By Myrriah Gosset
On Jan. 16, the Reel Savannah organization that usually shows independent and foreign films at the Victory Square Plaza movie theater on Sunday nights, moved its workings into the Jepson Center for a screening of “The Linguists.” The documentary is about linguistic anthropologists who travel around the world to document and record dying languages.
Reel Savannah not only provided the movie, but also had Dr. Thomas Klein, a professor at Georgia Southern University attend the screening to provide feedback and answer questions about the profession and the work of the two linguists in the film.
The film follows two linguists, Greg Anderson and David Harrison, as they travel around the globe recording and studying languages ranging from tribal languages in India to the indigenous languages of Siberia. The inspiring and fairly comical duo captivate audiences with their friendly bantering along with their love for their work.
The men have a commitment to linguistic rights and hope to aid in keeping some languages alive or recording them before its too late. The staggering figures in the film provide a shock as too how rapidly languages are disappearing and how it relates to other aspects of life. The two go through ups and downs, hardships and disappointments in order to find and record these languages.
The film has been traveling around the country for screenings in order to create an awareness of the epidemic facing native tongues. The film was also named the Sundance Film Festival’s official selection. The film is definitely worth viewing if it ever comes to the area again, or if you’d like to make the $300 dollar purchase for the DVD, it does go to a charitable cause in aiding the Living Tongues Institute.
The Reel Savannah film series will continue to show films on its normal Sunday night schedule, including a Jan. 25 screening of “I Served the King of England,” a film from the Czech Republic. For more information about Reel Savannah, visit www.reelsavannah.org.
