Buch, Deutsch, Band 8, 104 Seiten, PB, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 200 g
Reihe: Anor
Literacy and oral transmission among the Uyghur
Buch, Deutsch, Band 8, 104 Seiten, PB, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 200 g
Reihe: Anor
ISBN: 978-3-87997-604-1
Verlag: Klaus-Schwarz-Vlg
Scholarly interest in the Uyghur, a Turkic speaking Muslim population who live in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in norhwest China has grown in recent years but both the people and the region are poorly understood relative to other parts of the Muslim world. Research is impeded by the difficulty in accessing archival sources locally and by the limitations on ethnographic fieldwork.
This paper breaks new ground by focusing on literacy and oral transmission. Drawing on diverse indigenous and foreign sources and making use of modern anthropological literature, it documents the intermingling of the two forms of transmission at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It argues that, although the majority of the population were illiterate, they were aware of the written word and its uses. It also examines the main features of traditional Islamic education, the most important site for transmitting literacy, as well as the first attempts to reform Islamic schooling. The last part of the paper focuses on the modern period and draws on the author's own field research in the region. Here the argument is that, in spite of universal schooling and nominally high rates of literacy, oral transmission has retained its importance both in urban and in peasant society.
