Oral traditions
Most of the world’s cultures have evolved and transmitted their
body of knowledge and values to succeeding generations solely by word of
mouth, relying on human memory alone.
With the advent of handwriting and many other more
modern techniques such as audio and video recording, much of this has been
recorded in material form.
However, oral traditions are still powerful vectors of
cultural transmission in all cultures. Genealogies, epics, rituals, customs,
recipes and techniques still rely largely on oral transmission.
We can really consider Iraqi oral tradition as an
“original version”, as it is the land of Gilgamesh epic, and the land
of the 1001 nights, and the stories of Sinbad the sailor trips.
Every
act of transmission of oral tradition is in fact a restitution and creation.
This fact makes it very fragile because a fault in transmission can lead to
the sudden disappearance of an age-old tradition.
If extinction is to be prevented, it is sometimes
necessary to revitalize oral traditions. It is now possible by means of
modern technology to study and record many oral traditions according as they
evolve. Yet nothing can possibly replace the value of their creative
transmission. It is vitally important therefore to keep oral traditions
alive in order to maintain both the richness and diversity of cultures.
