Mercator Network Newsletter 126

The Mercator newsletter informs you about the news of the five Mercator Network partners:

Newsletter focusing on multilingual regions dealing with regional or minority languages, but also immigrant languages and smaller state languages, with emphasis on language needs arising from migration and globalization. Submit your subscription request, comments or suggestions to: Johanneke Buning (Fryske Akademy).

9 and 10 December: Mercator-SOAS-CIDLeS seminar

By: Jorrit Huizinga

Language documentation, teaching materials and didactics; an opportunity for small and endangered languages?

On Friday 9 and Saturday 10 December, Mercator Research Centre will host an expert seminar on the topics of “Language documentation, teaching materials and didactics”. This seminar is part of a series of annual meetings co-organized by Mercator Research Centre, the SOAS World Languages Institute at the University of London, and CIDLeS.

This seminar will address the growing need for up-to-date teaching materials and methods for small and endangered languages and how new technologies can be used in language maintenance endeavors. For a more extensive description, as well as a list of speakers, see here. The full programme will be made available shortly.

• Date and time: Friday 9 December 2016, 09:00-17:45 I Saturday 10 December 2016, 09:30-12:30
• Location: Hampshire Hotel Oranje, Stationsweg 4, Leeuwarden (NL)
• Online registration is obligatory, and can be done through this link.
• Contact person: Jorrit Huizinga

Sakhalin revisited

By: Tjeerd de Graaf

In September 2016 Tjeerd de Graaf spent three weeks in the Russian Federation, where he attended conferences in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Vladivostok.

The meeting on Sakhalin took place 12-17 September and was devoted to the fact that 120 years ago the local ethnographical museum was founded. After two days with presentations about the history, ethnography and other aspects of the island of Sakhalin, the participants made a bus trip of 700 km to the North of the island, where the conference continued in the town of Alexandrovsk. There the Russian colonisation started in the 19the century and in 1890 the Russian author Anton Chekhov prepared his book on the island. In 1990, the first international ethnolinguistic expedition took place from Japan to Sakhalin and this time we could meet again with some of the Japanese participants and our informants of the Nikvh language community.

On the way to the North of the island we visited interesting places, such as the former border between Japan and Russia and some other musea. It was interesting to see that the local musea paid attention to the discovery of the border areas between Japan and Russia in 1643 by the Frisian sailor man Maarten Gerritszoon de Vries.

More information about the conference, and the minority languages of Sakhalin:

• Photos of the Sakhalin conference can be found here.
• About the minority languages on Sakhalin: the Ainu and the Nivkh.
• Interviews with the Nivkh people on Sakhalin (1990).

Remarkable increase in number of Basque speakers, new survey data reveal

There have never been so many bilingual speakers in the Basque country. This is one of the key findings of the latest 6th Sociolinguistic Survey published recently by the Government of the Basque country. According to the latest figures presented (2016), 33,9% of the population in the Basque Country over 16 years of age claim to be Basque speakers (631,000 people). “These are remarkable figures if we consider that today, there are 212,000 more fluent speakers of Basque than in 1991” – stated Patxi Baztarrika, Vice-minister for Language Policy at the Basque Country and Chair of NPLD, referring to the data presented.

One of the most interesting changes is the increased number of young speakers. Back in 1991, only 25% of speakers between 16 and 24 years of age claimed to be Basque speakers. Today, that figure has skyrocketed to 71,4%. “There is no doubt that we see these figures with enthusiasm. This is a merit of the Basque society as a whole” – stated Baztarrika – “but we must continue working at least as good as we have done so far”.

Baztarrika presented these figures along with Mr. Mikel Arregi, Director of Euskarabidea, the Institute for the Basque language in Navarre, and Mr. Mathieu Bergé, President of the Public Office for the Basque Language in Iparralde (the French Basque territory). The full survey will be published in 2017.

Source: NPLD

About Quechua, the second language of Peru

By: Rixt van Dongera

Whilst visiting Peru, Rixt van Dongera assumed that thanks to her (limited) Spanish skills she would be able to understand and communicate with the majority of people she would encounter. However, as soon as she entered the Andes region of the country, this appeared to be more difficult than imagined, because everyone she would meet would have a different mother tongue than Spanish: Quechua.

Quechua is a minority language in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, the official second language of Peru and not coincidentally also the name of a brand that sells hiking gear all over the world. Quechua, or Runa Simi (‘language of the people’) as native speakers call it, is mostly spoken in the Andes region. Many people call Quechua an ‘Inca language’. However it appears that the language was already spoken in many regions of the three countries, before the Incas arrived there. Thus the Incas merely conquered areas where a variety of Quechua was already spoken. However, the Inca empire did enable the Quechua language to become a lingua franca, which helped to unite all the regions of the empire.

Currently, some Quechua-speakers identify as a Quechua people/Quechua nation. There even is an Education Council of the Quechua Nation, which is responsible for the teaching of the language in bilingual intercultural schools in the Quechua-speaking regions of Bolivia. For more information about this non-European minority language visit the website of 4taal, which supports multilingualism in the Andes (unfortunately only available in Dutch), or read this interesting article about how a 14-year old girl is popularizing the language amongst her peers.

Invitation from LangOER to join their webinar

On 2 November 2016, 11AM CET the webinar
"Open Education: Promoting Diversity for European Languages – Consultation on policy recommendations"
will take place.

The following experts will speak: Jim Ayre (Schoolnet), Gard Titlestad (ICDE), Alastair Creelman (Linnaeus University), Marit Bijlsma (Mercator Research Centre at the Fryske Akademy).

All interested may join the webinar, and share their ideas during the Q&A session.

The webinar is part of the final stage of the LangOER project, and of vital importance, since it will help create a clear roadmap for policy makers, the European Commission, and institutions, that shows how Open Educational Resources may be implemented, and how linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe may be fostered.

View the programme here.
Please register for the webinar here

The Vladivostok seminar on ethnic groups in Northeast Asia

By: Tjeerd de Graaf

At the end of September Tjeerd de Graaf was invited to take part in the international seminar on the narratives of the ethnic groups in Northeast Asia, organised by the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) and the Leiden International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). There he reported on the topic “The use of historical data and fieldwork for the study of ethnic groups in Northeast Asia” and met with participants from Japan, China and other neighbouring countries.

The seminar took place on the beautiful campus of the university, which was created in recent years as a meeting place for high-level politicians and other specialists from the East-Asian countries. This provided excellent facilities for doing joint work and beside that it was very interesting to visit Vladivostok and its historical places, reminding the rich cosmopolitan history of the town since its foundation in 1860.

Some photo impressions of the meetings and the related events can be found at this website.

Endangered Archives Project places new audio materials online

September 2016 - Over the past month audio materials from four new projects have been added to the Endangered Archives website, and materials from two more projects on the website of British Library Sounds. The materials include a wide variety of genres of music from Micronesia (EAP115) and Guinea ( EAP187, EAP327, EAP608); folk and traditional songs and talks from the Uralic speaking regions of Russia (EAP347); Indian classical music (EAP190; EAP468); and musical pieces and poetry from Iran (EAP088).

The Endangered Archives Programme was set up in 2004. It is funded by Arcadia and administered by The British Library. Its aim is “to contribute to the preservation of archival material that is in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration world-wide”.

On the Endangered Archives blog page some of the interesting and amazing records copied under the Programme are shared.

Save the date! 11 November - "Mercator symposium: the influence of migration on the position of minority languages", Ljouwert (NL).

Invitation to the workshop "The "Crisis" crisis in language policy: A critical look into construction of crisis as a language policy tool", November 28-29, University of Jyväskylä, Lyhty building.

Building human towers in Spain, Photos of the yearly recurring Catalan tradition of building Castells — human towers reaching up to 10 stories.

View the full video of the June 1st European Parliament/ ELEN Hearing on language discrimination in the EU, available in six languages (French, English, Welsh, Catalan, Irish, Spanish).

ECMI publishes cartoon on minority rights.

University for refugees, online university where people entitled to International protection may enroll and obtain degrees.

11 November 2016, Leeuwarden (NL): The influence of migration on the position of minority languages, Symposium.

24-25 November 2016, Barcelona (ES): The status of languages: does official recognition matter?, conference organized by Linguapax International

25-26 November 2016, Murmansk (RU): Documentation, Standardization and Teaching of Endangered Languages in Northern Eurasia, symposium organized by the Foundation for Endangered Languages. Call deadline: July 31

29 November - 3 December 2016, Udine (IT): SUNS EUROPE, European Festival of Performing Arts in European Minority Languages.

2-5 December 2016, London (Unitedk): Information Structure and Discourse in the minority languages of the Russian Federation.

9-10 December 2016, Leeuwarden (NL): Language documentation, teaching materials and didactics; an opportunity for small and endangered languages? Expert seminar hosted by Mercator Research Centre.

14–15 December 2016, El Jadida (MA): Cultures and Languages in Contact, call deadline 14 September 2016

15-16 December 2016, Donostia-San Sebastián (ES): European Language Diversity Forum. Donostia-San Sebastián.

14 - 16 December 2016, Teramo (IT): Evaluating language policies. Which objectives, criteria, indicators?, International conference.

23 - 25 March 2017, Oxford (UK): Language, Mobility, and Belonging, conference, hosted by the University of Oxford.

30 January - 20 February 2017, Bolanzo (IT): Winter School on Federalism and Governance, call deadline 23 October 2016.

23 - 24 March 2017, Paris (FR): Tandem Language and Intercultural Learning in Higher Education Settings, International conference.

19 - 21 April 2017, Barcelona and Vic (ES): First International Conference on Revitalization of Indigenous and Minoritized Languages, International conference.

27 - 28 April 2017, Ulyanovsk (RU): Language Education in the Globalized World, International conference.

3 - 5 May 2017, Bologna (IT): Learning and Assessment: Making the Connections, Call deadline 15 October 2016.

4 - 7 May 2017, Lausanne (CH): Approaches to Migration, Language, and Identity, International conference.

6 - 7 May 2017, Poznan (PL): Workshop on Multilingual Language Acquisition, Processing and Use, Call deadline 1 December 2016.

11 - 13 May 2017, Braga (PT): International Conference on Multilingualism and Multilingual Education, Call for papers: deadline 15 February 2017.

17 - 20 May 2017, Odense (DK): MultiMeDialecTranslation 7 – Dialect translation in multimedia, conference hosted by the University of Southern Denmark.

11 - 15 June 2017, Limerick (IE): International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB11), hosted by the University of Limerick.