam is therefore of considerable interest. Interpreting this being, especially via recent interviews with Khoisan descendants, presents various difficulties. Conclusions depend significantly on the methods employed by analysts of the texts, and pre-existing ideas about the nature of San religious belief and practice. This paper outlines a different reading of and approach to understanding the figure of !Khwa to that presented by De Prada-Samper (2018) and highlights the need for a more rigorous approach to the materials, especially with regard to methods and assessments of historical continuities.

Almeida Garrett (1799-1854) is still considered one of the key names of Portuguese Romanticism and of 19th-century liberalism; the two are deeply associated in his political, civic, literary and cultural biography. “Poet-citizen-dandy”, his stance (resembling that of Chateaubriand and Mme de Staël) embodied a strong interaction between his literary writing, his intervention in public life and his personal relationships.

Nb: electronic version of an entry published in the Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, ed. by Joep Leerssen for the Project SPIN- Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms, an with a printed version in the Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, ed. by Joep Leerssen for the Amsterdam University Press, vol. 1 (for more about this book see: <http://en.aup.nl/books/9789462981188-encyclopedia-of-romantic-nationalism-in-europe.html>).
The author has also writen the entries “Commemorations, festivals: Portuguese”, “Text Editions (Portuguese)”, “Almeida Garrett” and “Education: Portuguese” (the later with Sérgio Gomes) for the same encyclopedia.

The main aim of this paper is to show in which role and how the characters of the old men can appear. This research was conducted on the material of Viennese edition of Vuk`s collections (SNP II-IV), the State Edition (SNP VI-IX), as well as records of Vuk and his associates from the so called manuscript edition (SNPr II-IV). 1 Тhe epic stylization оf an old hero was monitored in a diachronic perspective, in consultation of Bogišić`s (Bogišić, 2003) and Pantić`s (Pantić, 2002) collections, and the Erlangen manuscript (ER). The comparative-typological and structural-semiotic methods were functionalized for the purpose of this research. The research shows that the old man in epic emerges in two ways-from a typical to atypical-either as an honorable elder, supreme authority and wise man, i.e. "old wolf", or as power-hungry weakling, with inappropriate materialistic or sexual appetites-on the negative characterization scale. The different mythical, ritual and social elements, assimilated in the notion of community about a certain historical epoch where the characters are situated in and the procedures of epic stylization build some of the most recognizable figures in Serbian oral poetic gallery which reveal full complexity and "layering structure" of the epic characters of the old men.
Кључне речи: епска песма, лик, старац, тип, индивидуализација, мит, обред, статус Апстракт: Основна намера овога рада јесте да покаже у оквиру којих делокруга и на који начин се реализују ликови епских стараца. Грађу на којој је истраживање спроведено чини лајпцишко издање Вукових збирки (СНП II-1 Овај узорак грађе може се сматрати репрезентативним, премда не и свеобухватним (будући да неке територије на којима је епика постојала у то време нису равноправно, а друге нису уопште заступљене). Овај недостатак надомештен је с једне стране тиме што су њему прикључене Богишићева (Богишић, 2003) и Пантићева збирка (Пантић, 2002), као Ерлангенски рукопис (ЕР), чиме је омогућен и дијахрони увид у грађу, док је, с друге стране, увођење Милутиновићеве Пјеваније (Милутиновић, 1990) као контролног узорка имало за циљ да верификује одређене појаве, уочене на Вуковим записима или у старијој грађи. 385

In 1896 Lidzbarski published a Sureth (Christian NorthEastern Neo-Aramaic) version of the Dispute of the Months, as preserved in the ms. Berlin 134 (Sachau 336). The text is here republished with an English translation and compared with its Classical Syriac Vorlage. For the purpose of comparison, a provisional critical edition of the East-Syriac text in the classical language has been prepared on the basis of five manuscripts. The East-Syriac (and Sureth) version contains fewer references to Biblical and Christian culture than the West-Syriac text, as published by Brock in 1985, and appears to be a folk ballad with a few Christian motifs rather than a liturgical hymn. The text was attributed to the late 13th-century poet Khamis bar Qardaḥe and has been preserved in a couple of manuscript witnesses of the second part of his Diwān.

ABSTRACT. This paper concludes the study of the folktales included in Ibn ʿĀṣim’s Ḥadāʾiq al-azāhir. That work of Andalusian literature includes abundant folkloric materials which make it indispensable for studying world and Spanish folklore. The tales will be identified with types of international folklore, which they provide with new versions. Also, the focus will be on the written and oral development of each of these tales in the Arab world and Spain, from the Middle Ages until today.

RESUMEN. Con este trabajo se completa el estudio de los cuentos folclóricos presentes en los Ḥadāʾiq al-azāhir de Ibn ʿĀṣim. Esta obra de la literatura andalusí contiene abundantes materiales folclóricos, que la convierten en un repertorio imprescindible en el estudio del folclore mundial y español. Identificaremos sus relatos con los tipos del folclore internacional, a los que en cuantiosas ocasiones aportan nuevas variantes. Nuestra atención estará enfocada en el desarrollo escrito y oral de cada uno de estos cuentos en el mundo árabe y España desde la Edad Media hasta nuestros días.

It is well-known that Icelandic saga prose contains formulas, but very little thorough research has been devoted to them so far. The attempts to analyze them precisely as formulas have usually taken their starting point in the so-called Oral-Formulaic Theory and the theories of Milman Parry and Albert Lord. But in the Oral-Formulaic Theory the formula as a phenomenon was closely connected with the metrical form and the rapidity of the improvized oral performance in verse, two features without relevance to the prose genre of Íslendingasögur, which stands in focus for the present article. This article instead connects with modern linguistic theory on formulaic language and to folkloristic theory on oral tradition to establish a theoretical basis for the analysis if the formulas in the saga prose. The article examines the function, meaning and form of the formulas in the Íslendingasögur. A selection of saga formulas is more closely discussed from several perspectives. The article argues in conclusion that the formula use in the Íslendingasögur is of fundamental importance for the stylistic/literary character of the genre and that a lack of understanding of the saga formulas several times has led to misinterpretations of central saga episodes

This is an obituary of Professor Michael Wessels (1958-2018), author of Bushman Letters (2010) and other important studies of historical Bushman (San) oral literature. His work is excepcional in that, among other things, he used the tools of literary criticism no analyze narratives that belong to an oral tradition. Bushman Letters focuses on the /xam narratives in the Bleek-Lloyd Collection, held at the University of Cape Town

Fokus penelitian ini adalah (1) bahasa Indonesia sebagai simpul mati bangsa, (2) sekilas tentang MEA, dan (3) strategi Bahasa Indonesia menuju Bahasa MEA.
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan: (1) bahasa Indonesia sebagai simpul mati bangsa,  (2) sekilas tentang MEA, dan (3) strategi Bahasa Indonesia menuju Bahasa MEA.
Teknik pengumpulan data dalam penelitian ini menggunakan: wawancara dan studi kepustakaan.
Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan dengan mencintai dan melestarikan Bahasa Indonesia. Maka bangsa Indonesia dapat bersatu.

When and how do we recognize the meaning of epic poetry? Turkic peoples of South Siberia, the Shor and the Khakas, are famous for their recitations and song of classic epic tales, but even indigenous researchers are divided on the meaning of the sung portions. This essay takes seriously these sung portions of epic performances to argue that they constitute meaningful poetic texts in their own right. Examples draw on years of field study in South Siberia, and well as an experiment conducted by the author with the help of the Shor storyteller Vladimir Tannagashev (1932-2007), in which epics were performed a cappella, that is, without throat-singing or musical accompaniment.

Folklore and intangible cultural heritage are two controversial terms. According to the theoretical affiliation of the authors who use them and to the ideological purposes of the institutions which validate them, they may designate very different and even opposed cultural items and processes. This paper aims to reflect on some of the divergent social dynamics which I believe characterise and distinguish folklore and intangible cultural heritage.

Versão, revista e aumentada, do livro Aspectos do Cancioneiro Infantil e Juvenil de Transmissão Oral (Lisboa, Apenas Livros, 2007). Inclui uma amostra de 258 textos que recolhi em vários concelhos do distrito do Porto (Amarante, Penafiel, Paredes e Vila Nova de Gaia), entre 1996 e 2007, junto de crianças e jovens entre os 4 e os 16 anos.

ÍNDICE

I – Premissas: conceito e terminologia.
II – Textos, co-textos, contextos.
III – Classificação.
IV – Funções.
V – Notas finais.
VI – Antologia.
VII – Bibliografia (para além da citada).