In Akinnaso’s work, “Literacy and Individual Consciousness,” he tells a short story about his childhood in which he recalls the time before his village was “literate.” However I am quite taken aback by this statement because his neighborhood is clearly far more literate than he gives them credit. Earlier on in the article he mentions an extended definition of literacy, which includes “perceiving, thinking, speaking, evaluating, and interacting with a characterized group of individuals and set them apart from others.” How on earth can he imply that his village cannot read nor write when he comes from a culture of diviners? Diviners in my personal opinion are some of the most literate people to exist. This could just be the Religious Studies major in me, but someone who can read signs from a supreme being is far more literate than myself. They are perceiving, thinking, speaking, evaluating, and interacting with gods! Seriously, how can they not be among the literary elite? The mere plebeian that I am can only read and write what is human and common, while these extraordinary (let’s assume they are all) men are going beyond the physical world and reading the words of the metaphysical gods who are far greater than our reality.
This connects to the idea the class discussed on the first day of “multiple” or “varied” literacies, the different ways beings (from plants to animals to people) can produce and interpret communication.
If you could explain more about this work, did the diviners take notice or make mention of their lack of human literacy? Was it negligible when compared to their ability to translate deities?
This concept makes me wonder what advantages a written language gives us when humanity survived for so long without it. Even with the development of written languages, until the last few hundred years, it was mostly the wealthy and elite who learned and could use the written forms of language. Does having that symbol system benefit a group of people if it’s only being used by a small portion of them?
I think when Akinnaso says his village is not literate he is not discounting these peoples’ literacy but is in a way using their definition of literacy. Throughout the piece the people in his village praise him and use his literacy, that is so different than theirs, to their advantage. They use his ability to speak and write in English for the good of the community, as he appears to be the only person who really has a grasp on both. As we discussed on the first day, we all agreed that there is no literate and illiterate, but degrees of literacy for each “language”. What I think Akinnaso is saying here is that his people were not literate in speaking to people outside of their village or region, as he later describes that there are different dialects (which he goes into a little when he is reading the Bible to his father) and that none of these dialects are the universal one, and on top of that there is also English. While he does question the diviners, I don’t think he considers them illiterate or non literate, because he seemed quite impressed at his father and his father’s associates’ abilities to keep their businesses and unions running.
I agree with the fact that he should give his village a little more credit. While Akinnaso went on to become more literate than anyone in his village, I believe that it’s unfair to call the rest illiterate. For example, when Akinnaso came home and went over the invoices with his father. While Akinnaso had formal training in mathematics, his father still proved him wrong with his own form of adding. So I agree with Shannon as well because to us the word literacy has become very amorphous.
I really like this idea! The more I think about it the more I realize that it isn’t just the art of divination, it’s any kind of “pagan-like” ritualistic reading of the universe and its future. One could be literate in reading tea leaves, tarot cards, palms, sheep intestines, almost anything. And since these things were (and still are) highly valued in the cultures they come from, they absolutely deserve credit for being types of literacy- especially since training to be able to divine the future probably lasts as long as learning to be a master at literacy. Further more, I wonder if in some ways the people from Akinnaso’s village realized that their religious and spiritual practices had their own version of literacy, and if that is why they never wanted any of their rituals transcribed. It really makes me re-evaluate their insistence on a separation between their cultural history and the arrival of English and literacy.