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"The Basque is not dying, but the future is not guaranteed"

"Basque is a threatened language, but it is not a language of imminent disappearance. We have at least two or three generations insured, but it is a language that is very weak." Iñaki Iurrebaso, sociologist and professor at the University of the Basque Country, recently participated in the seminar 'Demolinguistic indicators to measure the evolution of competition in the Basque Country', organised by Mercator Network partner CUSC-UB." The future of the language will depend on what we do. The basic indicator of the vitality of a language, however, is the use and the data that we have. These indicate that in the last thirty years we have not progressed much. If we want to move forward, we have to do much more than we have done so far."

Mercator Network Picture

New report on national minorities in Hungary

The participation and representation of national minorities in Hungary is exemplary and the protection and promotion of their minority languages enjoy a high level of political support. However, the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe underlined the need to develop long-term strategies for the promotion of each minority language and further extend their use as a medium of instruction.

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New ECRML report about Czech Republic

The Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe has published a new report on the situation with regional and minority languages in the Czech Republic. Progress has been made, but there are some important shortcomings. For instance, the ratio required in municipalities for establishing committees on national minorities remains at 10% of the total population, which hinders the application of the Charter.

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Language virtuoso: "Learn endangered language yourself!"

"Do you already speak Aasters, Schiermonnikoogs or Hielpes? Thanks to the efforts of Dyami Millarson (25) from Leeuwarden, three Northern Dutch dialects were recognised as independent languages. Dyami is a language virtuoso, self-taught and savior of minority languages. His method: learn the strongly endangered language yourself and carry it with you, because according to him, that is the best method to retain it. Thanks to him, three dialects were recognized as an independent language by Glottolog, an international scientific online database that registers more than 7000 language families, languages and dialects. It is part of the renowned Max Planck Institute in Jena."

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'Multilingualism in European Language Education'

'Multilingualism in European Language Education' (eds. Cecilio Lapresta-Rey and Ángel Huguet) explores how different European education systems manage multilingualism. CUSC-UB researchers Montserrat Sendra and F. Xavier Vila discuss the education system in Catalonia and the controversy surrounding the Catalan conjunction model.

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Pomeranian sheds new light on West Germanic

During his research into Zeelandic Flemish in Brazil, Gertjan Postma discovered another interesting language, the Pomeranian. This language used to be spoken on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, and ended up in Brazil via emigrants. Postma wrote a Pomeranian grammar, 'A Contrastive Grammar of Brazilian Pomeranian', which sheds new light on our knowledge of West Germanic.

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LANG-UP: FRYSK

Langup

Erasmus+ project LangUp raises awareness of employment possibilities related to local languages.

CORNISH WEEK

How many ancient Cornish phrases do you know? Go ahead and try it!

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Final conference CSLW on multilingualism and refugees

On 21 June 2019, the Newcastle University hosted a successful Conference of the Critical Skills for Life and Work Project on the professional reintegration of highly skilled refugees. The CSLW toolkit was officially launched, which is comprised of two training modules; one for highly-skilled refugees and one for the teachers who work with them.

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Secrets of bilingual parenting success

There is a gap between parents’ desires to raise their children bilingually and their success in achieving it. So why do some parents succeed while others fail? Dr Van Tran from Charles Sturt University, explored this question with a focus on Vietnamese in Australia. She surveyed over 150 first generation Vietnamese parents living in Australia.

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Effect of early childhood education on bilingual families

Indigenous

How does formal early childhood education affect bilingual families? Most of what we know comes from research conducted with families where one or both parents are not only the main caregivers but also the main providers of linguistic input. But what happens to bilingual development when young children spend a significant amount of their time in institutional childcare? Dr Kerry Taylor-Leech from Griffith University addressed precisely this question for an English-Samoan bilingual preschool program in Queensland.

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Parisian conference on 'Family languages'

From 5-7 December 2019, the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 organises the conference 'Family languages: attitudes, uses, policies and experiences'. The main theme is the family as an institution at the heart of which the process of language learning and socialisation initially develops in every society, era and context.

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CSLW

First ENROPE Intensive Study Week succesful

36 young researchers from all over Europe (and China and Canada) gathered in Berlin to follow the ENROPE Intensive Study Programme. The PhD students and postdocs worked on an online annotated bibliography in the field of plurilingualism, visited bilingual schools and worked on their professional skills as researchers.

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Mercator colleague presents in Peruvian parliament

At the partner meeting from the Erasmus+ project LangUp in Lima (Peru), Mercator/ Fryske Akademy colleague Helga Kuipers-Zandberg gave a presentation at the Peruvian Parliament. Tjallien Kalsbeek from Liet, the song festival for regional and minority languages, recited Frisian poems. The group was later invited to a local radio show.

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CSLW

Special The Langscape Journal on education

The journal Language Education and Multilingualism – The Langscape Journal, will publish a special issue, which will focus on language teacher education and plurilingualism in digital learning environments. Publication is planned for spring 2020 and everyone is most welcome to submit abstracts until July 15, 2019.

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Minority Monitor to document minority rights breaches

Indigenous

At the FUEN congress in June. a new online tool was presented, that can be used by the minorities if they encounter a breach of their minority rights, face discrimination, or if they want to share a case of good practices with each other. "Some organisations expect us to put the problems the minorities have to face, the cases of discrimination, of minority rights breach on the map – and this new initiative of the Presidium does exactly that", said FUEN president Loránt Vincze. However, FUEN points out that it does not want to create a database of problems, rather a database of solutions. [Photo: FUEN]

INTERESTING EVENTS

3 - 5 July 2019, Soria (Spain)
Fifth International Colloquium on Languages, Cultures, Identity in Schools and Society
Organised by the Loyola Marymount University School of Education.


4 - 5 July 2019, Lisbon (Portugal)
2nd International Symposium on Endangered languages and language varieties in the Iberian Peninsula (LAPI 2019)
Organised by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Social and Language Documentation (CIDLeS, SOAS World Languages Institute and the project FRONTESPO.


8 - 11 July 2019, Athens (Greece)
12th Annual International Conference on Languages & Linguistics
Organised by the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) and the Athens Journal of Philology.


27 - 28 August 2019, Chania (Crete, Greece)
International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 2019 (ISMBS 2019)
Organised by the Institute of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech.


17 - 20 September 2019, Barcelona (Spain)
6th Barcelona Summer School on Bi- and Multilingualism (BSBM)
Organised by Pompeu Fabra University.


26 - 27 September 2019, Stirling (United Kingdom)
Languaging in Times of Change (tlang#2)
Organised by University of Stirling.


8 - 9 October 2019, Brussels (Belgium)
META Forum: Introducing the European Language Grid
Organised by the European Language Grid consortium.


14 - 15 November 2019, Udine (Italy)
2nd International Colloquium on Plurilingualism (2nd ICP )
Organised by Udine University / Centro Internazionale sul Plurilinguismo.


20 - 22 November 2019, Graz (Austria)
Languages in an Open World 2019 (LOW 2019)
* Deadline Call for Papers: 30 June 2019
Organised by SOAS World Languages Institute (UK), Mercator European Research Centre (NL), the Interdisciplinary Centre for Social and Language Documentation (CiDLeS), and the University of Graz /Plurilingualism Research Unit – Treffpunkt Sprachen (AT).


28 - 29 November 2019, Brussels (Belgium)
European Language Council (ELC) Conference on 'Language and Education'
Organised by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.


5 - 7 December 2019, Paris (France)
Conference: Family languages: attitudes, uses, policies and experiences
Organised by the Sorbonne 3 University.

Due to the summer holidays, there will be no newsletter in August. The next edition will appear in early September.

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