On the importance of folklore
Science of survival. Simple statement. A lot to discuss.
As the folklore is passed from generation to generation, the ever expanding and growing intellect of the community either shapes the retelling of it or is rather shaped by the retelling of the same. Folklore, therefore, has something to do with time.
Day by day, as people struggle for securer self-preservation, language evolves. MAK Halliday has commented that language and brain are co-created and are in fact co-damaged and co-destroyed. A defect in the brain means a defect in the language, and vice-versa.
Therefore, I would argue, folklore is based on narrative — an oral art — that involves command of the language. In the primitive cultures, I would ponder, language develops across time.
Language and place are long been intertwined, says a researcher named Burdick in 2012 whom I happened to have read in the early months of the lockdown period.
Last week, I was able to encounter this statement with my readings: “Lang has phrased that folklore was the science of survival.” Interesting, I exclaimed in front of my computer.
In the primitive cultures, where perhaps viewing them from the standpoint of the present would yield to concluding them as the time of complete ignorance, nothing is more important than self-preservation.
According to a UP Philosophy professor, de Villa, whom I often quote in discussions, the prime role of man is for self-preservation.
That said, at the height of ignorance and persistent struggle to advance knowledge of the primitive people, no one would bother to preserve folklore if it were not important as self-preservation.
Hence, Lang’s claim of folklore’s being a science of survival then is justified.
Language acquisition, retelling
During the spontaneous language acquisition period in childhood, when parents say something to a toddler, the same does not say what was said in an exact structure but rather in a restructured way because the grammar used by the adult was too advanced for the toddler. “Johnny is not here” would be restated as “No Johnny.”
The same holds true when transferring a narrative from one vessel to another. That is, one man to another. Give also the erroneous acquisition of the same that leads to an erroneous retelling.
According to the lecture, the word “polygenesis” was mentioned.
Finnish school and the national theory
There are two theories in folklore that I have become well-versed in the previous week: the Finnish school and the national theory.
The Finnish school which is the Finnish historical-geographical method and also termed as the comparative folklore is much taken as a method rather than a theory. It claims that a tale has hundreds of oral variants but must have originated in one time and one place by an act of conscious invention. However it ignores the important questions that most folklore scholars pose. Such as the style and artistry, the mysterious process of creation and alteration, the social context, and the individual genius. It simply reduces the folklore to statistical facts. But it makes sense to me. It studies the history and geography of the folklore. Includes a lot of work. None could dismiss it.
But I still think we owe language from folklore. What else those people could talk about in those days? Did they speak of remotely researched science back then? I dare say not.
Science of survival. Simple statement. A lot to discuss.
Folklore scholarship, weaponization
As a matter of fact, in the late 1920s, the folklore scholarship was growing in German universities that it became a mandatory subject. Under the national perspective, a tale is seen to represent the nation’s collective wit or sentiments. But a comparative folklorist would dryly say: “That also is found in other dozens of languages.”
The importance of studying folklore is viewed to be innately political by the Nazis. These Nazis found the power of folklore to influence the people without any effort to persuade them. These Nazis make me smile of their evil genius. Folklore was weaponized.
Even Marx was espoused in folklore. They said folklore was from the working class and that they reflect the ideals of that same class.
I can say that folklore is a fertile field of research. I am falling in love with the subject. I am a qualitative guy, truth be told. My perspective here is that folklore must be studied for its importance in language development, the culture people had, the philosophy and science of survival, and other else that we may talk about. Maybe demography, history, and even the study of intellect.
But why would they develop folklore during those days?
And what interests me most is that why folklore is evident in different parts of the globe? Is this the common ground?
This rich field must not die.
Good thing! Philippine politics has not reached the period of politicizing folklore.
For the last note: the importance of folklore is not dependent to its scholars. It is folklore in the centuries that have passed and will remain the same. It is as old as our natives. How did these people survive? One thing: folklore!
