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Oral cultures are... different from what we're used to. There's a fair bit of research on this (Walter Ong is your starting point if you want to start diving in
by ubernostrum 8y ago
Oral cultures are... different from what we're used to. There's a fair bit of research on this (Walter Ong is your starting point if you want to start diving into it).
Without debating whether the information preserved is factually accurate, it's known that oral cultures develop interesting and complex -- from an information-theoretical perspective -- mechanisms for preserving information, and for making it possible to retain accurately in memory amounts of information that tend to shock people from cultures oriented around writing as the means of information preservation.
- danieltillett 8y agoYes oral cultures are different, but you don't have to go far back in European history to run across cultures that were oral (Anglo Saxon if we want to stay with English history). While a great epic poem of oral tradition, nobody today would consider Beowulf anything other than a complete work of fiction. If your cultures can't preserve basic words, what possible mechanism could preserve useless facts in complex stories who's purpose is purely to entertain around the campfire?
- ubernostrum 8y agoPreserving something important to the culture is not identical with ensuring the language freezes and can never change further. And if you don't think the old oral epics have value -- you seem not to -- then I don't know that it's really worth discussing them with you.
- danieltillett 8y agoIt is not that I don’t think oral story don’t have value (they are entertaining), I just don’t think they contain any facts after a few generation. Myths are fiction.
- ubernostrum 8y agoOral cultures did manage to preserve plenty of facts. Their epics just weren't intended for that purpose. You might as well criticize modern literate America for the vast quantities of fact-free written material being churned out.