jenifer daniels ♎ :verified:from reddit /TIL: #TIL a family in Georgia claimed to have passed down a song in an unknown language from the time of their enslavement; scientists identified the song as a genuine West African funeral song in the Mende language that had survived multiple transmissions from mother to daughter over multiple centuries
TIL that lots of folks don't know what oral history is (in the subreddit comments). yikes
Benn Berkley 
🤨🤔🧐🧐🧐
But…but how…how did they think ancient stories were passed down before paper was invented? Did they think cave paintings were just ancient emojis? I’m truly baffled right now.
@ScribblerRVA @_L1vY_ chile...the reference they used was reading "Roots"
their term = "bullshit" until they learned otherwise
🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️jaaaaaheeeezuuuuuuus🙄😑”I read Roots” is the apparently the 21st century version of “I have a Black friend”. Alex Haley created a monster!🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️
Chris Hanson@ScribblerRVA @jentrification @_L1vY_ They have an *extremely* uninformed view of history and humans’ place in our world; they almost certainly couldn’t even get within the order of magnitude if asked to estimate how long things our species has existed or had written language.
Shari Emerson@eschaton @ScribblerRVA @jentrification @_L1vY_
More ppl clearly need to see Bill Wurtz's EPIC "History of the Entire World, I Guess"
my brain got a whole upgraded data set on how long China-as-China, and way more context for India and the middle East, from that 20 minute video. (terrific way to uncover knowledge gaps you want to fill in!)
But - anthropology needs to try harder to understand oral-history societies. We're missing out.
history of the entire world, i guess
eat_more_bees@ScribblerRVA @jentrification @_L1vY_ you're missing so much about this story: African slaves had their identities deliberately suppressed when brought to America. Most African-Americans don't know where their ancestors came from originally. They kept this song and the words accurate without even knowing the language, through multiple generations, well enough that it was identifiable. Usually oral traditions are understood by those keeping them.
@eatmorebees no no, @ScribblerRVA did read the article. they were responding to another toot where I referenced other ppl not knowing about oral histories
@jentrification @eatmorebees You’re a better one than I. I was just simply not gonna acknowledge the toot. Having my own Blackness blacksplained back to me ain’t worth responding to.
@ScribblerRVA yeah i get it. but i am also frustrated that folks aren't reading and they do need to know when they are wrong @eatmorebees
Mysturji@ScribblerRVA @jentrification @_L1vY_
That’s why fundamentalist Christians think the Universe is 6000 years old. That’s (approximately) when writing was invented. (In the {relative} West)
That’s why fundamentalist Christians think the Universe is 6000 years old. That’s (approximately) when writing was invented. (In the {relative} West)