Folklore

Folklore is the expressive body of culture shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, the forms and rituals of celebrations such as Christmas and weddings, folk dances and initiation rites. Each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact.

Фолькло́р

Folclore

The word folklore, a compound of folk and lore, was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms, who contrived the term as a replacement for the contemporary terminology of “popular antiquities” or “popular literature”. The second half of the word, lore, comes from Old English lār ‘instruction’. It is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, frequently passed along by word of mouth. The concept of folk has varied over time. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor and illiterate peasants. A more modern definition of folk is a social group that includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions.

民俗

فلكلور

Kansanperinne

Folklore began to distinguish itself as an autonomous discipline during the period of romantic nationalism in Europe. A particular figure in this development was Johann Gottfried von Herder, whose writings in the 1770s presented oral traditions as organic processes grounded in locale. After the German states were invaded by Napoleonic France, Herder’s approach was adopted by many of his fellow Germans who systematized the recorded folk traditions and used them in their process of nation building. This process was enthusiastically embraced by smaller nations like Finland, Estonia, and Hungary, which were seeking political independence from their dominant neighbours.

लोककथा

伝承

Folklor

Individual folklore artifacts are commonly classified as one of three types: material, verbal or customary lore. For the most part self-explanatory, these categories include physical objects (material folklore), common sayings, expressions, stories and songs (verbal folklore), and beliefs and ways of doing things (customary folklore). There is also a fourth major subgenre defined for children’s folklore and games (childlore), as the collection and interpretation of this fertile topic is peculiar to school yards and neighborhood streets.