Yesterday was Mothers' Day here in the United Kingdom, and in light of this one item in the 'popular market' Bengali books caught my eye as I was cataloguing: janani, a book written in praise of mothers. Written and published by karttikchandra jana in 1942, it forms part of the Satyabiti Giri Collection. This Collection is important as it contains books written in the Oriya language, in Bengali script. This admixture of cultures is essentially oral and performative, and so this Collection of popular market books is a rare find and one that we hope will be of great interest to scholars of Bengali culture.

The cover of janani:

 

Alex

February was another busy month for the EAP. We received material from six projects:

Guinea's Syliphone archives

Pages of Azerbaijan sound heritage

Study and collection of Hakku Patras and other documents among folk communities in Andhra Pradesh

Preserving the archives of the United National Independence Party of Zambia

Preservation, storage and accessibility for archives of the pre-industrial rural society of the Ukrainian Steppe

Rescuing text: retrieval and documentation of printed books and periodicals published prior to 1950 from public institutions in Eastern India

Alex and I also participated in the Endangered Languages Week Open Day organised by the Endangered Languages Project. This was held in the Brunei Gallery at SOAS. The day was well attended by organisations and universities involved in documenting and preserving endangered languages around the world and in promoting research in this area. Our table was next to the World Oral Literature Project who actively document and make accessible endangered oral literatures. It was fascinating to hear about their activities. I took the opportunity to browse the room and pick up a few brochures. It proved an informative day for me. It was also exciting to see so much interest in the preservation of languages and the cultures, traditions, histories and literatures associated with them.

Lynda