Saved the date yet? Sorosoro celebrates 3 years of work in the field this Thursday, December 8, offering to those present in Paris a full evening of conferences and films. Plus, it’s free!

Focus will be drawn on India, where Sorosoro has established a foundation under Indian law to contribute to the documentation of the hundreds of languages spoken in this country home to such diversity.

We’ll also be talking about Latin America, Africa, overseas French territories, field research, the use of linguists… all addressed by respective experts.

See program below:

18pm – 7.15: Talks on India and Latin America

• Irène Frain: India, a great democracy, rich of its diversity

The author of several books revolving around India (Le Nabab, Devi, Gandhi, La Forêt des 29…), Irène Frain has spent a lot of time travelling over this country blending enough different cultures to stand as an entire continent. She’ll be speaking on the Bishnoi, a community of Rajasthan who has been living in the deepest respect of nature for the last five centuries – a case of balance between man and nature, and an actual lesson of ecology.

• Anvita Abbi: Vanishing languages and truncated knowledge-systems

Languages are always dying, but what do we lose when a language disappears? Such is the question the great linguist Anvita Abbi will be handling through the example of the Andaman Islands, off the Indian shores, islands that are home to very ancient languages, all threatened with extinction. Among them, the Bo language, which Abbi has described and documented, before its last speaker died early 2010.

• Colette Grinevald: 40 years of fieldwork, why? Who for?

Colette Grinevald has devoted her life to endangered languages and the people who speak them. After 40 years spent in different areas of Latin America, she turns back to basics and essentials: What is the work of linguists for? How do linguists help societies develop? Though her experience and humanistic vision, she’ll be addressing the role played by linguists, reasons for their work, their involvement towards indigenous populations, etc.

7.15pm – 7.40pm: Videos on Africa and the French Overseas

Rozenn Milin, the Director of Sorosoro, presents the outcomes of the last two years of field filming: beautiful footage and tales for joy or tears filmed by Sorosoro in Senegal, New Caledonia, and French Guiana.

Marcel Camara, from the Bedik community in Senegal, reports on the use of the documentation work led by Sorosoro.

7.40pm – 8pm: Partners

Mathieu Gallet, President of the INA (the national Institute for audiovisual resources), responsible for the archiving and preservation of all the material collected by Sorosoro.

Christine Albanel, former minister now vice president for communication and sponsorship at Orange, partner of Sorosoro.

9pm – 10.30pm: Screening of Indian film Yarwng (Roots)

By Joseph Pulinthanath, awarded in several festivals and currently unreleased in France.

Based on a true story and directed in tribal Kokborok language, Yarwng unfolds over a real tragedy: a village like many others in northeastern India, doomed to end up underwater following the construction of a dam upstream. The population is eventually forced out when elephants are brought in to push down their houses; and Karmati and Wakhirai are separated…

Download invitation

December 8, 2011

6pm: talks and videos

9pm: « Yarwng »

Maison des Cultures du Monde

101 Bvd Raspail, 75006 Paris

Metro: Notre Dame des Champs, Rennes, or Saint Placide

Free admission, subject to availability