orature

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The oral equivalent of literature: a collection of traditional folk songs, stories, etc., that is communicated orally rather than in writing.

   “It is because of this that Mr Pio Zirimu, a Ugandan linguist and literary critic, has coined the word ‘orature’.”

   “The decolonization of the African mind and imaginagion is a job that must be done. It is a job that requires that our perceptions, our imaginations, and our literary devices be fertilized by the past literatures and oratures of the Pan-African world, and by the literatures and oratures of other lands besides Europe.”

   “As it were, Literature is often seen as a branch of Language Arts. Orature is a branch of Literature and hence inevitably falls within Language especially in as far as Language is basically oral. […] Inevitably, a good stock of the words within Orature are taken from written Literature. The text hopes to establish the interrelationship of these branches of Literature and through definition to show the specific application of these terms in Orature.”

   “In the chapter on Aidoo, I note that certain genres of the orature, particularly the dilemma tales, have unresolved endings which call for community response; this is evident in the ending of Song as well.”

2. (Scotland, alt-of, alternative, archaic)Variant of oratour (“a small room or chapel used for prayer and worship, or for private study; an oratory”).

   “This bishop was ane wyse and godlie man, and answered the king in this maner, as after follows, saying, “Sir, I beseech your Grace, that ye take a little meat to refresh you, and I will passe to my orature and pray to God for you, and the commonwealth of this realme and cuntrie.[”]”

   “Yet nertheleſſe within mine orature / I ſtode, whan Titan had his bemis bright / Withdrawin doun, and ſcylid undir cure, / And faire Venus the beaute of the night, / Upraiſe, and ſette unto the weſte ful right […]”

   “The author [of the poem Testament of Faire Creseide, Robert Henryson] has conceived in a very poetical manner his description of the season in which he supposes himself to have written this dolorous tragedy. The sun was in Aries; his setting was ushered in with furious storms of hail; the cold was biting and intense; and the poet sat in a solitary little building which he calls his "orature." [footnote: oratory.]”