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Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina: Oral Tradition as History (1985), reported statements from present generation which "specifies that the message must be oral statements spoken, sung or called out on musical instruments only"; "There must be transmission by word of mouth over at least a generation". He points out, "Our definition is a working definition for the use of historians. Sociologists, linguists or scholars of the verbal arts propose their own, which in, e.g., sociology, stresses common knowledge. In linguistics, features that distinguish the language from common dialogue (linguists), and in the verbal arts features of form and content that define art (folklorists)."Ki-Zerbo, Joseph: "Methodology and African Pre-history", 1990, UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa; James Currey Publishers, , 9780852550915; see Ch. 7; "Oral tradition and its methodology" at pages 54–61; at page 54: "Oral tradition may be defined as being a testimony transmitted verbally from one generation to another. Its special characteristics are that it is verbal and the manner in which it is transmitted." The transmission is through speech or song and may include Folklore, , , prose or poetry. The information is memorisation by oral repositories, sometimes termed "walking libraries", who are usually also performers. Oral tradition is a medium of communication for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other knowledge across generations without a writing system, or in parallel to a writing system. It is the most widespread medium of human communication. They often remain in use in the modern era throughout for cultural preservation.
Religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, and Jainism have used oral tradition, in parallel to writing, to transmit their canonical Religious text, , and mythologies.
African societies have broadly been labelled oral civilisations, contrasted with literate civilisations, due to their reverence for the spoken word and widespread use of oral tradition.Oral tradition is memories, knowledge, and expression held in common by a group over many generations: it is the long preservation of immediate or contemporaneous testimony. It may be defined as the recall and transmission of specific, preserved textual and cultural knowledge through vocal utterance. Oral Tradition , Encyclopædia Britannica, John Miles Foley Oral tradition is usually popular, and can be or . It speaks to people according to their understanding, unveiling itself in accordance with their aptitudes.
As an academic discipline, oral tradition refers both to objects and methods of study.Dundes, Alan, "Editor's Introduction" to The Theory of Oral Composition, John Miles Foley. Bloomington, IUP, 1988, pp. ix–xii It is distinct from oral history, which is the recording of personal testimony of those who experienced historical eras or events. Oral tradition is also distinct from the study of orality, defined as thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (writing and print) are unfamiliar.Ong, Walter, S.J., Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen, 1982, p. 12. Folklore is one albeit not the only type of oral tradition.Linda Degh. American Folklore and the Mass Media. Bloomington: IUP, 1994, p. 31 Folklore in the Oral Tradition, Fairytales, Fables and Folk-legend , Julie Carthy (1984), The Oral Tradition, Volume IV, Yale University, Quote: "Folklore is said to be in the oral tradition. Dundes states that the most common criterion for a definition of folklore is its means of transmission that is, orally. He clarifies however that materials other than folklore are also orally conveyed. Therefore oral transmission itself is not sufficient to distinguish folklore from non-folklore."
Before the introduction of text, oral tradition remained the only means of communication in order to establish societies as well as its institutions. Despite widespread comprehension of literacy in the recent century, oral tradition remains the dominant communicative means within the world.
The performance of a tradition is accentuated and rendered alive by various gesture, social conventions and the unique occasion in which it is performed. Furthermore, the climate in which traditions are told influences its content. In Burundi, traditions were short because most of them were told at informal gatherings and everyone had to have his say during the evening; in neighbouring Rwanda, many narratives were spun-out because a one-man professional had to entertain his patron for a whole evening, with every production checked by fellow specialists and errors punishable. Frequently, glosses or commentaries were presented parallel to the narrative, sometimes answering questions from the audience to ensure understanding, although often someone would learn a tradition without asking their master questions and not really understand the meaning of its content, leading them to speculate in the commentary. Oral traditions only exist when they are told, except for in people's minds, and so the frequency of telling a tradition aids its preservation. These African ethnic groups also utilize oral tradition to develop and train the human intellect, and the memory to retain information and sharpen imagination.
Albanian epic poetry has been analysed by Homeric scholars to acquire a better understanding of epics. The long oral tradition that has sustained Albanian epic poetry reinforces the idea that pre-Homeric epic poetry was oral. The theory of oral-formulaic composition was developed also through the scholarly study of Albanian epic verse. The Albanian traditional singing of epic verse from memory is one of the last survivors of its kind in modern Europe,. and the last survivor of the Balkan traditions..
Wiseman argues that celebratory performances served as a vital medium for transmitting Roman history and that such traditions evolved into written forms by the third century CE. He asserts that the history of figures like the house of Tarquin was likely passed down through oral storytelling for centuries before being recorded in literature.Wiseman, T. Roman Legend and Oral Tradition, The Journal of Roman Studies, 79, 129-137. Available at: JSTOR Although Flower critiques the lack of ancient evidence supporting Wiseman's broader claims,Flower, H. (1995). Fabulae Praetextae in Context: When Were Plays on Contemporary Subjects Performed in Republican Rome? The Classical Quarterly, New Series, 45(1), 170-190. Available at: JSTOR Wiseman maintains that dramatic narratives fundamentally shaped historiography.
According to Goody, the Vedic texts likely involved both a written and oral tradition, calling it a "parallel products of a literate society". Mostly recently, research shows that oral performance of (written) texts could be a philosophical activity in early China.
It is a common knowledge in India that the primary Hindu books called Vedas are great example of Oral tradition. Pundits who memorized three Vedas were called Trivedis. Pundits who memorized four vedas were called Chaturvedis. By transferring knowledge from generation to generation Hindus protected their ancient Mantras in Vedas, which are basically Prose.
The early Buddhist texts are also generally believed to be of oral tradition, with the first by comparing inconsistencies in the transmitted versions of literature from various oral societies such as the Greek, Serbia and other cultures, then noting that the Vedic literature is too consistent and vast to have been composed and transmitted orally across generations, without being written down.
Each genre of rhymed poetry served distinct social and cultural functions. These range from spontaneous compositions at celebrations to carefully crafted historical accounts, political commentaries, and entertainment pieces. Among these, the folk epics known as siyar (singular: sīra) were considered the most intricate. These prosimetric narratives, combining prose and verse, emerged in the early Middle Ages. While many such epics circulated historically, only one has survived as a sung oral poetic tradition: Sīrat Banī Hilāl. This epic recounts the westward migration and conquests of the Banu Hilal Bedouin tribe from the 10th to 12th centuries, culminating in their rule over parts of North Africa before their eventual defeat.
The historical roots of Sīrat Banī Hilāl are evident in the present-day distribution of groups claiming descent from the tribe across North Africa and parts of the Middle East. The epic's development into a cohesive narrative was first documented by the historian Ibn Khaldūn in the 14th century. In his writings, Ibn Khaldūn describes collecting stories and poems from nomadic Arabs, using these oral sources to discuss the merits of colloquial versus classical poetry and the value of oral histories in written historical works.The Torah and other ancient Jewish literature, the Judeo-Christian Bible and texts of early centuries of Christianity are rooted in an oral tradition, and the term "People of the Book" is a medieval construct.
Writing systems are not known to exist among Native North Americans before contact with Europeans except among some Mesoamerican cultures, and possibly the South American quipu and North American wampum, although those two are debatable. Oral storytelling traditions flourished in a context without the use of writing to record and preserve history, scientific knowledge, and social practices.
While some stories were told for amusement and leisure, most functioned as practical lessons from tribal experience applied to immediate moral, social, psychological, and environmental issues. Stories fuse fictional, supernatural, or otherwise exaggerated characters and circumstances with real emotions and morals as a means of teaching. Plots often reflect real life situations and may be aimed at particular people known by the story's audience. In this way, social pressure could be exerted without directly causing embarrassment or social exclusion. For example, rather than yelling, Inuit culture parents might deter their children from wandering too close to the water's edge by telling a story about a sea monster with a pouch for children within its reach. One single story could provide dozens of lessons. Stories were also used as a means to assess whether traditional cultural ideas and practices are effective in tackling contemporary circumstances or if they should be revised.Native American storytelling is a collaborative experience between storyteller and listeners. Native American tribes generally have not had professional tribal storytellers marked by social status.
Stories could and can be told by anyone, with each storyteller using their own vocal inflections, word choice, content, or form. Storytellers not only draw upon their own memories, but also upon a collective or tribal memory extending beyond personal experience but nevertheless representing a shared reality. Native languages have in some cases up to twenty words to describe physical features like rain or snow and can describe the spectra of human emotion in very precise ways, allowing storytellers to offer their own personalized take on a story based on their own lived experiences. Fluidity in story deliverance allowed stories to be applied to different social circumstances according to the storyteller's objective at the time. One's rendition of a story was often considered a response to another's rendition, with plot alterations suggesting alternative ways of applying traditional ideas to present conditions.Listeners might have heard the story told many times, or even may have told the same story themselves. This does not take away from a story's meaning, as curiosity about what happens next was less of a priority than hearing fresh perspectives on well-known themes and plots. Elder storytellers generally were not concerned with discrepancies between their version of historical events and neighboring tribes' version of similar events, such as in origin stories. Tribal stories are considered valid within the tribe's own frame of reference and tribal experience. The 19th century Oglala Lakota tribal member Four Guns was known for his justification of the oral tradition and criticism of the written word.
Stories are used to preserve and transmit both tribal history and environmental history, which are often closely linked. Native oral traditions in the Pacific Northwest, for example, describe natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis. Various cultures from Vancouver Island and Washington have stories describing a physical struggle between a Thunderbird and a Whale. One such story tells of the Thunderbird, which can create thunder by moving just a feather, piercing the Whale's flesh with its talons, causing the Whale to dive to the bottom of the ocean, bringing the Thunderbird with it. Another depicts the Thunderbird lifting the Whale from the Earth then dropping it back down. Regional similarities in themes and characters suggests that these stories mutually describe the lived experience of earthquakes and floods within tribal memory. According to one story from the Suquamish, Agate Pass was created when an earthquake expanded the channel as a result of an underwater battle between a serpent and bird. Other stories in the region depict the formation of glacial valleys and moraines and the occurrence of landslides, with stories being used in at least one case to identify and date earthquakes that occurred in 900 CE and 1700.
Further examples include Arikara origin stories of emergence from an "underworld" of persistent darkness, which may represent the remembrance of life in the Arctic Circle during the last ice age, and stories involving a "deep crevice", which may refer to the Grand Canyon. Despite such examples of agreement between geological and archeological records on one hand and Native oral records on the other, some scholars have cautioned against the historical validity of oral traditions because of their susceptibility to detail alteration over time and lack of precise dates. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act considers oral traditions as a viable source of evidence for establishing the affiliation between cultural objects and Native Nations.
The verses of the epic or text are typically designed wherein the long and short syllables are repeated by certain rules, so that if an error or inadvertent change is made, an internal examination of the verse reveals the problem.
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book provides an excellent demonstration of oral governance in the Law of the Jungle. Not only does grounding rules in oral proverbs allow for simple transmission and understanding, but it also legitimizes new rulings by allowing extrapolation. These stories, traditions, and proverbs are not static, but are often altered upon each transmission, barring any change to the overall meaning. In this way, the rules that govern the people are modified by the whole and not authored by a single entity.
Ancient Indians developed techniques for listening, memorization and recitation of their knowledge, in schools called , while maintaining exceptional accuracy of their knowledge across the generations.
Many forms of recitation or pathas were designed to aid accuracy in recitation and the transmission of the and other knowledge texts from one generation to the next. All hymns in each Veda were recited in this way; for example, all 1,028 hymns with 10,600 verses of the Rigveda was preserved in this way; as were all other Vedas including the Principal Upanishads, as well as the Vedangas. Each text was recited in a number of ways, to ensure that the different methods of recitation acted as a cross check on the other. Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat summarizes this as:These extraordinary retention techniques guaranteed an accurate Śruti, fixed across the generations, not just in terms of unaltered word order but also in terms of sound.Wilke, Annette and Moebus, Oliver. Sound and Communication: An Aesthetic Cultural History of Sanskrit Hinduism (Religion and Society). De Gruyter (February 1, 2007). P. 495. . That these methods have been effective, is testified to by the preservation of the most ancient Indian religious text, the Rigveda ().
The oral milieu in which the sources were revealed, and their oral form in general are important. The Arab poetry that preceded the Quran and the hadith were orally transmitted.Bannister, "Retelling the Tale", 2014: p.2 Few Arabs were literate at the time and paper was not available in the Middle East.Michael Zwettler, The Oral Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry, Ohio State Press, 1978, p.14.
The written Quran is said to have been created in part through memorization by Muhammad's companions, and the decision to create a standard written work is said to have come after the death in battle (Yamama) of a large number of Muslims who had memorized the work.
For centuries, copies of the Qurans were transcribed by hand, not printed, and their scarcity and expense made reciting the Quran from memory, not reading, the predominant mode of teaching it to others. To this day the Quran is memorized by millions and its recitation can be heard throughout the Muslim world from recordings and mosque loudspeakers (during Ramadan). Muslims state that some who teach memorization/recitation of the Quran constitute the end of an "un-broken chain" whose original teacher was Muhammad himself. It has been argued that "the Qur'an's rhythmic style and eloquent expression make it easy to memorize," and was made so to facilitate the "preservation and remembrance" of the work.The Qur'an, verses 44:58; 54:17, 22, 32, 40. Arab-news-27-2-2015
Islamic doctrine holds that from the time it was revealed to the present day, the Quran has not been altered, its continuity from divine revelation to its current written form ensured by the large numbers of Muhammad's supporters who had reverently memorized the work, a careful compiling process and divine intervention. (Muslim scholars agree that although scholars have worked hard to separate the corrupt and uncorrupted hadith, this other source of revelation is not nearly so free of corruption because of the hadith's great political and theological influence.)
At least two non-Muslim scholars (Alan Dundes and Andrew G. Bannister) have examined the possibility that the Quran was not just "recited orally, but actually composed orally".Bannister, "Retelling the Tale", 2014: p.1 Bannister postulates that some parts of the Quran—such as the seven re-tellings of the story of the Iblis and Adam, and the repeated phrases "which of the favours of your Lord will you deny?" in sura 55—make more sense addressed to listeners than readers.
Banister, Dundes and other scholars (Shabbir Akhtar, Angelika Neuwirth, Islam Dayeh)Bannister, "Retelling the Tale", 2014: p.1-4 have also noted the large amount of "formulaic" phraseology in the Quran consistent with "oral-formulaic composition" mentioned above.Dundes, Fables of the Ancients?, 2003: p.16 The most common formulas are the attributes of Allah—all-mighty, all-wise, all-knowing, all-high, etc.—often found as doublets at the end of a verse. Among the other repeated phrases are "Allah created the heavens and the earth" (found 19 times in the Quran).The Quran, 6:14, 79; 7:54, 10:3, 12:101, 14:10, 19, 32; 17:99, 29:44, 61; 30:8, 31:25, 32:4, 35:1, 39:38, 46; 42:11, 45:22, 46:33, cf. 2:117, 6:101Dundes, Fables of the Ancients?, 2003: p.32
As much as one third of the Quran is made up of "oral formulas", according to Dundes' estimates.Dundes, Fables of the Ancients?, 2003: p.65 Bannister, using a computer database of (the original Arabic) words of the Quran and of their "grammatical role, root, number, person, gender and so forth", estimates that depending on the length of the phrase searched, somewhere between 52% (three word phrases) and 23% (five word phrases) are oral formulas.Bannister, "Retelling the Tale", 2014: p.6-7 Dundes reckons his estimates confirm "that the Quran was orally transmitted from its very beginnings". Bannister believes his estimates "provide strong corroborative evidence that oral composition should be seriously considered as we reflect upon how the Qur'anic text was generated."Bannister, "Retelling the Tale", 2014: p.10
Dundes argues oral-formulaic composition is consistent with "the cultural context of Arabic oral tradition", quoting researchers who have found poetry reciters in the Najd (the region next to where the Quran was revealed) using "a common store of themes, motives, stock images, phraseology and prosodical options",Bannister, "Retelling the Tale", 2014: p.68 and "a discursive and loosely structured" style "with no fixed beginning or end" and "no established sequence in which the episodes must follow".
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