Language Documentary

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SPEAKING THE MAMMA TONGUE

This album is a collection of stirring rhythms and haunting melodies performed by world-class musicians.

WRITTEN, PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY IRIS BROOKS & JON H. DAVIS

NARRATED BY WILLIAM HURT

FEATURING MUSIC BY JOHN McDOWELL & MAMMA TONGUE

Every two weeks, somewhere on our planet, a language dies.

Language is key for sharing ideas and expressing emotions in a living heritage of people from all over the world. One’s mother tongue is a means of transmitting cultural history ranging from stories and songs, to philosophy, proverbs, and poems.

This is a short documentary film bringing awareness to endangered languages, preserving aspects of history, and highlighting the whistled language of Silbo Gomero in the Canary Islands (a region of Spain located off the northwest coast of Africa).

While languages around the world are dying at an alarming rate, the small island of La Gomera–filled with rugged mountain peaks and ancient laurel forests–has preserved its precious whistled language. Silbo Gomero, which was on the verge of disappearing, remains an important means of communication across the island’s dramatic mountains and deep ravines, working in places where cell phones fail. This language was awarded the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status. For more information on UNESCO,

http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php...

If your language is lost, what will you say?

QUOTES:

“Sound is as intimate as smell. Language is the expression of identity, called literally, one’s tongue, it is how we each express our being. From our first cry at birth to our last sigh, it is the essence of expression, our calling to our deity and each other, the primary communicative brushstroke of each human. Inherent in it, our identity: its history, intentions, biology; it is our taste of life from our own breath in our own sound.

The Brooks and Davis documentary, LANGUAGES LOST AND FOUND: SPEAKING & WHISTLING THE MAMMA TONGUE, is right on the mark, an astute and essential project well worthy of support.”

-William Hurt

"Languages Lost and Found brings the world’s voices together with stunning visual imagery to tell the story of linguistic diversity and language endangerment. Whether in Palauan, Inuktitut, Kichwa or the birdlike whistles of Silbo Gomero, the melody of this cultural collage is soul-piercing: if we lose our mother tongue, we may lose the essence of who we are.

The CUNY Endangered Language Initiative was delighted to screen Languages Lost and Found to a full house in the Segal Theater at the recent CUNY Endangered Language Phonology Conference. This film provides a wonderfully colorful, accurate, and culturally sensitive introduction to today’s endangered language crisis, and the role of the mother tongue in sustaining cultural diversity."

-Juliette Blevins

Director, Endangered Language Initiative

CUNY Graduate Center, New York City

“UNESCO thanks you for the privilege of this collaboration. The film, Languages Lost and Found is really quite stunning and inspiring.”

-Suzanne Bilello, Senior Public Information and Liason Officer

UNESCO, New York