African Cultures Africa has more than 800 languages native to its continent. African cultures are so diverse that they are different from any other culture of the world. African cultures contain many different languages. African languages range from common French to languages unheard of to most people such as Swahili. African arts are much different than American arts. Their art involves much more creative pottery, masks, and paintings. Africa has a very interesting culture. Reasons being the people are very creative and like to express their individuality. The most diverse cultures in the world belong to Africa. There are more than 800 languages spoken in the continent of Africa. Most Africans speak two or …show more content…
It is the national language of Tanzania and the official language of Kenya (African Languages). It is also the official in German East Africa (Reader 265). Approximately 50 million people speak this language (African Languages). Art is very important to the Africans. In fact it is part of their everyday life (Fetzer 106). South African artists are active in many areas of art including sculpture, pottery, mask making, and many more (African Arts Information). Like African paintings, poetry, and woodcarvings, sculptures tell a tale and immortalize cultures and beliefs. Different artists have different styles (African Arts Information). Materials and styles differ from village to village. Most sculptors use green wood, copper, tin, zinc alloys, bronze, ivory, or terra cotta, a kind of earth ware. Most sculpture figures are believed to contain ancestor’s spirits. Others represent sacred ideas or events (Fetzer 106). Some objects are said to be magical and believed to have magical powers (African Arts). Africans carve figures, make masks, and decorate articles for ceremonies (Fetzer 106). Masks were created to be placed over the face, on the top of the head, or even over the head. Most masks represent spirits of ancestors (Fetzer 106). Some villages make masks with full costumes and use them with music to dance in ritual performances. They used masks for social control,
Like many other continents in the world Africa has a lot of differences in itself for example there are differences in geography ,language, politics, religion and other things in life due to Africa’s lack of political government over an extended period of time.
Angola, formerly Portuguese West Africa, is the seventh largest country in Africa. The country can be divided into three major regions: the coastal plain, a transition zone, and the vast inland plateau. Angola has a tropical climate with its vegetation including tropical rain forests, savannas, grasslands, palm trees and even deserts. A great variety of animal life ranging from elephants, rhinoceros, giraffes, and even crocodiles can also be found in this African country (Microsoft 1).
Masks were sometimes created for the purpose of being used in a ceremonies by a priest. The mask would be a certain deity and the priest would be dressed in costume to play out that character. By portraying the deity the priest would be
The African societies (like those of the American Indians and the Europeans) were highly dependent on the environmental conditions and varied widely across the continent. Africa very much resembled America in its diversity of cultures across deserts, grasslands, and forests, its established networks of trade, and resource competition. The early use of iron implements raised productivity and subsequently increased the continent's population, which reached about 50 million by the fifteenth century. Much of that population was organized politically under large empires, like the Kingdom of Ghana. Ghana achieved architectural and artistic wealth principally through important trading contacts with the Middle and Far East. Other kingdoms also developed
the Africa continent for example have many things that are not common to the American continent , a young African man learn how to hunt, how to do farming and how to build houses and how to raise animals, their languages are different from ours, their models of transportation are totally different from ours. Most Africans are people of colors (black), some tribes in Africa have kings, queens, princes, and princess. To take the subject further, some African countries have more than 100 languages or speaks more than 150 dialects.
When learning about the history of the world, we can not ignore the fact that Africa plays a significant role. Many believe that Africa is the birth place of all races, and although that is true, the history and cultures of Africa and its natives are misunderstood among Americans. People do not take the time to expand their knowledge about Africa, yet they create their own perceptions of the continent based upon the image that America created. America creates this stereotype that Africa is inferior to the other continents by picturing them as savage like individuals who live an insufficient life. To truly understand Africa, you must understand these two important elements: the demographics of Africa and the true history of Africa
Africa is a continent and it is considered to be the second largest continent after Asia. The continent has the second largest population with an estimated number of 1.2billion inhabitants and has 54 countries being divided into sub-regions which is made up of Eastern, Central, Northern, Southern and Western. However, there are over thousand languages and which been classified into four largest family’s languages such as Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo and Khoi-San. According to the United Nation’s population prognostication, Africa has the world’s youngest population and it expected to be doubled to 2billion by 2050. During the 16th century the Europeans came to occupied the African continent in the form colonization. Colonization
African Art does not have specific date to which it evolved because most early African Art was carved in wood, which perished quickly. This is why most art dates from the 19th and early 20th century. Many 20th century artists admired and collected pieces of African Art. They enjoyed the bold color, expression, and form that produced a new beginning in art history. African Art was mostly dedicated to life affirming activities such as healing, pleasure, protection, and transformation.
In the sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of the population suffers from HIV leading to AIDS. The culprits responsible for this epidemic include the lack of knowledge about the disease, disuse of condoms due to religious practices and the overall poor hygiene. If left untreated, the rampant surge of AIDS can terrribly impact the cost of their healthcare, the African economy and the welfare of the people. This implications justify immediately finding remedies to what ails the sub-Saharan population.
The purpose of these masks were to hide the wearers identity and social status. They were used to permit the wearer to act more freely in
The main way that the masks were used was to hide the wearers identity. Usually criminals because they did not want their identity to be known. Servent’s used them as well so that they would be recognized as noblemen at events. They were worn mostly at carnivals and fairs. The masks were worn too much that at a point they were banned from being worn on certain months. With the masks no one was considered different, everyone was the same;
According to Oxford Dictionary (2013) a sculpture is defined as “the art of carving wood, chiseling stone, casting or welding metal, molding clay or wax, etc. into three-dimensional representations, as statues, figures, forms, etc.” From the sculptures that are predominant in the history of a race, it is often easy to read their culture from them because they bespoke about the settings/culture of that era. Here, this article would compare two different sculptures of ancient times, one from Egypt (the statue of Memi and Sabu) and the other from the NeoSumerian culture (the statue of Gudea).
Tanzania is one of the most remote countries in the world; Located on the western coast of Africa, Tanzania has virtually no organized military (reservists are comprised of farmers and militia types) and lives a very poor lifestyle, but they may be the exact model of what is required for coexisting in peace.
1. What is the nature of OpenMRS and why was it developed? Why were US universities, US National Institute of Health (NIH) and US donors involved in developing this system?
In Africa, language defines who we are and today, there exist over 1,400 languages of which most of them are dying gradually. Personally, I do not think the question should be asked but we all have to be practical concerning this issue. Majority of the African citizens including myself would not want their