Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. The transmission is through speech or song and may include folktales, ballads, chants, prose or poetry. The information is mentally recorded by oral repositories, sometimes termed "walking libraries", who are usually also performers. Oral tradition is a medium of communication for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other knowledge across generations without a writing system, or in parallel to a writing system. It is the most widespread medium of human communication. They often remain in use in the modern era throughout for cultural preservation.
Religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, and Jainism have used oral tradition, in parallel to writing, to transmit their canonical scriptures, rituals, hymns and mythologies. African societies have broadly been labelled oral civilisations, contrasted with literate civilisations, due to their reverence for the oral word and widespread use of oral tradition.
Oral tradition is memories, knowledge, and expression held in common by a group over many generations: it is the long preservation of immediate or contemporaneous testimony. It may be defined as the recall and transmission of specific, preserved textual and cultural knowledge through vocal utterance. Oral tradition is usually popular, and can be exoteric or esoteric. It speaks to people according to their understanding, unveiling itself in accordance with their aptitudes.: 168
As an academic discipline, oral tradition refers both to objects and methods of study. It is distinct from oral history, which is the recording of personal testimony of those who experienced historical eras or events. Oral tradition is also distinct from the study of orality, defined as thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (writing and print) are unfamiliar. Folklore is one albeit not the only type of oral tradition.
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