Talk:Oral tradition

message: 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 
 , quoting p32 of 
Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 16:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Anecdote

message: 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)
thread_title: systematic hermeneutics

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

message: 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)
thread_title: Unclear reference

message: 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)
thread_title:  material from "oral history" article 

message: 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)
thread_title: tag removed

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Link to [[Psychodynamics]] 

message: 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)
replies: text: I've removed the 'unsourced' tag as there seems no longer any reason to keep it.Brett epic 03:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removing the 'Unsourced' Tag?

message: 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)
thread_title: Continuing Debates

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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   tags. I am done here. Good luck. `'Míkka>t 23:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tags 

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

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Current state of the theory

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Need for revision of Oral Tradition article

message: 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)
thread_title: Orphan quote

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

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

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: *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)
thread_title: Scope of article

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello all, 
I've just added a subsection on Native American oral traditions within the 'History' section of the article. Included are three paragraphs: one on the significance of oral storytelling to Native American cultures, one on the actual mechanics of how stories were/are told, and one on the historical and scientific aspects of stories. Peer-reviewed citations are included. I think this might help add to the greater body of work on oral traditions by focusing in on particular geographies and cultures. I am however slightly unsure of the best way to approach the issue of talking about pre-European contact oral traditions and oral traditions today, when many Native languages have since developed written systems. I do not want to imply by frequently using past tense that Native oral traditions are no longer important.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcharlton19 (talk • contribs) 15:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Native American oral traditions  

message: :More information of African oral traditions would be important, such as the usage of Mali, Yoruba, and Benin oral histories. The use of performance as an oral history should also be discussed as it impacts the context stories are told with.Ngill13 (talk) 20:34, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe have some more information about Asia. Also, I'm sure some of it is out dated because of the date of the article. So, someone might need to go through and update anything that isn't current. Aaronmc817 (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

text: It is said, "It does not require many words to speak the truth." That is the premise upon which American Indian oral traditions are built and maintained.  Yes, we know the Earth was not created by a water beetle but there were practical lessons in every story told. Only the European-American sat around thinking of bigger words to use when writing. The American Indian had no use for writing when his/her mind was clear and could remember what was said. They lived with these traditions every day of their life and applied them. You can't sum that up in a few sentences or paragraphs. I appreciate what is being attempted here but it reads more like a college thesis paper than an actual record of oral traditions or their import to the various world cultures who passed information orally. That's my opinion. --Tsistunagiska (talk) 15:42, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  How can the article be improved? 

message: Somewhere, perhaps in the preface to Roots, I read that Alex Haley had met with a man in Africa who memorized the stories of the people of his tribe, and that is where he heard their side of the story of his great grandfather Kunta Kinte being kidnapped. Perhaps this is relevant to the article? May the experts with a bit of time on their hands look into it? Thanks פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 22:29, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Africa - Alex Haley's testimony 

message: Several times surrounding Samuel and David, there are mentions of messangers with messages that are to be told in very certain words. Actually there are 78 referrals of "and say thus to..." throughout the old testament. 
In one case Jesse, David's father, sends him to the field where Goliath is cursing the Israelis. "The man of Israel" then repeats the king's promise: "Have you seen that man coming up? To curse Israel he is coming up, and the man who hits him, the king shal make him rich with great richness, and his daughter he will give to him, and his father's home he will set free in Israel. 
In another, David sends 10 warriors (the correct translation of Ne2arim as Yigael Yadin explained) to Abigail with a message which is repeated word for word. 
This may also be the explanation of the lengthy repetitions in the story of Eliezer, Abraham's servant. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 23:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biblical evidence of oral traditions 

message: 'Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact' is a book that openly opposes what was and still is the consensus view of the history of the Americas, siding with Native American myths (as if these weren't incompatible with each other, too) against science, which in the author's view is just lies and fabrications of 'the white man'. As far as I'm concerned, this is nationalist activism and not scholarship. Why is it cited as a reliable source here? 87.126.21.225 (talk) 00:34, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliable sources?