Digital Audiovisual Archives

Chapter 5

An Audiovisual Azerbaijani Cultural Heritage Portal for Educational and Academic Use ¹

5.1. Introduction

The Audiovisual Azerbaijani Cultural Heritage Portal (AACH)¹, one of the main pilot portals of the ASW-HSS project, is created using the tools and knowledge of semiotic description developed by ESCoM. The creation of the AACH portal is rooted in concrete requirements and is based on long-lasting academic research and investigation. As such, the parallelism between the field and theoretical research which has benefited the development of the AACH portal has been one of the major factors of its success.

Initially, a historical view of the AACH project is necessary to understand the motivations and objectives of our research. It will also enable us to trace the evolution of our reflection on how to disseminate and teach the cultural heritage, by using traditional methods as well as new technologies.

5.1.1. Background to the creation of the AACH portal: context

In March 1999, Azerbaijani² was first taught in France at INaLCO³ in Paris. Having taught this language for 10 years, from the beginning we found that there was a distinct lack of methodology for teaching Azerbaijani to Francophones and a lack of materials for teaching about Azerbaijani culture. In fact, without direct links to France during its 70 years as part of the USSR and because there was not a significant Azerbaijani diaspora in France⁴, few resources on Azerbaijan, little was known about this country ...