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''The Tailenders'' is a 2005 documentary directed, produced and narrated by Adele Horne, an American independent filmmaker based out of Los Angeles. It is in limited release and has been screened in the U.S., Mexico and Scotland. According to a P.O.V. press release, ''The Tailenders'' was broadcast nationally in the US on PBS on Tuesday, July 25, 2006. The film follows Gospel Recordings, an evangelical Christian missionary group founded by Joy Ridderhof in California in 1939〔(Web page )〕 to make audio recordings of Bible stories in every language on Earth. The group is part of the umbrella network GRN - Global Recordings Network which has sister offices in over 30 countries. The film claims there are over 8,000 languages and dialects in the world and, as of the making of the film, Global Recordings Network has recorded Bible stories in 5,485 of them. It is mentioned in the film that their archive houses more spoken languages in one place than any other single area in the world. The significance of this lies in the notion that the Bible is not only the most published book around the world, passages from it are also translated into the most spoken languages as well. Many of the languages utilized by Gospel Recordings do not have written counterparts, and even if they did, most who spoke the languages would not be able to read it anyway. A benefit of this group's work is the growing set of unspoken languages that are catalogued over the years, which act as a strong counterpart to historical records of various cultures. "The Tailenders" claim that half of all languages occur in eight countries. Global Recordings Network, founded in Los Angeles in 1939, specifically targets indigenous people in remote areas of the world. In the years of 2002 and 2003 the organization prearranged trips to The Solomon Islands, Mexico, and India. Three countries termed the "tailenders" since they were the last group of people to be reached by missionaries transmitting the message of God, unchanged. In the three countries mentioned earlier, there are a total of 769 different languages and dialects spoken, 74 in The Solomon Islands, 295 in Mexico, and 400 in India. The film attempts to explore the connection between missionary activity and global capitalism by using low-tech audio devices to speak to communities that face economic crisis. The missionaries targeted these communities that were in crisis because they found that displaced and desperate people were more receptive to evangelical recordings. Also because these people were more interested in the audio recordings because they were more comfortable with listening to their native language. It seems to provide an interesting view on mass-evangelization as the filmmaker shows the viewer that by placing a concentrated emphasis on these native people and using a recording of their own language as a way of connection to Christianity; to make them feel comfortable in learning a new way of thinking about the world. ==The role of technology in the film== The makers of the documentary emphasize the strategy of reaching and giving communication technology to those facing hardships in their very own land. For example: the communities in Patutiva, Solomon Islands faced the threat of logging which would consequently lead to no water, homes, and the destruction of the native ecosystem. The narrator of the documentary also seeks to explain why the devices they used to spread the gospel message were so effective. "Separated from its body, a voice become superhuman," she explains, "It can speak to more people than any single person could." The native tongue on the recordings allowed Global Recordings Network to bring a source of comfort and trust for people who have been long separated from their homeland. They used the inherent appeal of the medium to gain converts. The film "has presented disembodied audio as a religion unto itself." Because of the low development in these places, devices had to be used that could work without the use of electricity. The devices they used to are referred to as "Hand Crank" and consisted of cardboard record players and hand cranked cassette players. They take apart pieces of technology and re-assemble them in order to make the technology serve their purposes. They used people within the cultures who understood and spoke the different dialects in order to record the stories they wanted to share from the Bible. To make sure that the stories were authentic, translators were used. The "Hand Crank" cassette players were a tool of attraction in itself. They were made with deliberately bold colored buttons that would attract the attention of the children. The "Hand Crank" would even attract the adults who have never been exposed to the missionaries before. The missionaries also made it a point to charge the people of these poor third world nations for the cassettes made by The Global Recording Network. The missionaries felt that the people valued the messages on the tape and the tape itself more when they have to purchase it, rather them being handed the tapes free. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Tailenders」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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