The Kabyle mother tongue, Berber, is an oral language still in the process of being codified.

ECONOMIST: Algeria

"A nation's oral and written language is the backbone to its culture, " said the Arts Minister of New South Wales, George Souris.

BBC: Australian project hunts lost indigenous languages

What this means is simple: language, oral and written, is a relatively recent invention.

FORBES: Why Apprenticeships Are the Fastest Way to Acquire Skills

With assistance from UNESCO, the Education Ministry of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Institute of the Indigenous Peoples of the North of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences undertook to promote the transmission of Yukagir oral traditions to youth and digitize the language and cultural materials, facilitating both transmission and preservation.

UNESCO: CULTURE

The contract may be oral, or it may be written in the local language and signed by the chief.

ECONOMIST: No title

They bear testimony to the transformation of an essentially oral southern African culture, through the assimilation of the Portuguese language and its repercussion on both Portugal and Brazil.

UNESCO: MEDIA SERVICES

Sardinian is not widely taught in schools on the Italian island and has a largely oral tradition, which means there is currently no standardised form of the language.

BBC: Bilingual children 'better at problem-solving skills'