Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs

Fasholé-Luke, Edward W.; Dickson, Kwesi A.; Ellingworth, Paul

doi:10.2307/1594863

Cited by 9 publications

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“…Mbiti's generalization that all Africans lack the idea of an abstract future was met with repeated critique from within Africa. To a large extent it was the generalization that provoked counter-arguments (see Fasholé-Luke, 1969;English and Kalumba, 1996). Critics complained that Mbiti was overgeneralizing a specific East African example and they provided cases from other African languages as counter-evidence (Aja, 1994;Gyekye, 1996;Kazeem 2016).…”

Section: The Temptation Of Generalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropological Linguistics

2024

Culture and Language Use

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This collection presents new research on key topics in anthropological linguistics, with a focus on African languages. While Africanist linguists have long been concerned with sociocultural aspects of language structure and use, no comprehensive volume dedicated to the anthropological linguistics of Africa has yet been published. This volume seeks to fill this gap. The chapters address a broad range of topics in anthropological linguistics, including classic themes such as spatial reference, color, kin terms, and emotion, as well as emerging interests in the linguistic expression of personhood, sociality, and language ideology. All contributions are based on original empirical research and present insights into African language practices from a sociocultural perspective. The volume showcases research on dozens of African languages spoken across the continent, with particular emphasis on languages of East Africa. This book will be of interest to areal specialists as well as to anthropological linguists worldwide.

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Section: The Temptation Of Generalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropological Linguistics

2024

Culture and Language Use

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“…DA Masolo (2010) criticises Mbiti's argument in a similar vein and doubts that a lack of future tense in a language is sufficient proof that the concept of an abstract future is absent. Therefore, much criticism focused on Mbiti's generalisation that all Africans lack the idea of an abstract future (see also English & Kalumba 1996;Fasholé-Luke 1969;and Kalumba 2005 (although he later revised his position)). Likewise, the 'African' in 'African time' was being problematised because it presupposes the idea of a homogenous African culture (Beidelman 1995).…”

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#African Time: Making the Future Legible

2021

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The notion that Africans lack a sense of future was extensively debated following John Mbiti's African Religions and Philosophy (1969) and has since entered the scholarly and popular discourse as a fixed topos which we label #African time ('Europeans have watches, Africans have time'). The most recent references to the topos are found in future vision reports of many African states and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that assert and demand a sense of future for Africa and from members of African societies. While the notion of a homogenised past-oriented 'African time' has been largely abandoned in academia, #African time appears to be an accepted and enactable popular discourse among policy makers, state planners and NGO workers. This article provides examples of this phenomenon and it extends James Scott's (1998) idea, that state authorities tend to make its citizens 'legible' in order to govern them, to explain the tenaciousness of the #African time topos. While Scott's examples are almost exclusively about shaping space for legibility, we show that there is a similar process taking place with regards to time, and that citizens, communities and societies are expected to formulate visions for the future if they want their interests to be 'read' by the state, by NGOs, donor agencies and other powerful agents they interact with. In this process of making the future visions of citizens legible, the topos of #African time plays a major role.

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Chapter 2. The cultural, linguistic and cognitive relativity of time concepts

Widlok

2024

Culture and Language Use

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There has been a considerable boost in studies on the cognitive foundations of language, including the fields of space, time, and causality. While Africa has increasingly been included in these studies, the attention to cognitive constraints has sometimes overlooked possible diversity as captured by anthropological linguistics. The study of cultural relativity with regard to time concepts which flourished initially in anthropology and linguistics has been overshadowed by research in economics and neighboring disciplines. Linguistic distinctions such as that between weak FTR (Future Time Reference) and strong FTR languages become associated with cultural differences such as saving for the future. This contribution looks critically at these typologies and argues that research would benefit from closer cooperation between comparative and intrinsic approaches to the study of African languages.

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Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs

Cited by 9 publications

References 1 publication

Anthropological Linguistics

Anthropological Linguistics

#African Time: Making the Future Legible

Chapter 2. The cultural, linguistic and cognitive relativity of time concepts

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