Od zrutynizowanej czynności do schematu – o pochodzeniu hausańskich gestów towarzyszących mowie

Hausa people live in Western Africa, mainly in the northern part of Nigeria and the southern part of Niger. One of the predominant features of their identity is Islam. Certain aspects of ritual or routinized actions connected with Muslim religion or education are used on daily bases. It is claimed that these actions gave rise to sensorimotor schemas connected with certain notions. The schemas are represented in gestures. Three examples of routinized actions were taken into consideration: the action of praying, the action of washing off the hands during ablution and the action of reading and writing in Arabic script. The action of palms turned up during prayers (addua) gave rise to co-speech gesture used when discussing the issue of request. The “hand washing” gesture co-occurs with the utterances referring to contamination, rejection, totality, finality or non-existence. The action of reading and writing in Arabic could possibly gave rise to the schema “the beginning is the right side” which is represented in gestures indicating the Arabic script but also passing of time. The same schema could possibly influence the way of performing counting gestures. The counting starts from the small finger of the left hand (the palm is directed towards the speaker), i.e. from right to left.