Sequoyah

A few days ago, I have been participating to a little information meeting in Paris.

The peoples of this new group call themselves "Sequoyah group".

It seems me a good starting point for this new 2006 blog in english.

Sequoyah: the name.

He was a cherokee, at the beginning of the XIXth century; and, though an unlitterated, he has invented a syllabic system of writing for its own language. The Sequoyah notation system was sucessfull enough to permit the development of a cherokee press.

Some days ago, UNESCO has announced the future disparition of half of all the languages over the world, 3000 less, including even the navajo one, the most popular of the indian language of North America.

You can learn more about Sequoyah in James Fevrier' Story or Writing. And about the question of linguistic diversity, here:
http://www.teluq.uquebec.ca/diverscite/entree.htm

Sequoyah: the thing ie this little group.

They have a broad conception of culture, what they called "not only, the cultural fact but the cultural factor", covering a large domain, from spirituality, public mind, etc to the questions of culture-industry.

I have quoted some points:

- the link between consumer and cultural economy,

- how politics work for the economic turn of culture,

- some words about the sub-culture of the new unlitterated,

- how computer invention has forgotten word and technique, how this oblivion (the "oblivion of the oblivion", to speak the slang of the french theory) structures the so-called information society.

I shall come back on these questions.

The blog you are now reading is my second one.

The first is in french. It is a mix of new essays and archives, with some posts closer to the current events. Here I shall be, or try to be in accordance with the conception of blog as log.

My project is to propose a short post, once a week, straightly written in english. I shall offer a french version on the other blog. Try during six months and we will see if you find it interesting.

My english is not very good. Orally, I use to speak quickly, to give the context. Surely, something equivalent can be found in a blog.

But if you read french, you can give a glance here:

alaingiffard.blogs.com

And, about the true Sequoyah, look here:

www.sequoyahmuseum.org/SequoyahHistory.html

A source of this post is the article of Belot and Morin in Le Monde, 01/02/01/06, interviewing the linguist, Colette Grinewald.