Editing Linguasphere Observatory (section)

=="Langues de la Liberté/Languages of Liberty"==
In Paris, from 1987, the Observatoire linguistique created a bilingual exhibition ''Langues de la Liberté / Languages of Liberty'', tracing the transnational development of certain basic concepts of personal freedom through the interaction of English and French, rather than by the action of any one nation. At the outset of a series of 34 illustrated triptychs, attention was drawn to the historical role of other transnational languages in the development of such concepts, including Greek and German.<ref>The bilingual texts of the exhibition's tryptychs are presented in: David Dalby, ''Le français et l'anglais : Langues de la Liberté'', Observatoire linguistique: Cressenville 1989 {{ISBN|2-9502097-4-2}}.</ref>

The exhibition was sponsored by the government of a bilingual nation, Canada, by the international [[Agence de coopération culturelle et technique|francophone Agence (ACCT)]] and by the region of [[Upper Normandy|Haute-Normandie]]. It was inaugurated in Paris at the [[Centre Georges Pompidou]] on 6 June 1989, and presented there throughout the summer of 1989 as the official Canadian contribution to the bicentenary celebrations of the French Revolution.

At the subsequent presentation of this bilingual exhibition at the Hôtel de Région in Rouen (Haute-Normandie), from 23 September to 21 October 1989, the Observatoire linguistique organised the first public display of the only surviving contemporary copy of the vernacular (and arguably pre-Latin) text of England's ''[[Magna Carta]]'', written in 13th century French.

Thanks to continued support from Canada, the exhibition was subsequently presented by the Observatoire in Belgium and England, at the Palais des Congrès in [[Liège]] and at the [[Commonwealth Institute]] in London in 1990, and finally in Australia, at [[Old Parliament House, Canberra]] in May 1991.

In the context of the need to design a plurilingual framework of ethics for a future planetary society, the Observatoire has announced its intention to return to the transnational theme of ''Magna Carta'' in 2015, on the occasion of the 8th centenary of the signing of its formal Latin version at [[Runnymede]] in 2020.