This article describes the possibility of distinguishing the genre of the anecdote in Manden oral tradition and the specificity of the texts associated with the anecdote in bamana. In bamana and Maninka languages there is no special term for anecdotes, most often the words “joke” or “funny story” are used. The significance of bamana “funny stories” is in fact that the anecdote genre’s formation is taking place before our eyes. But so far, among these stories one can find full-fledged anecdotes as well as a large number of simple stories, from the point of view of the logic of their constructing, related to tales about animals or fools. First and foremost, such qualities as stupidity, laziness, cowardice, greed, and desire to gain one’s own profit are ridiculed. There are anecdotes that correspond to a visual-figurative type of thinking. They are based on comic situations, and represent the examples of stupidity, confusion, mistakes. Other anecdotes correspond to a verbal-logical type of thinking, the stories based on language errors, misreading, homonymy, etc.; as well as those that are based on various inconsistencies in the logic of action, on resourcefulness and wit and require the use of more complex logical chains, associations, concepts, etc. by the listener.
