An exhibition in India includes some Jèrriais:
The most haunting work in the exhibition, Susan Hiller’s The Last Silent Movie (2007–08), is also about languages. Hiller brings together sound recordings of 25 languages that are either already extinct or on the verge of dying out, providing the name and current status of each language as well as English translations of the recordings: Kora, Manx, Xoklang, the cheerfulness of Jèrriais, the whistling beauty of Sibo Gomero. As you sit in that dark curtained room and listen to a voice say, “Now we are going to speak Comanche again. From now we will speak Comanche for ever,” the hair on your arms stand on end at that hopeful enunciation of a patent untruth, the act of speech by which the speaker hopes to turn it into truth. “I can speak my language. I am a fluent speaker,” says another voice. Then, throwing down the gauntlet, gently but firmly turning the tables on us, the listeners, the voice says: “Can you speak your language?”MBDF à A Sense of Belonging
No comments:
Post a Comment