January 29, 2007

LIBRIVOX.

Bulbulovo links to LibriVox, a site which "provides free audiobooks from the public domain." The vast majority (689) of the currently available texts are in English, but there are some in German (27), French (11), Russian, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Latin, Hebrew, Old English, Portuguese, and Swedish (all less than ten items); there is also a "Multilingual" category that includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights read in a bunch of languages (including Walloon), two "Multilingual Poetry Collections," and the Irish national anthem, "Amhrán na bhFiann." If you want to volunteer to read texts, go here; I especially hope Russian-speakers will do so, because I don't like the way the guy who does all the currently available texts reads (muttering quickly, with no discernable emotion, which is especially distressing with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground": "I am a sick man. I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased....").

Posted by languagehat at January 29, 2007 05:22 PM
Comments

Walloon?

Posted by: dearieme at January 29, 2007 10:20 PM

Walloon.

Posted by: language hat at January 30, 2007 08:36 AM

Walloon!

Posted by: dearieme at January 31, 2007 12:31 PM

Here's the Walloon - http://www.archive.org/download/universal_declaration_librivox/human_rights_un_wal_ezwa.mp3

Posted by: David at February 1, 2007 06:31 PM

LibriVox is good people - the project was started by my friend Hugh here in Montreal. I've recorded a couple of things that are on the site, most notably a couple of chapters of Doctor Doolittle by Hugh Lofting which was great fun. They need all the volunteers they can get, especially non-English speakers and people with good reading voices.

Posted by: Ella at February 1, 2007 07:18 PM