According to John Foley, oral tradition has been an ancient human tradition found in "all corners of the world". oral tradition remains the dominant communicative means within the world.
Africa In Africa, the oral tradition includes proverbs, folktales, songs, dances, customs, traditional medicine, religious practices, and cultural sayings that are told and expressed to teach lessons about life, social systems, religion, and spirituality. All
indigenous African societies use oral tradition to learn their origin and
history, civic and religious duties, crafts and skills, as well as traditional myths and
legends. It is also a key socio-cultural component in the practice of their
traditional spiritualities, as well as mainstream
Abrahamic religions.
Jan Vansina differentiates between
oral and
literate civilisations, stating: "The attitude of members of an oral society toward
speech is similar to the reverence members of a literate society attach to the
written word. If it is hallowed by authority or antiquity, the word will be treasured." For centuries in Europe, all data felt to be important were written down, with the most important texts prioritised, such as
Bible, and only trivia, such as song, legend, anecdote, and proverbs remained unrecorded. In Africa, all the principal political, legal, social, and religious texts were transmitted orally. When the
Bamums in Cameroon
invented a script, the first to be written down was the
royal chronicle and the code of
customary law. Most African courts had archivists who learnt by heart the royal genealogy and history of the state, and served as its
unwritten constitution. 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 were told at informal gatherings and everyone had to have their turn; in neighbouring
Rwanda, many narratives were longer 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. The griot is a hereditary position and exists in
Dyula,
Soninke,
Fula,
Hausa,
Songhai,
Wolof,
Serer, and
Mossi societies among many others, although more famously in
Mandinka society. They constitute a
caste and perform a range of roles, including as a historian or library, musician, poet,
mediator of family and tribal disputes, spokesperson, and served in the king's court, not dissimilar from the European
bard. They keep records of all births, death, and marriages through the generations of the village or family. When
Sundiata Keita founded the
Mali Empire, he was offered
Balla Fasséké as his griot to advise him during his reign, giving rise to the
Kouyate line of griots. Griots often accompany their telling of oral tradition with a musical instrument, as the
Epic of Sundiata is accompanied by the
balafon, or as the
kora accompanies other traditions. In modern times, some griots and descendants of griots have dropped their historian role and focus on music, with many finding success, however many still maintain their traditional roles.
East Africa Kenya safeguarded its oral tradition by ratifying the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in October 2007.
North Africa Central Africa Southern Africa Europe Albania (
Shala) practicing the
gjâmë – the
Albanian lamentation of the dead – in the funeral of Ujk Vuksani, 1937. The earliest figurative representations of this practice in traditional Albanian-inhabited regions appear on
Dardanian funerary stelae of
classical antiquity. Albanian traditions have been handed down orally across generations. They have been preserved through traditional memory systems that have survived intact into modern times in
Albania, a phenomenon that is explained by the lack of state formation among
Albanians and their ancestors – the
Illyrians, being able to preserve their
"tribally" organized society. This distinguished them from civilizations such as
Ancient Egypt,
Minoans and
Mycenaeans, who underwent state formation and disrupted their traditional memory practices.
Albanian epic poetry has been analysed by
Homeric scholars to acquire a better understanding of
Homeric 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.
Ancient Greece "All ancient Greek literature", states Steve Reece, "was to some degree oral in nature, and the earliest literature was completely so".
Homer's epic poetry, states Michael Gagarin, "was largely composed, performed and transmitted orally". As folklores and legends were performed in front of distant audiences, the singers would substitute the names in the stories with local characters or rulers to give the stories a local flavor and thus connect with the audience, but making the historicity embedded in the oral tradition unreliable. The lack of surviving texts about the Greek and Roman religious traditions have led scholars to presume that these were ritualistic and transmitted as oral traditions, but some scholars disagree that the complex rituals in the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations were an exclusive product of an oral tradition.
Ireland An Irish
seanchaí (plural:
seanchaithe), meaning bearer of "old lore"
, was a traditional
Irish language storyteller (the
Scottish Gaelic equivalent being the
seanchaidh, anglicised as shanachie). The job of a
seanchaí was to serve the head of a lineage by passing information orally from one generation to the next about
Irish folklore and history, particularly in medieval times.
Rome The potential for oral transmission of history in
ancient Rome is evidenced primarily by
Cicero, who discusses the significance of oral tradition in works such as
Brutus,
Tusculan Disputations, and
On The Orator. While
Cicero's reliance on Cato's Origines may limit the breadth of his argument, he nonetheless highlights the importance of storytelling in preserving
Roman history.
Valerius Maximus also references oral tradition in Memorable Doings and Sayings (2.1.10). 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. Although Flower critiques the lack of ancient evidence supporting Wiseman's broader claims, 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". 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. Arabic oral tradition encompassed various forms of expression, including
metrical poetry,
unrhymed prose,
rhymed prose (''
saj'''), and
prosimetrum—a combination of prose and poetry often employed in historical narratives.
Poetry held a position of particular importance, as it was believed to be a more reliable medium for information transmission than prose. This belief stemmed from observations that highly structured language, with its rhythmic and phonetic patterns, tended to undergo fewer alterations during oral transmission. 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. This is evidenced, for example, by the multiple scriptural statements by Paul admitting "previously remembered tradition which he received" orally.
Oceania Australia Australian Aboriginal culture has thrived on oral traditions and oral histories passed down through thousands of years. In a study published in February 2020, new evidence showed that both
Budj Bim and
Tower Hill volcanoes erupted between 34,000 and 40,000 years ago. Significantly, this is a "minimum age constraint for human presence in
Victoria", and also could be interpreted as evidence for the oral histories of the
Gunditjmara people, an
Aboriginal Australian people of south-western Victoria, which tell of volcanic eruptions being some of the oldest oral traditions in existence. A basalt stone axe found underneath
volcanic ash in 1947 had already proven that humans inhabited the region before the eruption of Tower Hill. a trait
Western settlers deemed as representing an inferior race without neither culture nor history, often cited as a reason behind
indoctrination. 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 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. 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. Stories are used to preserve and transmit both tribal history and environmental history, which are often closely linked. 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. 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. ==Transmission==