Oral superiority spills into five categories: the mutual experience, the imagination, the influence, the emotion and the active role.
Orality historically precedes literacy due to the difficulty to read. Reading and speaking a language are two different aspects. Language fluidity is memorisation. Making sounds is natural from the baby coos to childish bye-byes. The baby hears and responds. Undeveloped he cannot articulate the words fully. Able to coherently comprehend leads to mimicking. Much of speaking is copying parents. Parents but a sentence together so does the child. The natural sound-making is practiced from a young age. Its routine exposure only educates further.
Oral messaging is naturally internalised. A parent reading a bed time story or lullaby is rhythmic and narrational. The child imagination understands the words and their meaning. The oral communication is passed to their child to his understanding. The listener actively participates by fostering a movie-like reality in his mind. The simplicity of the story and their empowering energy captures the child’s limited knowledge. They lack sophistication and prestige. The spoken word is interpreted in the listener’s ear and into his mind. He makes the story a film to imagine the plot line.
Reading presents an extra step. The words on the page need to be translated in the mind and then create the imaginative focus. Reading focuses on the text as a translation. The words are a wall before the imagination. Only once able to sound out the words, interpreting them in of themselves and then in the context of the sentence makes the inaudible understandable. This same process is applied to books written in foreign languages. the word itself needs to be understood and then in its context. In the Jewish lexicography, the talmud is split by Rashi’s semantic reading of the Aramaic word within sentence context and Tosafot’s semiotic reading in literature context. Is there one or does multiple translations, does context change its definition? The same goes for the child.
A foreign language is inaudible but orality comes with external action or description. A book does not provide visual confirmation. It is a guess of the reader. The listener recognises pictures, facial expressions and emotions. It is not a bland slate. Speaking has fluid style. There is a right way of speaking and a wrong way of speaking. Though non-natives have discrepancies in speech and different dialectics i.e. Arabic arise, images ease the translative burden. Divergencies are inevitable but vary socially and geographically.
Orality is unique to a culture. Arabic has multiple dialects that aggravate communication while the written form remains distinct. While Moroccans and Egyptians will read the same word, it will sound differently. “Fusha” and “Amiyya” are the written and spoken forms of Arabic. Amiya differs due to advanced vocabulary and pronunciation. The encoded language in newspapers is collectively understood but the geographical distance and external influence causes misunderstanding. There is a language game of sorts and culturally organic model. The internal cohesiveness of attuned folk empowers the special relationship between them. The fact that Moroccans and Egyptians don’t understand one another only furthers the particularity of their respective dialects. The spoken word is sacred to the sole interpreter.
Even English speakers find nuance. Many people struggle understanding the hard Scottish accent except those who speak it. Additionally the differences between American language and stand with England is far more obvious. Geographical distance and ideological isolation also may have assisted in this. Yet many brits are accustomed to american slang while not true vice versa. Brits are far more exposed to American entertainment. This in turn makes speech much more audible. Combining imagery with exposure and everything seems much clearer. To be fair asking for directions in a different dialect can hurt transparent communication. Though a first time exposure isn’t going to help anyone. Even for children, routine is necessary to full comprehend.
The spoken word transcends the grip of limited literacy. Look at Shakespeare versus Hemingway. The terminological use differs. Books are a manifestation of their time. Reading requires more skill because it is not the natural flow of words. It forces the child to sound out and then make heads or tails of its meaning. The spoken word is evolutionary and can lead to the extinction of language. Hebrew was deemed a dead language for generations, only preserved in books and prayer. Still its ability to survive lay in its continued verbal and written usage. Though not used commonly conversationally with others it was with God. Yet its usage preserved its phonology.
Though there are difference between ashkenazi, Sephardi and yemenite Jews. Do to their social land geographical distance they produced different readings. Ashkenazim do not distinguish between ales and akin while sephardi jews don’t between text kaf and kuf while yemenites do both. This does not mean that ashkenazi are wrong (though we cannot know for sure). He lack of semitic similarity for ashkenazim put them at a disadvantage. Yet, concerning vowels yemenite is the worst with only five while Ashkenazim have eight like the Biblical Hebrew. So each focused on one side: either consonants or vowels. Though ashkenazim were far from a semitic language like Arabic they maintained a traditional Hebrew dialect by writing in Hebrew and focusing on the peshat of the text. The Andalusians wrote in Arabic while the French wrote in Hebrew. The latter were also extensive grammarians. Using that knowledge to further their knowledge of biblical text.
It is important to recognise the necessary fluidity of language for translating literacy. Despite the grammarians efforts, their semantic readings undervalued the semiotic function. Synchronic investigation melded by Mishnaic authorities and exegetical traditions promotes the ancient reading. The semiotic interaction attacks the text at face value disregarding it. It debunks the philological attempts to portray a text with a time syntactically. Ironically, the Tosafists did not apply their talmudic model to the bible. They focused sentence context instead of literature context. The genuine translation is one passed down not studied. The Andalusian model captured the talmudic peshat from its predecessors. The semiotic model is esoteric and provides an internal structure that if read with medieval eyes would misunderstand. Semiotics preserves the oral character behind the text as the rightful manifestation.
In the long run, the Spanish oral hermeneutic maintained earlier transmissions with the studious effort to uncover what may have been. The French grammarians focused on the text as a literacy when in fact it was an oral compilation. The textual explanation were divergent from the text but as a result of a misunderstanding. The text was the source for the pre-existing allegory or law. The narration preceded the codex. The emergence of ladino as well as yiddish muddled efforts to maintain pure Hebrew, still the hermeneutical aspect remained due to the oral transmission. Devoted to secure orality is confounded in the game of telephone. It is possible to deviate but consistency breads authenticity.
Textual exposure merely provides semantic phraseology to connect. It under appreciates the massive link in oral symmetry. Language evolves but it can also be honed. Language may shift but not necessarily the stories. Orality is is not solely speech but transmission. The interpretative community from the oral sphere is sacred in its own right. It can only be determined by those who understand the language and the intent. The Hebrew language developed and with Aramaic overwhelming Hebrew dialogue, Hebrew was kept alive in the outskirts. Each group did a good job of tending to the discrepancies between letters. Phonology was lauded but using that model of “authentic Hebrew” back into the text does not work identically. The interpretant cannot sole pronounce but also interpret.
As language evolves the stories are changed by the words characterised. Think of “simcha” it has no English counterpart. We term it “joy” but we are deluding the proper translation because we are not aware of the original mark. Mistranslations grow and stories are changed. Jews having horns was a mistranslation without the aid of a proper dictionary (though its debated if St. Jerome was aware of the true meaning). The grammarian return to text posits either their own mind or the textual intuition. Playing by literacy rules a text must infer x. Yet this incalculable for an original oral text. The only way to understand is in light of its historic foundation. Philology may point to an oral framework but the translation synchronically follows its literary genius not another culture’s. Oral features flow to their death in literacy. Phonology is incongruent with the oral factor. Even the syntactical layer is imperfect.
An enduring push for pragmatics helps better convey the orality. Socio-linguistic meaning heightens the oral periphery. The signification and contextual layer are imperative for proper transmission. As it provides intent and factorial basis to the literate monopoly. The text does not necessitate clarity. Especially when its plain reading is syntactically problematic and metaphorically emboldened. The is a deeper factor intentioned and marked. Looking at literacy alone will not avail the issue. It is the easy way out to translate literally. Yet the wrong way to do so. The text is primed for interpretation. The wisdom compilation methodologically promotes a narrational cohesiveness. The surface reading is an incompetent reading. The pragmatics incorporates the myriad of variables into the totality of the law. The narration that follows promises to give colour to a bleak picture. It lights up the statement into a portrait.
