Marin’s song enters the “intangible cultural heritage” of France

Sing to give your heart to the work: hoist the sail, hold the helm or pass the time. At sea, sailors have always shown imagination to face the harsh conditions of their profession. Now entered into popular culture, this heritage benefits from great recognition: the sea shanty was officially included in the inventory of intangible cultural heritage of France, on September 10, 2024. The investigation to carry out this registration was lasted six years. It was run by enthusiasts including Michel Colleu, specialist on the subject and co-founder of the magazine “Le chasse-marée”.

A national inventory

An inventory of sea shanty groups and songs still sung today has been drawn up. Among the seventy responses received, the majority of them come from historic Brittany, but this oral tradition is also still very present in Normandy and Vendée. From the boats, these songs then reached ports and breweries. Today, musicians who love the sea have also used it to compose or cover music that has become very popular, such as “Santiano” by Hugues Aufray or “Valparaiso” by Marc Ogeret. At the microphone of the media Tendance Ouest, Michel Colleu, who is also at the origin of the Maritime Festivals of Douarnenez (Finistère), specifies that this research does not relate to the way in which “we sang in the time of the sailboats of the 19th century, but how we sing today and what has been transmitted.

Safeguarding oral tradition

The national inventory of intangible cultural heritage was launched in 2008, to meet the objectives of the UNESCO Convention. The ambition is to list the living practices of French culture, classified according to several themes such as play, know-how, rituals, social and festive practices… More than five hundred of them are already listed there. such as the Shepherds’ Festivals in Aramits (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), the traditional tale of Réunion, the enamelling of Limoges (Haute-Vienne), illumination, bare-handed Basque pelota in a trinquet or the Parisian game of boules. Beyond making these practices known, this inventory aims to safeguard cultural heritage in order to pass it on to future generations. So, even if your loved ones criticize you for a few wrong notes, don’t hesitate to sing along!