LANGUAGES AND MEMORIES
Languages and language represent our primary tools of communication. They are the essential vectors that transmit a culture, a history, and bear witness to the richness of a country or a people. We encounter forgotten languages, extinct languages, endangered languages as well as contemporary or emerging languages, each carrying within it unique stories and linguistic treasures.
I invite you to explore the history of languages and explore their impact on the larger story as well as on our personal narratives and individual cultures. How do these languages shape our collective understanding of the world? Why and how does a language become extinct? How can a language emerge to become the official language of a country or a people?
By examining these linguistic dynamics, we will attempt to understand the complex mechanisms that govern the disappearance or emergence of languages. We will also perceive the impact of these changes on cultural diversity, the transmission of knowledge and the preservation of national identity. Through this exploration, we will thus be able to realize the importance of safeguarding languages and the richness they bring to our world heritage.
Discover the episodes of this sound collection
What is the oldest language in the world?
Is there really a single mother tongue, a single root that gave birth to all the languages we know today? How could a single language with a single alphabet have been the origin of the more than 7,000 languages spoken in the world?
For this first episode, I wanted to go back very far in time to learn more about the oldest known language in the world. However, my research quickly gave rise to an essential reflection: can we really speak of a single language that is older than all the others? This quest will lead us into a fascinating exploration, questioning the linguistic origins and the complexity of the evolution of languages through the ages.
The question of linguistic origins has long intrigued and mobilized the efforts of anthropologists, archaeologists, geneticists and linguists. The idea of a mother tongue has a long history of conjecture. As early as the Middle Ages, a belief in the existence of an original language of humanity existed.
This conception persisted until the episode of the Tower of Babel, where, according to the biblical story, the inhabitants of Babylon, initially speaking a single language, undertook to build a tower rising to the heavens, thus seeking direct access to Paradise. To prevent them, God is said to have created a linguistic disagreement by establishing a diversity of languages, causing incomprehension between men.
Over time, several languages have been considered to be the original language of Adam and Eve: Hebrew, Latin or Greek have been considered, each claiming this origin. At the same time, in the Muslim tradition, the idea that the first language of humanity was Arabic has persisted.
These different beliefs and speculations reflect humanity's fascination with the origin and evolution of languages, but they also highlight the complexity and diversity of narratives and interpretations across cultures and religions.
The Rosetta Stone, a journey to Egypt to discover hieroglyphics
The Rosetta Stone remains one of the most significant linguistic discoveries of our time. It played a key role in the understanding of Egyptian writing, particularly hieroglyphics. Thanks to this stone, the mysteries of hieroglyphics have been largely revealed, allowing the acquisition of precious keys to decipher and understand this ancient form of writing.
The Rosetta Stone is an engraved stele from ancient Egypt, famous for being the key to deciphering hieroglyphics. Discovered in 1799 by the French army during Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, the stone was found in Rosetta (Rashid in Arabic), a city in the Nile Delta. The stele was a crucial document because it contained the same text engraved in three different scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic (a form of cursive writing), and Ancient Greek.
The Rosetta Stone quickly became iconic for its role in understanding hieroglyphics and paved the way for the translation of many ancient Egyptian inscriptions and documents. It remains an important symbol for translators, linguists, and Egyptologists, as it helped unlock much of ancient Egyptian knowledge and provide insight into its history, culture, and language.
Yiddish, a language damaged by war
In this new installment of Languages and Memories, we will discover the history of Yiddish, a Germanic language spoken by Ashkenazi Jewish communities, now almost extinct.
Yiddish, a mixture of medieval German with Hebrew, Slavic and Aramaic elements, has long been the primary language of Ashkenazi Jews. This language, rich in literature, oral traditions and popular culture, has flourished for centuries, being the preferred means of communication and expression for these communities.
However, over time and due to multiple factors such as assimilation, migration, political upheavals and cultural changes, Yiddish gradually lost its place within Jewish communities.
Aujourd'hui, il est quasiment éteint, relégué aux archives, aux rares locuteurs natifs et à un héritage culturel en déclin. Cette chronologie historique du Yiddish nous permettra de mieux appréhender les forces qui ont conduit à la disparition progressive de cette langue autrefois florissante, ainsi que l'impact de cette perte sur la mémoire collective et la richesse culturelle des communautés juives ashkénazes.
Contrairement à l'idée reçue qui le dépeint comme un simple dialecte germanique dégradé, le Yiddish s'est formé au fil des siècles en tant que langue dépourvue de territoire spécifique, sans le soutien d'un État, répondant aux besoins d'un peuple dispersé. Au cours de plusieurs générations, il a forgé son propre vocabulaire et sa grammaire, évoluant au gré des besoins et des échanges culturels.
Considéré comme une langue universelle par certains et stigmatisé comme un jargon de ghetto par d'autres, le Yiddish a connu une transformation drastique après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, passant d'une langue culturelle florissante à un symbole de souffrance et de honte. Marqué par un passé tourmenté et négligé dans le présent, le Yiddish demeure une langue distincte à part entière, aujourd'hui classée en danger par l'UNESCO.
Lingala, when the two Congos meet
Dans ce tout nouvel épisode de Langues et Mémoires, j'ai le plaisir de vous présenter un épisode réalisé autour de l'histoire fascinante du lingala, avec Mélissa, créatrice du podcast L’Afropolitaine et enseignante chez Lingala Lessons.
Le lingala est une langue parlée par plus de 10 millions de personnes dans une vaste région qui s'étend du nord-ouest de la République Démocratique du Congo jusqu'à sa capitale, Kinshasa, et au nord de la République du Congo, particulièrement dans certaines parties de sa capitale, Brazzaville.
Mélissa nous éclairera sur les origines de cette langue riche, nous faisant voyager à travers les racines historiques du lingala et nous permettant de mieux saisir son développement, son importance culturelle et son impact dans la vie quotidienne de millions de locuteurs.
Initially considered one of the four national languages, Lingala quickly evolved to become, in just a few decades, the most widely spoken language in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In a country where more than 200 ethnic groups coexist and where the official language, French, is often reserved for the elite because of its complexity, Lingala has a special meaning. It is perceived, in many ways, as a common good shared by the Congolese, whatever their origins.
Tamazight, a struggle for official recognition
In Algeria, the demand for the acceptance of the Amazigh language is not new. However, the Berber Spring in 1980 is widely considered to be the major starting point of a struggle for the recognition of this language as an essential element of national identity. The year 1992 marked the beginning of the process of official recognition with the opening of the departments of Amazigh language and culture at the university.
In this episode, I invite you to trace the chronology of Tamazight, a thousand-year-old language spoken throughout the North African region, from the Canary Islands to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, and as far as Mauritania, northern Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Its journey towards official recognition reflects the struggles and aspirations of the Amazigh communities to preserve their linguistic and cultural identity. Tamazight is among the oldest languages of humanity, but it is also the most marginalized language in North Africa.
It is a survivor, having been exclusively oral for centuries, often repressed and considered an inferior language, that of everyday and popular, in opposition to the sacred language of the Koran. Despite these obstacles, Tamazight is a resilient language that leads a fight and wins its battles thanks to the richness of its orality and its translation. I will therefore share with you the deep origins of this language, its historical journey and especially how its official recognition has become an ongoing fight. The recognition of Tamazight represents a persistent quest for the preservation and valorization of an ancient and diverse language, anchored in the culture and history of multiple societies in North Africa.