Podcasts about world oral literature project

The name of the New Books in Language channel might hint at a disciplinary bias towards “language”. So in some sense Ruth Finnegan‘s Communicating: the Multiple Modes of Human Communication (2nd edition; Routledge, 2014) is a departure: central to her approach is the idea that, within a broader view of human communication, language (in the linguistic sense of the word) is over-emphasised. The book sets out many more ingredients to communication, spanning the gamut of sensory modalities (and hinting at what might lie beyond) as well as considering the role of artifacts. Although both the book and this interview ultimately take place in conventional language, Ruth Finnegan succeeds admirably in evoking the richness of multisensory experience, whether in the poetics of ancient Greece or in the storytelling practices of the Limba tribe of Sierra Leone. The book’s illustrations offer some cross-modal enrichment of the experience, and I hope this interview does too. For a more direct impression, the World Oral Literature Project’s homepage for Ruth Finnegan’s Limba collection is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The name of the New Books in Language channel might hint at a disciplinary bias towards “language”. So in some sense Ruth Finnegan‘s Communicating: the Multiple Modes of Human Communication (2nd edition; Routledge, 2014) is a departure: central to her approach is the idea that, within a broader view of human communication, language (in the linguistic sense of the word) is over-emphasised. The book sets out many more ingredients to communication, spanning the gamut of sensory modalities (and hinting at what might lie beyond) as well as considering the role of artifacts. Although both the book and this interview ultimately take place in conventional language, Ruth Finnegan succeeds admirably in evoking the richness of multisensory experience, whether in the poetics of ancient Greece or in the storytelling practices of the Limba tribe of Sierra Leone. The book’s illustrations offer some cross-modal enrichment of the experience, and I hope this interview does too. For a more direct impression, the World Oral Literature Project’s homepage for Ruth Finnegan’s Limba collection is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Research Scholar Mark Turin discusses his work with the World Oral Literature Project, which seeks to collect, preserve and disseminate records of rare languages and oral traditions that are becoming extinct. Also talks about his Digital Himalaya Project, which is specifically concerned with the languages and cultures of the indigenous people of Nepal and the broader Himalayan region, including ethnic groups in Bhutan, India, and Tibet. Both projects aim to digitize and catalogue records of diverse materials, from audio and video tapes to written reports and maps, that already exist in libraries, universities and other collections around the world.

In 2010, Dr Stephen Leonard embarked on a year-long trip to live with the Inughuit of north-west Greenland who live in the northernmost permanently inhabited settlement in the world. His aim was to record the marginal language, stories and songs of these communities - all of which are potentially threatened by a range of factors, one of which is climate change. Dr Leonard lived as a member of those communities, travelled on hunts, and recorded and filmed as he went. Here is lecture he gave at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in October 2011. Dr Leonard's research was funded by the British Academy and the World Oral Literature Project

Of the world's 6,500 living languages, half will cease to be spoken by the end of this century. Dr Mark Turin, director of the World Oral Literature Project, has spent much of his life travelling to remote corners of the Himalayas to study languages and cultures that are at risk and document them before they disappear without record.