Orality and Technology, or the Bit and the Byte: The Work of the World Oral Literature Project

Abstract

For societies in which traditions are conveyed more through speech than through writing, literature is often an important medium for the transmission of ideas, knowledge, and history. The term oral literature, while contested, can be broadly read to include ritual texts, curative chants, epic poems, folk tales, creation stories, songs, myths, spells, legends, proverbs, riddles, tongue twisters, recitations, and historical narratives. This list is by no means exhaustive or intended to be definitive, but it serves rather to underscore the range of performative styles that can be accommodated within the category of literature (and, by association, within folklore and tradition). In many cases, and performative traditions are not translated when a community shifts to using a more dominant language, and literature in general remains one of the most poorly studied and least recognized forms of human creative expression.