• Sorosoro is on the papalagui Blog, hosted by the Monde.fr website

« Avec Sorosoro, le souffle ténu mais têtu des langues en danger »

September 19th, 2011, Christian Tortel mentions several events organized by or talked about by Sorosoro: the World Languages Forum, held in Lyon on September 25th which honors all languages on an equal footing, the Sorosoro meetings on December 8th 2011, at the Maison des Cultures du Monde, in Paris. The program will be celebrating its third anniversary, as well as the establishment of the Sorosoro Trust in India, which document hundreds of endangered languages.

• Sorosoro in «Tout un monde » on France Culture

« Peuples et langues : états d’alerte en France »

On September 6th, 2011 Rozenn Milin, Director of the Sorosoro Program, is on the set of France Culture with linguist Michel Launey for a radio program dedicated to endangered languages. As part of the Year of French Overseas Territories, endangered languages of France are at the heart of the discussion, and excerpts of videos made by Sorosoro in New Caledonia and French Guiana can be heard.

• « les Explorateurs du Monde » in  the French newspaper “Le Monde”

On December 10th 2010, le Monde has a full page about on the field linguists, modern day explorers who travel around the world looking for new languages that still have not been studied.

Described as modern day adventurers, they share, with great details, stories about their expeditions in distant lands. Some of them talk about their discovery of languages qualified as unknown (at least to the Westerners since speakers of the language have not waited to be discovered in order to exist…), while others describe the dangers they encountered, especially when the linguist is a woman.

From a more linguistic point of view, Alexandre François (of whom a video in Vanuatu is posted on the Sorosoro website), explains how they proceed to learn the languages they initially don’t speak when they arrive on the field.

And Jean-Marie Hombert (who led the 2009 Sorosoro mission in Gabon with the Lake Akele and the Punu) explains how he’s sorry languages get lost from one generation to the next: in Africa, many children don’t understand their own grand-parents when they go back to their villages.

The page also includes an article about Ganesh Devy, member of the governing board of Sorosoro India. Ganesh Devy has decided to go one step further and to get involved with indigenous people of his country in order to help them with their development, beyond the linguistic aspects (also see the blog Sorosoro dedicated to him a few months ago)

Read the complete article on Le Monde

• Sorosoro on RFI

In Juan Gomez’ “Appels sur l’actualité”, on November 10th, 2010 at 9:10 am, the Sorosoro program is the subject of a general presentation, along with other aspects of the Chirac Foundation (conflict prevention, access to water, fight against falsified medicines)

• France Culture : Sorosoro in « L’Europe » by Alexis Ipatovtsev

« Farewell, Bo language »

October 4, 2010, French/Russian radio producer Alexis Ipatovtsev builds up on the annual conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Wales, and extends on the topic of endangered languages. While languages disappear, as did the Bo language last January, extinction widely mentioned in the international press, the work we conduct here at Sorosoro is also a way of reminding that it is not too late. As long as a language is spoken, even by a small number of speakers, it evolves and enriches itself constantly. This is what shows one of our videos in Punu on contemporary words such as “computer”, assessing the language’s vitality and ability to adapt, despite the threat.

• Sorosoro  in the “Nouvelles Calédoniennes”

“Some languages are very endangered”

Daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes interviewed Rozenn MILIN for the second time on September 24, 2010 as part of the Symposium on Melanesian languages she was attending in Nouméa. Still on Kanak languages, this more substantial article sees Rozenn wage deeper into the different levels of vulnerability of these languages. Sîchëë, spoken in the area of Bourail, no longer has over three speakers left. The other Kanak languages are used by a number of people ranging from 100 to 500, and around 1000. Access to the public (education, media, official status…) is crucial to the safeguard of these languages.

“All 28 Kanak languages are endangered”

September 21, 2010, Sorosoro Director Rozenn MILIN attended a Symposium on Melanesian Languages organized by the Académie des Langues Kanak at the Tjibaou cultural center, Nouméa, NC. There she granted an interview to the New Caledonian daily paper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes. The situations of Melanesian and Caledonian languages were at the heart of the discussion: while Melanesia is one of the areas bearing the greatest linguistic wealth in the world, many of these languages bear no official status. Thus their survival is far from being guaranteed on the long run…