The Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (French pronunciation: [ɛ̃stity nɑsjɔnal de lɑ̃ɡ e sivilizɑsjɔ̃ ɔʁjɑ̃tal]; transl. "National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations"), abbreviated as INALCO, is a French grand établissement with a specializing in the teaching of languages and cultures from the world. Its coverage spans languages of Central Europe, Africa, Asia, America, and Oceania. With 104 languages taught as of 2024, this institution is currently the world's largest provider of language training courses.
It is also informally called "Langues'O" (French: [lɑ̃ɡz‿o]) in French, an abbreviation for Langues orientales.
The INALCO logo is made up of the school's acronym, each part of which is translated into languages written in non-Latin characters, corresponding to Inalco's fields of teaching and research.[1]
Contents
History
1669 Jean-Baptiste Colbert founds the École des jeunes de langues language school
1795 The École spéciale des langues orientales (ESLO; Special School for Oriental Languages) is established
1873 The two schools merge
1914 The school is renamed the École nationale des langues orientales vivantes (ENLOV)
1971 The school is renamed the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales or Inalco (National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations)
1984 Inalco is recognized as a Grand établissement
2010 Inalco becomes a founding member of Sorbonne Paris Cité
2011 Inalco centralizes all of its taught courses under one roof at 65 rue des Grands Moulins in Paris
Teaching
Organization
Inalco is structured partly into departments, whose perimeter corresponds to a region of the world, and partly into professionally-oriented courses or sectors. Departments may be monolingual or group together several language sections. Inalco's courses prepare students for careers in intercultural communication and training, international trade, teaching French as a foreign language, advanced international studies, and Natural Language Processing.
Africa and Indian Ocean (Amharic, Bambara, Chleuh, Comorian, Fulani, Hausa, Kabyle, Malagasy, Mandingo, Soninke, Swahili, Tuareg, Wolof, Yoruba)
South Asia Himalayas (Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, Urdu, Rromani, Sanskrit, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, Tibetan)
Southeast Asia and the Pacific (Bisaya, Burmese, Bislama, Cham, Drehu, Tagalog, Ilocano, Indonesian Malay, Khmer, Lao, Môn, Thai, Tahitian, Taï lü, Vietnamese)
Arabic Studies (Modern Standard Arabic, Classical Arabic, Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Egyptian, Syrian-Lebanese)
Chinese Studies (Standard Chinese, Min, Classical Chinese)
Korean Studies (Korean)
Hebrew and Jewish Studies (Biblical, Rabbinic, Medieval and Modern Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish)
Japanese Studies (Japanese)
Russian Studies (Russian, Belarusian)
Eurasia (Armenian, Azeri, Georgian, Kurdish, Mongolian, Ossetian, Uyghur, Uzbek, Pashto, Persian, Kazakh, Tatar, Turkish)
Europe (Polish, Czech, Sorbian, Slovak, Slovene, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Udmurt, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Modern Greek, Albanian)
Research
Overview
Research at Inalco combines area studies and academic fields. Researchers study languages and civilizations that are increasingly in the spotlight – Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and as far as the Arctic – and are central to the major issues of the 21st century. Fourteen research teams, often partnered with other research organizations, PhD programs, and a publishing service form the backbone of research at Inalco. Inalco also has a project management and knowledge transfer service.
The research teams, administration offices, and doctoral school are housed in a building dedicated entirely to research, with access to a full range of support functions: assistance in preparing research proposals and grant applications, organizing scientific events, looking for partnerships and funding, publication support, internal funding, and communication.
14 research teams (see below)
270 faculty members
300 PhD students
100 scientific events per year
Research teams
Local units:
CERLOM (Centre d'Etude et de Recherche sur les Littératures et les Oralités du Monde)
CERMOM (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche Moyen-Orient, Méditerranée)
CREE (Centre de Recherche Europes-Eurasie)
ERTIM (Équipe de Recherche Textes, Informatique, Multilinguisme)
LACNAD (Langues et Cultures du Nord de l’Afrique et Diasporas)
PLIDAM (Pluralité des Langues et des Identités: Didactique – Acquisition – Médiations)
Joint research units (UMR):
CASE (Centre Asie du Sud-Est) - with EHESS and CNRS
CeRMI (Centre de Recherche sur le Monde Iranien) - with Sorbonne nouvelle, EPHE, and CNRS
CESSMA (Centre d’études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques) - with UPC and IRD
CRLAO (Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale) - with EHESS and CNRS
IFRAE (Institut français de recherche sur l’Asie de l’Est) - with UPC and CNRS
LACITO (Langues et Civilisations à Tradition orale) - with Sorbonne Nouvelle and CNRS
LLACAN (Langage, Langues et Cultures d’Afrique) - with EPHE and CNRS
Presidents
From 1914 to 1969, presidents were called administrators.
International
Inalco conducts research projects in more than one hundred countries and offers joint programs with foreign universities. This enables Inalco students and their international counterparts to enhance their studies through immersive experiences. Inalco also provides distance learning courses through videoconferencing and online resources, offering instruction in Arabic, Armenian, Burmese, Estonian, Modern Hebrew, Inuktitut, Lithuanian, Malagasy, Quechua, Sinhalese, Slovak, and Swahili.
Inalco is an active member of Sorbonne Paris Cité, with 120,000 students, 8,500 faculty members, and 6,000 technical and administrative staff. Branches have been opened in Singapore, Buenos Aires and São Paulo.
Inalco is in 2007 a founding member of the Consortium for Asian and African Studies (CAAS), with the School of Oriental and African Studies (UK), the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (Japan), Leiden University (Netherlands), and the National University of Singapore. Since, they have been joined by Columbia University (USA), the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (South Korea), and Shanghai International Studies University (China).
The foundation strives to develop the preservation, study, transmission, development and interaction of languages and cultures in France and around the world with projects involving the institute's expertise: education, research, advancing knowledge and skills in a globalized world.
More than 120 nationalities are represented by Inalco faculty and students. The institute, along with its teachers, students and partners, organizes over a hundred cultural events a year. Inalco also participates in several international film festivals (such as the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema) and makes every effort to share its knowledge and expertise with society.