Presentation of the series: The sounds to tell it
Beyond their meaning, the sound of the words evokes what they translate. If poetry has been playing with their sounds since the dawn of time, where do they draw their source? How are words (re)composed from one language to another? Guardians of the memory of the one who speaks them, they speak of life here and elsewhere. This series aims to explore a chosen lexicon and compare words with their resonance in French and in another language. Each episode tells the use of a word, its correspondences and its differences, through the feelings of bilingual guests.
Genesis of an idea in two languages
The wind in the desert dunes, the song of lemurs, the foghorns in a never-before-visited port… By listening, I discovered sounds that were strange to my ears and familiar to others. Sound gives access to reality in a carnal way. It arouses the imagination and awakens the unconscious with its vivid invisible presence.
In my work on radio and for the Listen to the World platform I listen, record and receive sounds from all over the world, often experiencing it for the first time. The distant becomes close, the unknown intimate. Incomprehensible, foreign languages also become accessible thanks to their melody. Each language is a sound, but also a way of understanding reality, with its procession of memories anchored in places. I know this, because I speak two languages: Italian and French. This is why I wanted to mirror a word from one language to another, through sound and meaning, and to question those who, like me, live between two languages. Crackling, murmuring, silence, crashing, breathing, screaming…: each of my guests will tell the story that a word evokes for them, in a bilingual version.
Listening to the world: a participatory platform
Listen to Le Monde is a miniature radio show, replayable as a podcast here, but also a participatory sound platform dedicated to listening. It archives and provides free access to more than 200 sound recordings sent from all over the world, as well as sound postcards and publications. The sound extracts from this column can be found on the platform’s sound map.
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