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INTRODUCTION TO THE QAFAR ORAL LITERATURE [Abstract ID: 0501-09]
The notion of the oral literature, or orature, has never been debated among the native scholars, because they didn’t feel necessity to do so, although there are some traditionally literary genres they can distinguish and classify each one by its name; but not define them yet by one word. The few non-native scholars, who have contributed to the study of the oral literature of the Afars, have done separately on the literary genres either on oral narratives and proverbs, either on the songs. But no one has tried an inclusive essay on the matter by employing the word literature for the oral art, and trying to find a word in the indigenous vocabularies. So, can we speak about the existence of literature where writing has no place, or doesn’t exist, particularly in the case of Afar people, like the other Cushitic neighbors well-known for oral tradition? Is there any indigenous word which could define it, as well as its genres are well distinguished? The present paper based on my personal knowledge as a native will propose to define the afar oral literature by the most proper word, chosen among the usual vocabularies, and to insight the typology of its genres that are recognized as literary expressions, which are either traditional or classical. And it will also attempt some technical words of analyzing the rhetoric in Qafar’af, in a perspective of emphasizing it in its own context.