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Oral literature, orature or folk literature is a
genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other f ...
of
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
that is spoken or sung as opposed to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...
s have used varying descriptions for oral literature or folk literature. A broad conceptualization refers to it as literature characterized by oral transmission and the absence of any fixed form. It includes the stories, legends, and history passed through generations in a spoken form.


Background

Pre-literate societies, by definition, have no written literature, but may possess rich and varied
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and Culture, cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Traditio ...
s—such as folk epics, folk narratives (including
fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cult ...
s and
fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular m ...
s), folk drama, proverbs and folksongs—that effectively constitute an oral literature. Even when these are collected and published by scholars such as
folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
s and paremiographers, the result is still often referred to as "oral literature". The different genres of oral literature pose classification challenges to scholars because of cultural dynamism in the modern digital age. Literate societies may continue an oral tradition — particularly within the family (for example bedtime stories) or informal social structures. The telling of
urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
s may be considered an example of oral literature, as can
jokes A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, ...
and also
oral poetry Oral poetry is a form of poetry that is composed and transmitted without the aid of writing. The complex relationships between written and spoken literature in some societies can make this definition hard to maintain. Background Oral poetry is ...
including
slam poetry A poetry slam is a competitive art event in which poets perform spoken word poetry before a live audience and a panel of judges. While formats can vary, slams are often loud and lively, with audience participation, cheering and dramatic delivery ...
which has been a televised feature on
Russell Simmons Russell Wendell Simmons (born October 4, 1957) is an American entrepreneur, writer and record executive. He co-founded the hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings, and created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and Tantris. Simmons ...
' '' Def Poetry''; performance poetry is a genre of poetry that consciously shuns the written form. Oral literatures forms a generally more fundamental component of
culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...
, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do. The
Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The ...
n scholar Pio Zirimu introduced the term ''orature'' in an attempt to avoid an oxymoron, but ''oral literature'' remains more common both in academic and popular writing. ''The Encyclopaedia of African Literature'', edited by Simon Gikandi (Routledge, 2003), gives this definition: "Orature means something passed on through the spoken word, and because it is based on the spoken language it comes to life only in a living community. Where community life fades away, orality loses its function and dies. It needs people in a living social setting: it needs life itself." In ''Songs and Politics in Eastern Africa'', edited by Kimani Njogu and Hervé Maupeu (2007), it is stated (page 204) that Zirimu, who coined the term, defines orature as "the use of utterance as an aesthetic means of expression" (as quoted by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, 1988). According to the book ''Defining New Idioms and Alternative Forms of Expression'', edited by Eckhard Breitinger (Rodopi, 1996, page 78): "This means that any 'oral society' had to develop means to make the spoken word last, at least for a while. We tend to regard all the genres of orature as belonging to the homogeneous complex of folklore." Building on Zirimu's orature concept, Mbube Nwi-Akeeri explained that Western theories cannot effectively capture and explain oral literature, particularly those indigenous to regions such as Africa. The reason is that there are elements to oral traditions in these places that cannot be captured by words alone, such as the existence of gestures, dance, and the interaction between the storyteller and the audience. According to Nwi-Akeeri, oral literature is not only a narrative, but also a
performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...
.


History of oral literature

Oral tradition is seen in societies with vigorous oral conveyance practices to be a general term inclusive of both oral literature and any written literature, including sophisticated writings, as well, potentially, as visual and
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
s which may interact with these forms, extend their expression, or offer additional expressive media. Thus even where no phrase in local language which exactly translates "oral literature" is used, what constitutes "oral literature" as understood today is already understood to be part or all of the lore media with which a society conducts profound and common cultural affairs among its members, orally. In this sense, oral lore is an ancient practice and concept natural to the earliest storied communications and transmissions of bodies of knowledge and culture in verbal form from the dawn of language-based human societies, and 'oral literature' thus understood was putatively recognized in times prior to recordings of history in non-oral media, including painting and writing. Oral literature as a concept, after 19th-century antecedents, was more widely circulated by Hector Munro Chadwick and
Nora Kershaw Chadwick Nora Kershaw Chadwick CBE FSA FBA (28 January 1891 – 24 April 1972) was an English philologist who specialized in Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Old Norse studies. Early life and education Nora Kershaw was born in Lancashire in 1891, the first d ...
in their comparative work on the "growth of literature" (1932–40). In 1960, Albert B. Lord published '' The Singer of Tales'', which influentially examined fluidity in both ancient and later texts and "oral-formulaic" principles used during composition-in-performance, particularly by contemporary Eastern European
bards In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise ...
relating long traditional narratives. From the 1970s onwards, the term "Oral literature" appears in the work of both literary scholars and anthropologists: Finnegan (1970, 1977), Görög-Karady (1976), Bauman (1986), in the World Oral Literature Project and in the articles of the journal '' Cahiers de Littérature Orale''.Barnard, Alan, and Jonathan Spencer, ''Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology'' (Taylor & Francis, 2002).


Deaf culture

Although
deaf people Deaf people are typically defined as those who have profound hearing impairment in both ears as a result of either acquired or congenital hearing loss. Such people may be associated with deaf culture. Deafness (little to no hearing) is distingu ...
communicate manually rather than orally, their culture and traditions are considered in the same category as oral literature. Stories, jokes and poetry are passed on from person to person with no written medium.


See also

* Akyn * Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative * Ethnopoetics * Guslar *
Hainteny Hainteny (pronounced , Malagasy for "knowledge of words") is a traditional form of Malagasy oral literature and poetry, involving heavy use of metaphor. It is associated primarily with the Merina people of Madagascar. In its use of metaphor a ...
* Improvisation *
Intangible Cultural Heritage An intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is a practice, representation, expression, knowledge, or skill considered by UNESCO to be part of a place's cultural heritage. Buildings, historic places, monuments, and artifacts are cultural property. I ...
* Kamishibai * Korean art *
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity was made by the Director-General of UNESCO starting in 2001 to raise awareness of intangible cultural heritage and encourage local communities to protect them and th ...
* National epic *
Oral poetry Oral poetry is a form of poetry that is composed and transmitted without the aid of writing. The complex relationships between written and spoken literature in some societies can make this definition hard to maintain. Background Oral poetry is ...
*
Oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...
*
Oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and Culture, cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Traditio ...
*
Oral-formulaic composition Oral-formulaic composition is a theory that originated in the scholarly study of epic poetry and developed in the second quarter of the twentieth century. It seeks to explain two related issues: # the process by which oral poets improvise poetry # ...
* Orality * Pantun *
Patha The oral tradition of the Vedas (Śruti) consists of several pathas, "recitations" or ways of chanting the Vedic mantras. Such traditions of Vedic chant are often considered the oldest unbroken oral tradition in existence, the fixation of the Vedi ...
* Seanachai * Yukar *
Storytelling Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural pr ...
* World Oral Literature Project


Bibliography

*Finnegan, Ruth (2012), ''Oral Literature in Africa''. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers
CC BY edition
*Ong, Walter (1982), ''Orality and Literacy: the technologizing of the word''. New York: Methuen Press. *Tsaaior, James Tar (2010), "Webbed words, masked meanings: Proverbiality and narrative/discursive strategies" in D. T. Niane's ''Sundiata: an epic of old Mali''.
Proverbium ''Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship'' is an academic journal covering paremiology, the study of proverbs. Each volume includes articles on proverbs and proverbial expressions, book reviews, a bibliography of recent pro ...
27: 319–338. *Vansina, Jan (1978), "Oral Tradition, Oral History: Achievements and Perspectives", in B. Bernardi, C. Poni and A. Triulzi (eds), ''Fonti Orali, Oral Sources, Sources Orales''. Milan: Franco Angeli, pp. 59–74. *Vansina, Jan (1961), ''Oral Tradition. A Study in Historical Methodology''. Chicago and London: Aldine and Routledge & Kegan Paul.


References


External links

*
World Oral Literature Project
voices of vanishing worlds,
University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
] {{Authority control Oral literature Oral tradition