"Orality" refers to reliance upon the spoken, rather than written, word for communication. Before writing was developed, ethnic groups passed along their cultural traditions, including their history, identity, and religion, through stories, proverbs, poems, songs, etc. These are oral art forms; that is, they are spoken, sung or chanted. They were (and often still are) woven into ceremonies, dramas and daily life. Purely oral societies pass along everything that matters from one generation to another without putting anything into writing. Today most cultures use written and oral means in combination. When a society lives primarily or exclusively by oral means, that use of language affects their habits of learning, communication, decision making, and the like. The field of orality includes the study of these other factors as well as the art of oral performance.

The Bible says that Jesus “was speaking the word to [his followers] as they were able to hear it” (Mk. 4:33, NASB, emphasis added). He adapted his teaching to their ability to understand. On that occasion it meant he used parables. Good communicators use forms of communication that the audience understands. Because orality is a major influence around the world, we need to understand it in order to be effective communicators. Our message will be understood better and reproduced to others better if we put it in a format that is familiar to the culture. People from print-oriented backgrounds mistakenly use print-based approaches in oral cultures unless they understand orality.

“Orality” is a noun that most people have never heard. The adjective “oral” and adverb “orally” are better known. The adjective “oral” normally refers to the mouth, as in “oral hygiene” or “oral surgery,” or speech, as in “oral presentation” or “oral quiz.” On this website we have sometimes used “orality” as an adjective, as in “orality strategies.” (English does this frequently, as in “mountain bike” and “dog food.”) Societies with pervasive orality use many forms of communication. In addition to the spoken means, they also use visual arts like painting and performing arts like dance. It is misleading to refer to painting and dance as “oral strategies,” because they are not spoken. So we use “orality strategies” to refer to various methods used for communication in cultures where orality predominates.

Actually, even in the U. S., Canada, Great Britain, and Germany, almost half of adults have “below basic” or “basic” literacy skills. This is so even though those countries have claimed literacy rates of over 95%. Elsewhere in the world literacy skills are usually even lower. By some estimates, at least 70% of the world’s population has no literacy or such limited reading comprehension that they could not read a Bible with understanding.

Learning vocabulary and grammar is only the beginning of knowing a language. To truly know it, we need to master the various ways that language is used in different situations. This includes understanding how to tell stories the way mother tongue speakers tell them, using their proverbs correctly, and appreciating their other oral art forms.

We can avoid using ineffective approaches, such as outlines, lists of teaching points, fill-in-the blanks pages, and the like. We can choose culturally-appropriate oral forms of communication. These make our message interesting, relevant and memorable. Using oral methods makes it far easier for those we teach to pass the teaching to others.

People learn to speak their language before they learn to read it, so oral communication is the foundation of virtually every culture. (Deaf cultures would be possible exceptions.) Today there are only a small number of isolated ethnic groups who have no experience with print. But many groups who use print for government business and in schools still function largely by oral means in their day-to-day lives.

Here! This site is designed to help you understand the importance of orality and find practical resources. For help getting started on this site, visit the ‘Information’ tab located under the ‘About Orality’ section of our site. That section has a clear definition of orality and shows how we organize content on the site. We are constantly making improvements. So, stay connected using one or more of our many RSS feeds. These automatic feeds send you notices about any resources or strategies we add to our site. To learn more about RSS feeds, visit a ‘Beginners’ Guide to RSS’ and find a good RSS reader for your computer through download.com or searching Google for RSS readers.

The Bible’s roots are in an oral setting, so it contains what oral cultures need. It is basically a single overarching story composed of many individual stories. Approximately half of the Bible is narrative. Songs (psalms), proverbs, and poetry are prominent. Even the epistles make frequent reference to stories from the Old Testament and life of Jesus. The Bible describes one person reading Scripture aloud to many (Deut. 31:9-13; Ezra 8:1-3; Col. 4:15-16; Rev. 1:3). This reminds us that copies of the Scriptures were not readily available and that most people could not have read them for themselves. The Bible exhorts people to learn its teachings by heart (Josh. 1:8-9; Prov. 3:1-3, 4:20-21) and to transmit orally the stories about God’s mighty deeds from generation to generation (Ps. 78:1-8). The early church grew rapidly by orally transmitting the stories and teachings of Jesus. By the time the four Gospels were written, the church was already well established.

Thank you for the opportunity to answer your question about people not being able to read the Bible. The statement about the number of people "who could not read the Bible if they had it" refers to people who cannot read at all or who can only read (and understand) short, simple, and familiar reading materials. A report released last month by the U. S. Department of Education said that almost half the adults in the United States (93 million people) are in this unfortunate situation.

To most non-Christians and even to some Christians the Bible is not familiar material. Also, the Bible contains some long and rather complicated books. And, as 2 Peter 3:15-16 acknowledges, some parts of it are hard to understand. If almost half the adults in the United States, with its free public school system and long history of education, cannot read above a basic level, then it only stands to reason that at least half the adults in the rest of the world are likely in the same situation. Tests done in 22 countries, many of them in Western Europe, have shown that this is in fact the case in those countries, too. In many other countries, far more than half the adult population cannot read well enough to understand the Bible. When you add in the children and teenagers who have not yet learned to read lengthy, unfamiliar, and complicated books with understanding, then it is not hard to conclude that somewhere between two-thirds and three-fourths of the world's population should not be expected to be able to "read the Bible if they had it." This statement does assume that by "read" we mean "read with understanding."