Please allow me to express my admiration for your perseverance in tracking down these materials!
I provided a level of administrative support to the initiatives that ultimately led to the hosting of the Cortina Russian materials on the
Indiana University's CeLT Recorded Materials Archive and on the
FSI-Language-Courses websites.
Cortina Russian (
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... 40797&PN=2). Here is the story as best I can reconstruct it:
I became aware of the Cortina Russian audio recordings through
Jpazzz' post
Cortina French, German, and Russian (
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... 40245&PN=5). He reported that he had purchased his set of 78 rpm vinyl LP records on
eBay, which he later identified as being labelled "Cortina Conversaphone Language System." As an aside, during the period that I was working on this small project, I came across a similar offer on
eBay for which the accompanying photo clearly indicated that they had been "published" by Cortina. This is, perhaps, where the question of "origin" becomes unclear ...
During my subsequent communications with the President of
Cortina International concerning the hosting of the Cortina Russian materials on the above-named websites, she provided information suggesting that the company had
not prepared recordings for this course and that, as you indicated above, they had sold recordings that had been prepared by Linguaphone. When I offered the explanation that
Jpazzz had provided, supported by a copy of the photo of the vinyl records that I had downloaded from eBay --
which, regrettably, I no longer have -- she expressed genuine surprise. For me, this suggests at least two possibilities: either (a) Linguaphone prepared the recordings on behalf of Cortina, hence the link to the former company, or (b) Cortina produced their own recordings and their archives do not reflect this fact. Nevertheless, irrespective of their "origin", the 78 rpm vinyl LP records on
eBay, were labelled "Cortina Conversaphone Language System."
The origins of the second, more complete, set of audio recordings are unclear. During my communications with the President of Cortina International, she advised that she had been unaware of their existence but confirmed that Cortina had neither produced nor sold them.
Jpazzz reported that he had received them from a fellow language-learning enthusiast who had downloaded them from one of the numerous websites where "free" materials are available.
* I
will send have sent Emails to both
Jpazzz and
Daristini drawing their attention to this post and inviting them to comment, if they so wish.
Addendum IThe thought came to me that the following discussion of Cortina Russian might be of passing interest to you:
Cortina Russian and Japanese (FSI Languages database)https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=1215Addendum IIAs holder of the copyrights to the Cortina Russian materials, the President of Cortina International, authorized the hosting of the second
* set of recordings on the Indiana University and FSI-Languages-Courses websites.
EDITED:
1. Typos ... unsurprisingly.
2. Emails sent.
3. Addendum I: Link to a previous discussion of Cortina Russian.
4. Strike through the text "which, regrettably, I no longer have" referring to the photographs of the 78 rpm vinyl records.
5. Addendum II: Authorization to host the "second" set of Cortina Russian recordings.