Talk:Oral tradition

Anecdote

Here's an anecdote you might be able to verify and add in: "No less impressive is the case of Iceland, where masses of verse have been preserved by no other means than that of oral tradition. William Craigie quotes a pertinent case. 'Another set of rimur composed by the same author (Sigurður Bjarnason) in 1862 has had a remarkable history. No manuscript of these has been preserved, but a younger brother learned them by heart at the age of fifteen, and at the same time noted the first line of each verse. Fifty-five years later, in Canada, and without having gone over them in his mind for thirty years, he dictated the whole of them, to the extent of 4000 lines, and they were printed at Winnipeg in 1919. This is not only significant for the history of Icelandic poetry but for that of some other literatures, where the possibility of such feats of memory has been gravely questioned by scholars of the present day.'"

Source: p117 of Chaytor, H. J (1974). From Script to Print; an Introduction to Medieval Vernacular Literature. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions. p. 156. ISBN 0841435423. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help) , quoting p32 of Craigie, William (1937). The art of poetry in Iceland. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 16:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

systematic hermeneutics

Can we have more on: "The theoretical development at present may be the construction of systematic hermeneutics and aesthetics specific to oral traditions." at least some references please Szczels 11:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced

Can we get specifics on what needs sourcing/refs? Not helpful just to say "unsourced". DavidOaks 13:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I wrote a bibliographical note meant to address the sourcing issue. The original account was not written fact-by-fact (which produces unreadable prose), but as a digest of the existing accounts; no specific proposition seems to have been found controversial in the time the article has been up. What do people think? DavidOaks 20:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Unclear reference

I have deleted the recent addition to the "Milman Parry and ALbert Lord" section --

"An excellent example of Parry’s work in recording oral tradition can be also be found in the recent (1998) book ‘Noah’s Flood – The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that changed the World’ by William Ryan and Walter Pitman published by Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.."

The comment does not say what oral tradition is referenced, nor does it give a page number, nor yet is it the most obvious source for Parry's field recordings. But maybe with a solid citation and explanation of the relevance of the pages it should be restored. DavidOaks 03:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion to merge oral history and oral literature

Oral history is certainly a distinct field with distinct methods -- very inappropriate to merge. Oral literature is a better candidate, but because it's organized by ethnic, linguistic and geographic divisions, and is not generally regarded (yet) as being primarily the province of oral traditional theory, a link under "see also" would seem more appropriate (same for oral history). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DavidOaks (talk • contribs) 22:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

• What? No. Merger of any of the three topics is a very bad idea. These are distinct topics. Just because they both include the word "oral" and relate to the past in (different) ways ... oral history is people's individual personal histories and recollections of the past. It's an academic discipline. Oral tradition or oral culture is the social tradition of transmission of cultural knowledge within a particular group of people. It's a social practice, not an academic discipline. Oral literature can include recitations of oral culture, but is also about performance art, the art of storytelling, etc. --lquilter 13:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Removing the merge tag. Clearly distinct categories and merge-proposer never bothered to explain or articulate a proposal or justification. --lquilter 13:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• In talk pages (User_talk:Dbachmann#proposed mergers of oral culture/oral history/oral literature and User_talk:Lquilter#merging of oral topics) , the editor who proposed the merge explained that he was proposing the merge because the articles are not clearly written now and appear to have some subject overlap. I looked through these articles and am making the following changes in response to this problem:

• Oral history contained a lot of stuff about oral culture, presumably because "oral transmission of history" is one type of oral tradition and "oral history" is an old term for that. I deleted extraneous material from Oral history, moved it to Talk:Oral tradition, explained the distinction on Oral history and linked to Oral tradition.
• Added a clarifying sentence to the top of Oral tradition that explained that it was different from oral history.
• Oral literature seems fine to me; I don't see how it would be confused with oral tradition or oral history. The editor who suggested merger said "that's an oxymoron" but it's clearly explained in the brief entry. The article could do with some fleshing out, though.

(cross-posted to all 3 article talk pages) --lquilter 14:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

material from "oral history" article

There was some confusing material in the "oral history" article that really referred to "oral tradition", and was placed in the article based on the archaic usage of "oral history" to refer to "oral culture". I deleted it there and am pasting it here; if there is something useful it should be re-incorporated.

Oral history is considered by some historians to be an unreliable source for the study of history. However, other historians consider it to be a valid means for preserving history. Experience within literate cultures indicates that each time anyone reconstructs a memory, there are changes in the memory, but the core of the story is usually retained. Over time, however, minor changes can accumulate until the story becomes unrecognizable.

A person within a literate culture thus has presuppositions that may falsely affect his judgment of the validity of oral history within preliterate cultures. In these cultures children are usually selected and specially trained for the role of historian, and develop extraordinary memory skills known as eidetic or photographic memory.

==Usage==

Before the development of written language in a given society, oral history is the primary means of conveying information from one generation to the next. The most common form of this transmission is through storytelling and the recitation of epic poetry, with the stories and poems collectively known as the oral tradition of a people. The combination of this oral tradition with morals and rituals passed down by word of mouth is known as the folklore of a society. Although not as prevalent now as in the past, oral history is still very much alive among many North American native groups.

The information passed on has occasionally shown a surprising accuracy over long periods of time. For example, the Iliad, an epic poem of Homer describing the conquest of Troy, was passed down as oral history from perhaps the 8th century BC, until being recorded in writing by Pisistratos. Nonetheless, factual elements of the Iliad were at least partially validated by the discovery of ruins discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870, thought to be those of the city described in the poem.

A famous example of oral history comes from the works of several authors who have, over the span of many hundreds of years, collected folklore which was ultimately put together in a collection of books known as the Old Testament. The New Testament Gospels were created by several different original authors whose slightly differing versions of many biblical events were combined. The Bible was therefore nearly entirely created using oral history.

lquilter 14:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

tag removed

Nannus removed the tag on March 5, noting in edit summary: "Removed merge tag, since oral literature forms only part of oral tradition (e.g. oral law is not oral history)". A very good point. --lquilter 21:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Link to Psychodynamics

I am currently attempting to establish the relevance of our current articles on Psychodynamics and the supposed subordinate field Psychodynamic psychotherapy. In that context I am investigating the links to the Psychodynamics article. One of them originates with the current article. At first glance the term appears to denote something different from what the Psychodynamics article details. Could someone more abreast with the current subject verify whether this link is relevant? __meco 15:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Hard to tell how much weight Ong would have put on the term, as far as suggesting that psychodynamics -- as a field -- would help to explain the contasts between oral and literate societies. Yet it was indeed his chosen term, and it was certainly an informed choice; his meaning in the passage certainly foregrounds the interrelatedness of various cognitive operations for individuals and societies, and how there are regular contrasts between the cognitive complexes characteristic of cultures with, and without, alphabets. In sum, I think Ong was talking about psychodynamics as it was understood at the time of his writing, but not as the more more systematized field which the psychodynamics article describes. I would leave the link, but perhaps find some way of conveying the fact that the term has a range of specificity? DavidOaks 19:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Removing the 'Unsourced' Tag?

I have added a few specific citations, mostly those already implied by the existing text. I have also made a few small elaborations that help to justify a couple of the citations.

Does anyone know how an 'Unsourced' tag can be removed?Brett epic 16:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the 'unsourced' tag as there seems no longer any reason to keep it.Brett epic 03:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Continuing Debates

To add balance to this article, there needs to a section that acknowledges serious criticisms of the Parry thesis and subsequent elaboration of it, and important splits within the emerging discipline. At present it still reads too much like a personal essay advocating a single POV.Brett epic 17:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Tags

Please never remove maintenance tags without discussing/resolving the issue. It is good that you added quite a few references. Of course, an ideal case is that each piece of information is referenced, but wikipedia:Verifiability rule is not absolutely strict: plausible, easily verifiable information may stay unreferenced until some other wikipedian/reader questions it. Regardless, the following things must always be referenced:

• basic definitions
• opinions
• Statements of non-trivial facts.

In your case,

• the intro is unreferenced
• opinions:
  • "but as part of the same scholarly moment, the turcologist Vasily Radlov" who says he was part of this movement?
  • "The idea met with immediate resistance"
  • "Ong's works also made possible an integrated theory of oral tradition"
  • "Foley effectively consolidated oral tradition"
  • etc.

In addition, wikipedia's tradition is to keep a neutral tone, so please remove all exalted epithets, such as "brilliant", "prominent", "provocative", "massive", etc. `'Míkka>t 18:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you to learn to be "devil's advocate" and not only enjoy your own written text, but also try to guess which pieces may cause doubt by people not so familiar with the subject: wikipedia is written for them. Experts don't reach wikipedia to gain more wisdom (yet). `'Míkka>t 18:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, didn't find any "etc." but I'm sure when you put an inline tag on it, we'll find a cite or remove. Now, anything else you want referenced? I'd say it's time for the general tag to go (again) and I strongly suggest you continue to be specific about exactly what it is you find fault with. DavidOaks (talk) 21:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

That's the whole point. When an article is sufficiently "saturated" with references, then we can start nitpicking. When big chunks of text are unreferenced, then a common tag on top of the page is far less ugly than text peppered with {{fact}} tags. I am done here. Good luck. `'Míkka>t 23:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Current state of the theory

In trying to generalize about the current state of the theory's acceptance, I added this:

While a number of individual scholars in many areas continue to have misgivings about the applicability of the theory or the aptness of the South Slavic comparison,[67] and particularly what they regard as its implications for the creativity which may legitimately be attributed to the individual artist.[68] However, at present, there seems to be little systematic or theoretically coordinated challenge to the fundamental tenets of the theory.

Now, I'm not sure if that requires documentaiton (I will try), but it presents the problem of documenting an absence. DavidOaks (talk) 13:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

" there seems to be little" is an opinion which must be referenced. Sorry, colleague, it is the policy of wikipedia that a wikipedian's word does not count. I see you have some trouble in understanding this fundamental difference of wikipedia from, say, Encyclopedia Britannica. Please read ath think about the rules summarized in wikipedia:Attribution. `'Míkka>t 14:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Will seek a ref. DavidOaks (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, did it. Thanks for the kind words; it was hard enough to get you to follow simple requests to be specific, so I guess we can't hope for manners too.DavidOaks (talk) 16:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It was not so hard, if you keep in mind that in wikipedia time flows differently compared to "real world". I started to write a detailed explanation immediately after your second deletion of tags, but meanwhile you beat me with your "hello again". As I see, you are not exactly a newcomer in wikipedia, so I am a bit surprized you did not run into strong requests to always provide references to whatever you write. I guess, in your areas of interest either there are too few wikipedians or all of them basically agree with each other and don't see possibly questionable phrases. My apologies to my manners, whatever it worth. I guess I was lucky to run into a patient and reasonable person. `'Míkka>t 17:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I have been impatient and testy, for which, sincere apologies. Your requests for references have improved the article, for which, thanks. DavidOaks (talk) 17:56, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Need for revision of Oral Tradition article

I see that there is a proposal to merge the topic Oral-Formulaic Composition into this Oral Tradition topic. I don't think that is a good idea at present because the current article on Oral Tradition is very long and seems to me to lack structural balance, with parts of the article going into what seems to me to be lengthy and minute academic detail about debated aspects of some viewpoint or other. I think that before there is any move of material into the Oral Tradition article, it needs restructuring to become more understandable to someone outside the field. So some detail would be removed or be moved to new separate topics.--AlotToLearn (talk) 23:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's a matter of too much info as too little attention to the difficulty non-specialists have in understanding the rhetoric of specialists (and I am certainly among the guilty) -- although we might note that non-chemists might have a little trouble with some of the articles in that field, ditto physics, structural engineering, economics. Oral tradition is in fact a rather technical field, and things are a bit clouded by the fact that non-specialists tend to enter into the discussion in ways that they don't in the case of (again) chemistry, physics, engineering, economics. Much of the technical stuff has to do for example with showing why the children's party-game of "telephone" is not in fact a good analogy to oral tradition. Still, there must be a way... DavidOaks (talk) 02:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Orphan quote

I wanted to insert "somewhere" a quote from William F. Albright, a respected scholar. "Again we must stress the fact that oral transmission of tradition is inherently more consistent and logical in its results than written transmission, since it sifts and refines. modifying whatever does not fit into the spirit of the main body of tradition." (From Stone Age to Christianity). This has certain ramifications for religion. It seems to summarize some of what is said but have no idea where it could go in the article. I would appreciate suggestions.

In part, this may have something to do with the above subtopic. The article seemed very scholarly but didn't seem to wind up anyplace or have room for a summary by a reliable "secondary source" author. Student7 (talk) 19:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Vansina intro

I undid A Lot to learn's good-faith revision of the intro, and then tried to work Vansina back in (though he's already cited). Problem is, Vansina is working with a concept that's essentially "verbal folklore, possibly with musical accompiniment," rather than with the sound-patterned material essential to the discipline that Parry & Lord defined. We could have a note that acknowledges the simple fact that people mean a great many things by the term. On another matter "orature" is a perfectly awful term, but it has a degree of currency. DavidOaks (talk) 04:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

David, please do not feel aggrieved that I have undone your undo of my edit. I have done so because I do not understand your stated reason for undoing my edit - your undo said merely that my edit had lost too much of what was previous conveyed. I did not remove any material. All I did was add a definition of Oral tradition with two supporting references. The previous unreferenced definition of the term was retained in the article. Aside from adding a referenced definition, the only other change I made was for comprehension purposes, by replacing the visible linked word "law" with "oral law" and "orature" with "oral literature". I would be happy to forgo that change if that is what you object to. If after consideration you still object to the definitions that I have found, please explain why, so the article can be improved and preferably give a reference for any definition you would prefer. Finally. I don't understand what you mean by referring to "the discipline that Parry & Lord defined". Do you mean that this article is primarily about that discipline? --AlotToLearn (talk) 23:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

David, if you have problems with the sentence "The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants." I would have no problems in having that sentence improved to your satisfaction.--AlotToLearn (talk) 23:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

In scanning too quickly, I thought the original first paragraph had disappered, when in fact it was merely bumped forward. My apologies. However, I can't see that it's an improvement as an intro -- Henige's definition already subsumed Vansina's, and Henige was writing more recently, both more specificially and more comprehensively, and in the academic journal most specific to the field. Your revision, as I pointed out, makes Oral Tradition indistinguishable from "verbal folklore," specifying only speech-medium, and neglecting the key conditions of the absence of a written culture, and also sound-patterning (which is what makes it quite a technical field). For example, Vansina's definition would include the work of Studs Terkel or the FWP slave narratives, though these would not be encompassed in Oral-Formulaic theory. Now maybe that's an advantage, moving from the general to the specific, or maybe it creates a situation where this article should be a very short stub, indicating that "oral tradition" is a term used variously to designate folklore, oral literature, oral law, or Oral-Formulaic Composition (and probably a number of other things, oral history, orature...in essence, I'm suggesting that this be reduced to a sort of disambiguation page. Not going to do anything that radical without discussion/consensus, but I'm wondering if it's the best way to deal with a term that seems to mean so many things. DavidOaks (talk) 16:32, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your civil response, David. See below for continuation under new heading--AlotToLearn (talk) 09:30, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Scope of article

Is it correct that under the academic field of Oral Tradition, an item would not qualify once there is writing in the society concerned? If so, the field of study is narrower than the phrase as I would understand it, because I would regard the Vedas are oral tradition even though their tens of thousands of verses were preserved orally for centuries after the development of writing. Maybe we can resolve the scope problem by adding more "ordinary meaning/wider topic" material and subheads at the top, and then moving on to the narrower academic field of study further down article? Are the sophisticated rhythmic, tonal and gestural sequences used for teaching the mantras and sutras, etc of the Vedas part of the academic field? If not, maybe the topics need to be separated? --AlotToLearn (talk) 09:30, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

added words "mantras and" to above --AlotToLearn (talk) 02:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Most current scholarship on "orality" avoids a rigid division between "oral" and "written" societies, and instead recognizes that oral tradition and writing can co-exist. In fact, I would guess that scholars who work on oral tradition would agree with the idea that there are many forms of oral tradition in hyper-literate societies like 21st century America/Europe. You may be interested in looking at [oraltradition.org the website of the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition], as well as its journal Oral Tradition (freely available on the Center's website), which will give you an idea of how some current scholars study oral tradition. I'm not sure if there's anything on the Vedas in the journal, but I think they are often considered as an example of oral tradition. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:06, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Quite right, and I'm v familiar with these sources -- but a rough orality-literacy polarity (actually traditionality-textuality is preferred) remains, in the sense that the dynamics of oral tradition remain fundamentally different from those of text based societies or activities within a society, and that gets lost in a definition that specifies nothing more than verbal transmission. Which is why I think the common usage of "oral tradition" needs to be broken out so that we don't have either un-illuminating arguments or unreflective conflation of such things as, say, oral history and oral-formulaic theory. I think we really do have a scope-of-article challenge befoe us. DavidOaks (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

• David, I'm not so sure yet. The problem may may be that for someone coming to the article with a basic notion, the article does not spend any time at the beginning spelling out in simple, non-technical language what other practical aspects there are to oral tradition. For example, your statement that "the dynamics of oral tradition remain fundamentally different from those of text based societies or activities within a society, and that gets lost in a definition that specifies nothing more than verbal transmission." seems very fair to me - and I like the fact that it is not expressed too technically. I presume that was basically what Ong was on about? My problem is that the intro was & is too brief and that there should be some simple explanations of various practical aspects of the topics, even under subheads, up at the beginning of the article, and then perhaps there would be the discussion of the academic field. Do you see problems with that from a scope of topic point of view?--AlotToLearn (talk) 01:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Please! Clear the academic pollution!

Academics contribute a great deal to this site and that contribution is appreciated. But a growing problem is that academics seem to forget the purpose of an encyclopedia: it is to inform a general public, not to continue or extend or reflect academic conversations.

A person like myself comes to these pages looking for answers to such practical considerations as whether exact transmission of words was considered important or whether stories were merely told or retold, what methods of memorization were used, and how efficiency the oral tradition is considered to be. I cannot find the answers I am looking for in this discussion of theorists and their theories!

In my view, the chief theorists and their theories should never be mentioned in the body of an article. Yes, this is a heresy and an extreme and it doesn't have to be adopted forcefully. Its intent is to establish a discipline in WP where the sort of saturation of the articles with the names of academics of their theories doesn't occur.

Please, there are countless places for academics to write academically for other academics. Don't do it here!

Again, with appreciation for what your contributions. --216.13.187.110 (talk) 21:33, 27 June 2013 (UTC)