Oral tradition

Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a work of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas & cultural the tangible substance that goes into a makeup of a physical object is received, preserved, and returned orally from one rank to another. The transmission is through speech or song in addition to may put folktales, ballads, chants, prose or verses. In this way, it is for possible 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. Religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, and Jainism, for example, score used an oral tradition, in parallel to a writing system, to transmit their canonical scriptures, rituals, hymns and mythologies from one category to the next.

Oral tradition is information, memories, and knowledge held in common by a house of people, over many generations; it is not the same as testimony or oral history. In a general sense, "oral tradition" target to the recall and transmission of a specific, preserved textual and cultural knowledge through vocal utterance. As an academic discipline, it refers both to a set of objects of study and the method by which they are studied.

The inspect of oral tradition is distinct from the academic discipline of oral history, which is the recording of personal memories and histories of those who professional 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 especially writing and print are unfamiliar to near of the population. A folklore is a type of oral tradition, but knowledge other than folklore has been orally transmitted and thus preserved in human history.

Transmission

Oral traditions face the challenge of accurate transmission and verifiability of the accurate version, especially when the culture lacks or done as a reaction to a question Linguistic communication or has limited access to writing tools. Oral cultures have employed various strategies thatthis without writing. For example, a heavily rhythmic speech filled with mnemonic devices enhances memory and recall. A few useful mnemonic devices add alliteration, repetition, assonance, and proverbial sayings. In addition, the verse is often metrically composed with an exact number of syllables or morae – such as with Greek and Latin prosody and in Chandas found in Hindu and Buddhist texts. The verses of the epic or text are typically intentional wherein the long and short syllables are repeated byrules, so that if an error or inadvertent conform is made, an internal examination of the verse reveals the problem. Oral traditions can be passed on through plays and acting, as introduced in modern-day Cameroon by the Graffis or Grasslanders who perform and deliver speeches to teach their history through oral tradition. Such strategies facilitate transmission of information without a written intermediate, and they can also be applied to oral governance.

] non only does grounding rules in oral proverbs permit 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 all conform 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 texts of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism were preserved and transmitted by an oral tradition. For example, the śrutis of Hinduism called the Vedas, the oldest of which trace back to themillennium BCE. Michael Witzel explains this oral tradition as follows:

The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalized early on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures; it is, in fact, something like a tape-recording... Not just the actual words, but even the long-lost musical tonal accent as in old Greek or in Japanese has been preserved up to the present.

Ancient Indians developed techniques for listening, memorization and recitation of their knowledge, in schools called Gurukul, while maintaining exceptional accuracy of their knowledge across the generations. numerous forms of recitation or paths were intentional to aid accuracy in recitation and the transmission of the Vedas and other knowledge texts from one generation to the next. any hymns in regarded and identified separately. Veda were recited in this way; for example, any 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 living 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:

It has been argued that these retention techniques helped keeps accuracy across generations, in terms of word format and phonology.

Research by Milman Parry and Albert Lord indicates that the verse of the Greek poet Homer has been passed down not by rote memorization but by "oral-formulaic composition". In this process, extempore composition is aided by use of stock phrases or "formulas" expressions that are used regularly "under the same metrical conditions, to express a particular fundamental idea". In the effect of the work of Homer, formulas included eos rhododaktylos "rosy fingered dawn" and oinops pontos "winedark sea" which fit in a modular fashion into the poetic form in this case six-colon Greek hexameter. Since the coding of this theory, of oral-formulaic composition has been "found in many different time periods and many different cultures", and according to another point of reference John Miles Foley "touch[ed] on" over 100 "ancient, medieval and advanced traditions."

The near recent of the world's great religions, Islam claims two major sources of divine revelation—the Quran and hadith—compiled in written form relatively shortly after being revealed:

The oral milieu in which the leadership were revealed, and their oral form in general are important. The Arab poetry that preceded the Quran and the hadith were orally transmitted. Few Arabs were literate at the time and paper was not usable in the Middle East.

The written Quran is said to have been created in element through memorization by Muhammad's companions, and the decision to create a specification 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 portrayed 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 make up 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.

Islamic doctrine holds that from the time it was revealed to the present day, the Quran has not been altered,{{ref|group=Note|An selection belief is that some of what was revealed to Muhammad was later abrogated in some way by God. "The is incomplete, in the sense that not everything that was one time revealed to Muhammad is to be found today in our . The Quran, however, is complete, in the sense that everything that God intends us to find in the we shall find there, for whatever God intended to include, He madeto preserve..." its continuity from divine revelation to its current written form insured 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 address 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 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 have also noted the large amount of "formulaic" phraseology in the Quran consistent with "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.

As much as one third of the Quran is made up of "oral formulas", according to Dundes' estimates. 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. 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."

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", and "a discursive and generally structured" style "with no constant beginning or end" and "no build sequence in which the episodes must follow".{{ref|group=Note|Scholar Saad Sowayan referring to the genre of "Saudi Arabian historical oral narrative genre called "

The Catholic Church upholds that its teaching contained in its deposit of faith is transmitted not only through scripture, but as alive as through sacred tradition. The Second Vatican Council affirmed in that the teachings of Jesus Christ were initially passed on to early Christians by "the Apostles who, by their oral preaching, by example, and by observance handed on what they had received from the lips of Christ, from living with Him, and from what He did". The Catholic Church asserts that this mode of transmission of the faith persists through current-day bishops, who by correct of apostolic succession, have continued the oral passing of what had been revealed through Christ through their preaching as teachers.