January 2022
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The Mercator Network wishes you a happy & healthy 2022!

Irish is now an official language of the European Union

From 1st January 2022 on, Irish will achieve full status as an official language of the European Union. All documents published by the EU will now also be translated into Irish. The immensely proud Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne said: "This reflects the tireless work that has gone into building up the capability of the EU Institutions to operate through Irish [...]." The move is expected to result in new career opportunities for those working with the Irish language, and the number of Irish language staff working in the European institutions will increase.
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New ECRML reports on Cyprus and Poland

The Committee of Experts for the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages published two new reports: on Cyprus ('Progress on Armenian and Cypriot Maronite Arabic languages, but room for improvement') and on Poland ('Further measures needed to implement the Charter').

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NPLD statement Catalan education immersion model

"As the Chair of the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity, I wish to express our deep concern over the recent Supreme Court pronouncement which, in practice, makes language immersion models impossible in Catalonia," wrote Agustina Vilaret González, following the example of ELEN.

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INTERESTING LINKS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EUROPE

● 'A big sense of pride' - School reviving Cornish language

● 'Grammatik des Saterfriesischen': first grammar of the Sater Frisian language online

● Romania’s ‘Hungarian problem’: A minority caught between integration and self-segregation

● British Strictly Come Dancing star inspires sign language lessons surge

● ‘Immersion centres’ for children entering Welsh language education late to be expanded across Wales

● Emili Boix new director of Mercator Network partner CUSC-UB, replacing F. Xavier Vila

● 'The keys to the future of the Catalan language school: between the offensive to maintain it and 25% of the school in Spanish'

● International Basque Day: Opportunities of Basque language

● The Asturian's Labyrinth

● Lombard Language Wikipedia arrives to 50,000 articles

● Gaelic version of Anne of Green Gables brings beloved story to its roots

● French and Breton: the bilingual family booklet will be introduced in Quimper in 2022

1,500 languages at high risk of being lost this century

A world-first study warns 1,500 endangered languages could no longer be spoken by the end of this century. The study, led by The Australian National University (ANU), identified predictors that put endangered languages at high risk. Co-author Professor Lindell Bromham said that of the world’s 7,000 recognised languages, around half were currently endangered. “We found that without immediate intervention, language loss could triple in the next 40 years.” The study 'Global predictors of language endangerment and the future of linguistic diversity' is published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
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Book 'Pedagogical Translanguaging' (free)

The new book 'Pedagogical Translanguaging' by Jasone Cenoz and Durk Gorter (University of the Basque Country) is a theoretical and instructional approach that aims at improving language and content competences in school contexts by using resources from the learner’s whole linguistic repertoire.

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Call for 2nd Conference on Frisian Humanities

The 2nd Conference on Frisian Humanities (13-16 Sept. 2022 in Leeuwarden-NL) is all about 'Resilience'.The five organising partners welcome proposals on multilingualism and education, language technology for low-resourced languages, minority language literature and more. Deadline: 1 March, 2022.

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Indigenous languages

Start of the UN International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032)

Catalan in education

Language choices in the daily life of young people (Youtube)

Book on history of bilingualism in Catalonia

CUSC-UB researchers have published the book 'El castellà a la Catalunya contempo-rània: història d’una bilingüització' ('Spanish in contemporary Catalonia: history of a process of bilingualisation'), on the process by which Spanish became established in Catalonia.

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Picard language to be taught at school in France

Like Corsican and Breton, the Picard language is now one of the regional languages to be taught at school. The French Ministry of National Education, allows the teaching of thePicard and Flemish in the academies of Lille and Amiens.

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Call for 'Conference on Right to Languages'

At the University of València, you can participate in the first International Conference on the Right to Languages: Linguistic Policies and Translation and Interpreting in Public Services and Institutions (15-17 June, 2022). Submission deadline:1 February 2022.

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Call for papers 'Regional

Languages ​​in Education'

The International Academic Conference 'Regional Languages in Education' (16-17 June, 2022, Rēzekne Academy of Techno-logies, Latvia) calls for proposals to discuss the diverse perspectives of (regional) language learners, their wishes an motivation.

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INTERESTING LINKS

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORLD

● Local laws allowing minority language teaching ‘unconstitutional’ [China]

● Fact sheet on Jewish language Haketia [Morocco/ Algeria]

● Mi’kmaw to be enshrined as Nova Scotia’s first language [Canada]

● Monolingual school websites as barriers to parent engagement [Australia]

● Chinese state medium CGTN releases multilingual version of the Beijing Winter Olympics song [China]

● Even as border row hots up, enrolment in Karnataka’s Marathi schools surges [India]

● Most ethnic minority kids deprived of education in mother tongue [Bangladesh]

Summer School on Diversity Management for Social Justice

Are you interested in making a change in how diverse people access education, public services, wealth and participate in the public debate? The University of Groningen Summer School on Diversity Management for Social Justice will be held in Leeuwarden (The Netherlands), 20-24 June 2022. This interdisciplinary school is meant for graduate students, PhD students, early-career researchers and professionals with an interest in diversity, policy making and equity. Throughout lectures, roundtables and workshops, an international roster of speakers from a variety of fields (sociolinguistics, sociology, anthropology, cultural and media studies) will share their research and insights. The summer school, inspired by decolonial practices and aimed at social justice, will offer participants advanced tools for making an impact through diversity management.

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INTERESTING EVENTS

8 February 2022, online
ENROPE keep-in-touch meeting
Organised by the partners in the Erasmus+ project ENROPE and the LANGscape research group

11-12 March 2022, online
Virtual conference: Youth Engagement in Minority and Regional Languages
Organised by University College Dublin

31 March-1 April 2022, Flensburg (Germany)
International conference: Multi-platform and Connecting Communities: Contemporary Challenges for Minority Language Media
Organised by Europa Universität Flensburg, European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) and the University of the Basque Country

1 april 2022, Leuven (Belgium)
Sociolinguistic Circle 2022 
* Call for Papers is open (deadline 15 Jan)
Organised by the KU Leuven

9-10 June 2022, Groningen (Netherlands)
International Linguistics Conference TABU
* Call for Papers is open (deadline 7 March)
Organised by Center for Language and Cognition from the University of Groningen

20-24 June 2022, Leeuwarden (Netherlands)
Summer School on Cultural & Linguistic Diversity: Diversity Management for Social Justice
Organised by University of Groningen

22-24 June 2022, Granada (Spain)/ online
International Conference 'Future Challenges in Early Language Learning and Multilingual Education (ELLME2022)
Organised by Universidad de Granada

22-25 June 2022, online
17th International Conference of Language and Social Psychology (ICLASP17)
* Call for Papers is open (deadline 1 Feb)
Organised by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University

27-29 June 2022, Warsaw (Poland)
World Congress of Modern Languages and the Annual Conference of the Polish Association of Modern Languages
Organised by the International Federation of Language Teacher Associations, the Polish Association of Modern Languages and the Faculty of Modern Languages, University of Warsaw

13-16 July 2022, Ghent (Belgium)
Sociolinguistics Symposium 24 - Inside and beyond binaries
Organised by Ghent University

4-5 August 2022, Tromsø (Norway)
4th International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children
Organised by the University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway

8-12 August 2022, Koblenz (Germany)
39th International LAUD Symposium 'Multilingualism in Africa: Language contact, endangerment and cultural conceptualisation'
Organised by the University of Koblenz-Landau

13-16 September 2022, Leeuwarden (Netherlands)
2nd Conference on Frisian Humanities
* Call for Papers is open (Deadline 1 March)
Organised by Fryske Akademy, Mercator, NHLStenden, the University of Groningen, and RuG/Campus Fryslân

15-17 September 2022, Zagreb (Croatia)
12th International Conference on Third Language Acquisition and Multilingualism
Organised by University of Zagreb

6-7 October 2022, Joensuu (Finland)
International Conference on Multilingual Awareness and Multilingual Practices
* Call for Papers is open (Deadline 15 July)
Organised by University of Eastern Finland

17-21 July 2023, Lyon (France)
AILA 2023
* Call for Symposia and Papers is open
Organised by ENS de Lyon

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