Presentation of the series: The sounds to say it
Beyond their meaning, the sound of the words evokes what they convey. If poetry has been played since the dawn of time with their sounds, where do they draw their source? How are words (re)composed from one language to another? Guardians of the memory of those who utter them, they speak of life here and elsewhere. This series proposes to explore a chosen lexicon and to confront the words with their resonance in French and in another language. Each episode recounts 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 dunes of the desert, the song of lemurs, the fog horns in a port never visited before… 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 lively invisible presence.
In my work on the radio and for the platform listen to the world 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 apprehending reality, with its procession of memories anchored in places. I know it, because I belong to two languages: Italian and French. This is why I wanted to mirror a word from one language to another, by sound and meaning, and to question those who, like me, live between two languages. Crackling, murmuring, silence, crashing, hissing, screaming… each of my guests will tell the story evoked by a word, in a bilingual version.
Listening to the world: a participatory platform
Listen to the world is a miniature radio program, re-listened to 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 of this chronicle can be found on The sound map of the platform.