Le rythme, une marque d’expressivité de la devinette1 akye2

African society has never been on the margins of literary practice for anthropological and sociological reasons. However, if the notion of rhythm is an inherent fact in literature, we cannot ignore its existence in African literary productions. Indeed, oral poetry in its diversity has made rhythm an essential reality. For this, rhythm governs all African literary creativity, particularly riddles. The latter, which is a poetic form of orality, generally takes place during poetic evenings in the villages. It depicts two literary spaces: that of the transmitter and the receiver, passing the word to each other in turn around an enigmatic statement. Rhythm, which is a defining feature of orality, constitutes an essential link in the riddle statement. Our analysis of this notion in the akyé riddles led us to distinguish the immediate rhythm as a manifestation of it in our utterances. It is deployed here through improvisation structures, call-response effects and phonic saturation. Keywords: Riddle, akyé, poetic, rhythm, statement, orality.