Tradition to text

Writing local somali history in the travel narrative of Charles Guillain (1846-48)

Bibliographic Data

ID2173483
AuthorsLee Cassanelli, Lee V Cassanelli (California University of Pennsylvania, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume18
Issue1
Pages57-71
Publication date2006-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of African Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-6815 • E-ISSN: 1469-9346
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13696850600750319
OpenAlexW2023799458
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited12

The essay offers some observations on the interplay of orality and literacy in Somali society, using the mid-nineteenth century travel narrative of Charles Guillain. Because Guillain was among the earliest Europeans to record local Somali traditions, the sources of his information and the circumstances in which he gathered it warrant scrutiny. A close reading of Guillain suggests that he relied heavily on Arabic-speaking informants; that these informants provided him with written as well as oral sources on Somali history; and that Arabic literacy had already begun to spread from the urban centres of the coast to the Somali interior at the time of the French traveler's visit. We then speculate about the influence of written Arabic texts on the production and transmission of Somali ‘oral traditions’ in both Western and Islamic literary circles during the later nineteenth century

Art · Linguistics · Literacy · Literature · Narrative · Orality · Political science · Scrutiny · Sociology · Somali · Warrant · African history and culture analysis · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Philosophy

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