in AI, Speech

Aural Culture vs Typed Word

“If the whole truth is told, oral tradition stands out as the single most dominant communicative technology of our species as both a historical fact and, in many areas still, a contemporary reality.” __John Foley, Signs of Orality

Johannes Gutenberg ushered in the era of printing press and movable type around the year 1439. Thanks to him I’m able to write this blog but what intrigues me is why did we go from aural tradition to written tradition in the first place. What were the problems with aural methods that were addressed by printed word?

Johannes Gutenberg
Source: wikipedia.org

How did people transfer knowledge, news, gossip before printing was a thing? Handwritten manuscript was the prevalent method for writing and sharing ideas. However, the most popular method of transferring, sharing ideas with one another was through oral communication.

“If the whole truth is told, oral tradition stands out as the single most dominant communicative technology of our species as both a historical fact and, in many areas still, a contemporary reality.”

__John Foley, Signs of Orality

In ancient India, scriptures, folklore, stories were mainly transmitted orally. It is widely believed that srutis of Hinduism (Vedas) were never written down but have been transferred from generation to generation solely orally. Signs of that can be seen even today in the way music is taught in North India, Hindustani music, which is the main focus of one of the four vedas, Samaveda. The notations, structure of the composition (Raaga) and the Chalan (movements and interconnections between various notes) are some of the aspects that are still transferred between the Guru and Sishya in the so called Guru-Sishya-Parampara in oral methods.

“The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalized early on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures; it is, in fact, something like a tape-recording… Not just the actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in Japanese) has been preserved up to the present.”

— Michael Witzel

In Greece, it’s believed that Homer’s epic poetry (Lliad and Odyssey) was primarily composed, performed and transmitted orally.

Are we getting back to oral/aural mode of transmitting ideas more so than written script? This brings me to the point I’m trying to make with this writeup, if we can speak and the machines can understand and converse with us just like humans, if not better than humans, would oral communication become the predominant way we transmit ideas, commands, conversations?

If we can talk to the TV, talk to the garage door, talk to the thermostat and listen to books, listen to magazines, make annotations using audio markers rather than visual markers, you get the point, If I can talk to my phone and it can talk back to me (as Turing dreamed of), would we still want to type or read? or would we rather talk and listen?. What do you think?

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