A rich history

In 1795, trade and diplomacy were of strategic importance for the spread of revolutionary ideas. It became urgent to set up an institution that would train Frenchmen in the modern languages deemed useful by the Convention, in the most appropriate and effective manner. Hence, the Assembly of Representatives of the French people adopted the charter instituting Inalco on 10 Germinal, Year III—the height of the Reign of Terror.

According to the founding decree, the School of Modern Oriental Languages was “intended for the teaching of languages of recognized political and commercial value”. The decree also stipulated that it would be established within the National Library so as to have the necessary academic resources at its disposal.

The School opened with three chairs: vernacular and written Arabic, Turkish and Crimean Tartar, and finally Persian and Malay. Events soon showed what important services the state could expect from the new institution. Barely three years after the decree of 10 Germinal, one of the School’s professors, Venture de Paradis, set off as chief interpreter of the Armée d’Orient on the French campaign in Egypt, taking his best students with him.
In the light of these interpreters’ successes, the goal set by the Convention and pursued by the Directoire had been achieved. The School had quickly put itself in a position to meet the needs for which it had been created. To continue to do so, the School sought to develop as an institution, requesting premises suited to its teaching mission and constantly increasing the number of oriental languages taught.

• Over the 19th and 20th centuries, the School’s status was modified several times, carving out its niche in a political context conducive to its expansion.  The Royal Ordinance of 22 May 1838 brought the École des langues orientales as far as possible into the university framework. The decree of 8 November 1869 reorganized the School to comply with the “original purpose”: all the prescriptions aimed to give the studies a more practical bent without undermining the serious academic nature of the teaching. The School had to skillfully combine its role as an institution of advanced scholarship, for which it had become known throughout Europe, with its mission to train students capable of performing the difficult duties of an interpreter in the East. Finally, the Statute of June 8, 1914 confirmed the previous orientations and granted the School the title of “grand établissement d’enseignement supérieur”, the category defining France’s most prestigious higher education institutions.

 

• For nearly 70 years, the École des langues orientales made do with a small room in the National Library to fulfill its teaching mission. But during the 1867 Universal Exhibition, the School acquired or received donations of a considerable number of oriental works and some ethnographic documents. It became impossible to accommodate these resources in the limited space available to the School’s administration. The School left the National Library permanently in 1868. After a temporary stint in the apartments of the director of the Collège de France, it was provided with a stately townhouse at 2, rue de Lille in Paris by presidential decree in 1873. Renovations were undertaken in the 1880s to provide a fitting institutional and symbolic backdrop to the School’s teaching missions.

 

• From the four oriental languages set by the decree of Year III, the number and diversity of oriental languages taught grew steadily, reaching fifty languages in the 1969-1970 curriculum.

From the mid-20th century , French higher education encountered many problems to which the School was not immune (a dramatic increase in student numbers, lack of professors, insufficient room for teaching, and outdated learning methods). The events of 1968 led to a significant change in institutional structures and educational practices.
The institutional consequences included the School’s change of name to the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (National Institute of Oriental Languages and Cultures) in 1971, and its affiliation with Université Paris Sorbonne.
Starting in 1968, some courses were taught “temporarily” in buildings that NATO had vacated at Porte Dauphine. Then, in 1969, other courses were set up at the Centre universitaire de Clichy and, in 1971, at the Centre universitaire d’Asnières. From that point on, Inalco was constantly on the lookout for stopgaps—temporary rooms where it could keep teaching its courses.