Mallorca has launched Mallorca Oral, a new digital platform designed to preserve and promote the island’s oral heritage, traditional culture and collective memory. The website, available at www.mallorcaoral.cat, brings together the Oral Archive, the Songbook and the Tradition Archive of Mallorca in a single online space.
The project has been developed by the Mallorca Literària Foundation and is linked to the Museu de la Paraula – Casa Rafel Ginard in Sant Joan. It aims to approach popular culture as a living, evolving expression rooted in tradition. According to the Vice-President and Head of Culture and Heritage, Antònia Roca, the platform strengthens the institutional commitment to safeguarding cultural traditions while allowing them to evolve.
The portal is built around three core pillars that represent Mallorca’s collective cultural legacy: the Songbook, the Tradition Archive, and the Mallorca Oral Archive, all inspired by the folklorist Rafel Ginard and his pioneering work in collecting popular culture.
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Mallorca Oral launches a new digital platform to showcase the island’s oral heritage
The most significant new feature is the Mallorca Oral Archive, a sound and audiovisual repository created after years of collecting oral testimonies. It includes recordings of songs, riddles, folktales and other ethnopoetic expressions, as well as personal accounts and life stories, intending to preserve and share Mallorca’s historical and social memory. The archive is conceived as a living project that will continue to grow.
The online Songbook, first launched in 2013 and based on Rafel Ginard’s Cançoner Popular de Mallorca, has now been incorporated into Mallorca Oral with a renewed design while maintaining its original spirit as an evolving cultural tool.
The Tradition Archive of Mallorca, created in 2015 from the handwritten notes of the Folkloric Calendar of Mallorca, offers monthly insights into local festivals and customs and has also been updated and integrated into the new platform.
Mallorca Oral is an open-access digital resource, intended both for academic research and for the general public interested in exploring the island’s rich oral traditions.