Video

The heat of late August has made us drowsy, so we thought we would continue our video series on Akele songs in Gabon with a few lullabies : a chorus of women, haunting blues-like melodies, and quite a unique way of summoning sleep… pôpediè mwiano ! Take a look at our video.

News

We’ve already spread the word about the river Congo exhibition at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris (until 3 October 2010). The Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, near Brussels, is equally also getting in on the action with its « Congo River : 4700 km of effervescent nature and culture » exhibition, with an important emphasis on languages (until 9 January 2011). Read more.

Agenda

Linguists only have one more week to submit their presentation entries for the 2nd « International Conference on the Documentation and the Conservation of Languages » that will be held in February 2011 at the University of Hawaii, USA. Deadline : 31 August. Read more.

Languages and language families

This month of August, while many are on vacation, the linguists of the CNRS are still going strong !

Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle, research director at the CNRS (LLACAN), has created an index on « modern South-Arabic » languages (SAM, Afro-Asian language family).

This index wil serve as teh backdrop of an exploration that will last a few weeks, thanks to which you will be able to discover the 6 languages that make up this groupe. For starters, here’s an index on Mehri – a severely endangered language spoken in Yemen and Oman.

Another area of teh globe, another endangered language : Anne-laure Dotte, a Ph Dat teh University of Lyon 2 / CNRS (DDL & LACITO) has given us access to Iaai, a Kanak language from the Austronesian family, spoken in New Caledonia.

Our volontueer translators have also kept themselves busy, and our Spanish language website is expanding day by day :

– Algonkian language family

– Emerillon

– Guarani

– Wayampi

– Kikapú

– Kali’na

– Wayana

– Palikur

– Arawak

Last but not least…

To celebrate summertime, let’s translate the word « sun », our word of the fortnight.

And don’t forge tour Soroquiz, which you can always find on our homepage !

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We wish you all a great week!

The Sorosoro crew