June 2020
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FUEN survey results: availability of information in minority languages related to COVID-19

The Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) has recently conducted a survey to analyze to what extent communication in minority languages is assured in the Member States of the European Union. The online questionnaire focused on the availability of information related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the existence of an emergency hotline operated in a minority language. The survey was completed by 29 minority groups and shows that information on the coronavirus outbreak is available in the language of minority communities in slightly more than half of the cases (52%), provided most often by regional government, minority organizations as well as minority press.

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Spoken and silenced history of Yamal Nenets

Roza Laptander lives in Fryslân, but is a native speaker of Nenets, an endangered Samoyedic language. Recently, she defended her PhD dissertation online (!) at the University of Lapland on 'the spoken and silenced history of the Yamal Nenets'. This was the first ever western PhD by a Nenets scholar.

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Interactive guide to live fully in Catalan

The newspaper ARA, in co-operation with Plataforma per la Llengua, has published an interactive test to help people live fully in Catalan. It explains the situations that can make people hesitate when using Catalan and it gives arguments to always be able to defend its use.

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INTERESTING LINKS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EUROPE

● Report: 'The future of language education in Europe: case studies of innovative practices'

● FCNM report on Cyprus: 'Efforts to uphold national minority rights welcomed, but improvement needed'

● French research: at 8 months, babies know their grammar

● How to sign the alphabet in British Sign Language (60-second lesson)

● El Día de les Lletres... [Asturian Day of Literature has to wait...]

● We code-switch like Riz Ahmed

● "Reclamem l’ús del valencià..." ["We demand the use of Valencian in the urban signage of Alicante"]

● Buzzfeed criticised over Welsh place name quiz

● Regional Dossiers: additional documents 'The Hungarian language in education in Ukraine'

● Players Aston Villa teach basic language skills

● Advice for European Citizens' Initiative organisers (by Minority Safepack Initiative organiser Dénes András Nagy)

● Research: 'Although students are aware of the vulnerability Basque is exposed to, they don’t use it'

New Occitan-French phrases dictionary

The Permanent Congress of the Occitan language added a tool to its special online dictionaries: expressions and phrases for all varieties of Occitan. It was developed from Florence Marcouyre's master's thesis, under the supervision of members of the congress. They have identified, transcribed and commented on more than 2,500 expressions from Simin Palay's Dictionary of modern Bearnais and Gascon. The expressions and phrases of the dicod'Òc dictionaries have been added to it, which have been extracted automatically thanks to their TEI formatting. The tool now has more than 50,000 expressions in Occitan in all its varieties (Auvergne, Gascon, Languedoc, Limousin, Provençal and Vivaro-Alpine).
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Novel website opens the door to Welsh literature

The new Sôn am Lyfra (Talk About Books) website offers bilingual reviews of Welsh children’s books to help them develop a passion for reading in Welsh. It was launched by former primary school teacher Morgan Dafydd: "It's essentially a 'good reads' website providing reviews of Welsh language books for children and young people."

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New publication: 'Creative Multilingualism'

'Creative Multilingualism' (Kohl & Ouyang eds.) presents four years of joint research conducted across disciplines. The book is structured as a manifesto, comprising ten major statements which are unpacked and explored through various case studies, reaching beyond an Anglo-centric view of the world. Available in hard copy and pdf (free).

Read more / Video

INTERESTING LINKS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIRUS

● Booklets on COVID-19 for Albanian, Roma, Serbian, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Vlach, Greek and Macedonian minorities [EU]

● Promoting coronavirus education through indigenous languages [Cameroon]

● Educational equity & Coronavirus: focus on multilingual learners [USA]

● Deaf campaigners launch legal action against Government over lack of sign language at coronavirus briefings [UK]

● Staring down the Covid-19 lockdown with multilingual humor [South Africa]

● Covid-19 and the duty to provide health information to diverse populations [Global]

● Multi-language Coronavirus advice videos for Gateshead communities [UK]

● African life-saving lullabies warn of COVID-19 [Zambia]

#Language-comfort: language-art to make mother tongues visible and to share a positive feeling

#Language-comfort (Dutch: #Taaltroost, Frisian: #Taaltreast) is a project developed for primary schools (grades 3 to 6) inspired by 'Inspiring Multilingual Education'. With #Taaltroost children Facetime or Skype with their grandparents or have a face to face conversation with their parents. They will search for a language treasure which can spread happiness in these strange confusing times and create a beautiful language-comfort poster around this treasure. Posters could be shown at various visible locations like the windows of school or in the neighbourhood. Teachers can use the free online available #Taaltroost PowerPoint presentation and worksheet.
Read more EN / DE
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Palestinian-Irish children’s books project

The Noor Ash Shams Children’s Books Project (Centre for Translation and Textual Studies at Dublin City University) is a Palestinian-Irish third-level initiative involving the translation, publication and distribution of children’s stories in Arabic and Irish. Now you can enjoy free online access to three of these books.

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Free digital Macedonian - Albanian phrasebook

The Nansen Dialogue Center in Skopje and the Office of the High Commissioner for OSCE National Minorities published a digital book of Macedonian - Albanian conversations. With simple everyday language expressions, a vocabulary and grammar notes related to the given situation.

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Virtual Science Festival

CUSC-UB and Laboratorio SQ Lingüistas Forenses at the University of Barcelona's Virtual Science Festival

James Bond

James Bond and multilingualism:
the fantasy of fluency

INTERESTING LINKS

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORLD

● First ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi article published in law journal [USA]

● Is Afrikaans in danger of dying out? [South Africa]

● Taiwan’s language politics and Tigertail’s trilingualism [Taiwan/ USA]

● 'Reform of school governance in Quebec sends the wrong message to linguistic minorities in the country' [Canada]

● A call for a more robust language policy in ASEAN [Southeast Asia]

● Meet Zubair Torwali, Torwali language activist [Pakistan]

● Useful phrases in Igbo (and how to pronounce them)[Nigeria]

● 'Community broadcasting remains a strategic missing connection' [Zimbabwe]
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'Sociolinguistic Studies' - journal renewed

'Sociolinguistic Studies' is the new title of the journal 'Estudios de Sociolingüística' (est. 2000, University of Vigo, Galicia, Spain). It pays special attention to minority language and cultures, language contact and change, language maintenance, shift and loss, language and social inequalities and language planning and policy. All articles are peer-reviewed, and may be in English, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese or French.

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VirtuLApp on multilingual approach in education

A video team from the Erasmus+ project VirtuLApp made recordings of multilingual class activities in primary schools in Dublin and Blanchardstown in Ireland (just before the lockdown). They also recorded interviews with experts in multilingual teaching as part of their VirtuLApp FAQ series. This and other interesting information about multilingual approaches in education can be found on their website and in their newsletter (subscribe).

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INTERESTING EVENTS

POSTPONED: 11 - 12 June 2020 (June 2021), Groningen (Netherlands)
TABU - International linguistics conference
Organised by Center for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen.

CANCELLED: 22 June - 3 July 2020, Bolzano (Italy)
Summer School on Human Rights, Minorities and Diversity Governance
Organised by Eurac Research

ONLINE: 23 - 25 June 2020, Reading (United Kingdom)
Conference on Multilingualism (COM) 2020
* Free of charge with registration!
Organised by University of Reading

POSTPONED: 29 June - 3 July 2020, (ONLINE 23 - 27 November 2020), Paris (France)
ENROPE’s second Intensive Study Week
Organised by the ENROPE consortium, hosted by the University Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris.

CANCELLED: 1 - 3 July 2020, Soria (Spain)
6th International Colloquium on Languages, Cultures, Identity, in Schools and Society
Organised by the Loyola Marymount University School of Education

POSTPONED: 2 - 3 July 2020 (2021), Zurich (Switzerland)
Symposium on Research Methods in Language Attitudes
Organised by the University of Zurich

WITH ADJUSTMENTS: 6 - 7 July 2020, Athens (Greece)
13th Annual International Conference on Languages & Linguistics
Hosted by the Athens Institute for Education and Research

POSTPONED: 9 - 14 August 2020 (15 - 12 August 2021), Groningen (the Netherlands)
AILA 2020: World Congress of Applied Linguistics
Organised by the University of Groningen, Multilingual Matters and others.

ONLINE: 23 - 25 September 2020, London (United Kingdom)
Teaching and Learning Resources for Endangered Languages (FEL 24)
Organised by the Foundation for Endangered Languages and the University College London.

POSTPONED 28 - 30 September 2020 (26-28 May 2021), Zadar (Croatia)
New Contexts for the Use of Minoritized Languages/Varieties (NEWCON 2020)
* New Call for Papers: 1 November 2020 - 15 January 2021.
Organised by by the Linguistics Department of the University of Zadar,the SOAS World Languages Institute, Mercator European Research Centre and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Social and Language Documentation (CIDLes).

14 - 16 October 2020 (originally 6 - 8 May 2020), Murcia (Spain)
13th International GLAT Congress: Le monde connecté et les approches interculturelles: vers un nouveau paradigme des frontières ?
Organised by the University of Murcia

29 - 30 October 2020, Meknès (Morocco)
Interdisciplinary colloquium: “La désuétude au carrefour des savoirs : De la langue à la culture”
Organised by the University Moulay Ismail.

2 - 3 November 2020, Valetta (Malta)
International Conference on Multilingualism and Multilingual Education 2020 (ICMME4)
* Deadline Call for Papers: 1 September 2020.
Organised by the University of Malta.

24 - 26 March 2021, Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain)
18th International Conference on Minority Languages (ICML XVIII)
* Deadline Call for Papers: 30 June 2020.
Organised by the University of the Basque Country.

10 - 12 May 2021 (originally 25 - 27 May 2020), Paris (France)
Minority languages spoken or signed and inclusive spaces
Organised by INSHEA.

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