Mercator Network Newsletter 188

November 2022

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Language plan paves way for Scots to flourish in Shetland

The Shaetlan variant of the Scots language will be promoted thanks to a new language plan. It will be used on signage and in learning environments in an effort to raise the profile of Shaetlan on a local, national, and international level. Professor Ian Hancock (University of Texas): “This is a great accomplishment, and indeed a timely one, when the survival of Britain’s smaller languages and regional dialects are increasingly endangered. [...] Shaetlan, a still living language, can be confident of its survival thanks to its own, who will ensure its inclusion in the next Scottish census, its recognition amongst the world’s languages and, especially, its place in the Shetland’s classrooms.”


	Report on minority languages in Switzerland The Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) published a new report on Switzerland, with recommendations on the use of German, French, Italian and Romansh. Read more


	FUEN assembly approves a resolution critical of Spain The FUEN assembly of delegates approved a resolution with 6 proposals and agreed to ask the Spanish authorities to recognise Catalan-speakers as a linguistic minority and to take measures to recover the levels of use of the Spain's minority languages. Read more


	INTERESTING LINKS




	EUROPE

● Manifesto for more Gallo on billboards in Upper Brittany

● Banchmann Institute becomes the first trilingual school in Italy

● Academy of Dialectal Languages: studying and preserving the Monegasque language

● Use of Slovenian declining in Carinthia, survey shows

● Regional languages at school in France: the Molac law is a step

● For the deaf community, Sign Language equals rights

● No, everyone, Welsh road signs do not make you crash your car (or your ambulance)

● Serbia: celebrating linguistic diversity

● 'Speaking Manx was the secret to understanding the island'

● University of Fribourg: bilingual students have the upper hand

● Basque Hordago initiative demands end to language discrimination.

● ‘We cannot deny 80% of our children the ability to speak Welsh’

● Inauguration Felix Ameka (Professor by Special Appointment Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the world, University Leiden) - 'Dutch people should stop switching 'polite' to English'

● "The Aranese language is in total decline and we cannot have a language policy"

● Irish language and Ulster Scots bill clears final hurdle in Parliament

● Austria: visit of the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

Call for Papers: Minority Languages in the City

The Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning (Fryske Akademy), the Endangered Languages Archive (Berlin Brandenburg Akademie der Wissenschaft), and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Social and Language Documentation cordially invite researchers, scholars, and members of community organisations to join the international conference on Minority Languages in the City. The conference will take place on 16 & 17 March 2023 in Leeuwarden (NL). The organisation welcomes abstracts for papers and posters that focus on minority languages in cities or that compare urban and rural contexts.


	UNPO critical of French minority language policy The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) has submitted a Universal Periodic Review to the United Nations Human Rights Council about France’s treatment of minorities. Read more


	'Authorities biased' against Irish-medium schools According to research, commissioned by Conradh na Gaeilge and the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), Irish-medium schools have faced "anti-Irish bias" from Northern Ireland's education authorities. Read more


	German Sign Language is "not a minority language" German deaf communities seethe with anger, now the scientific service of the Bundestag came to the conclusion, that "according to the current factual and legal situation, German Sign Language is not a minority language and cannot be used as an official language." Read more


	Revirada: online Occitan automatic translator Revirada is the automatic translator of the Permanent Congress of the Occitan language. It is built on the basis of the open source Apertium engine and integrates 8 French-Occitan and Occitan-French dictionaries, as well as toponymic and terminological bases. Read more


	ECMI Conversations Videos



	Traps of official language policies: the case of the Serbo-Croatian language


Jean-Marc Dewaele

Free online Mercator Multilingualism Lecture 2022


	Vacancy: Junior Researcher Cat-Human Interaction The Dutch Meertens Institute is looking for a Junior Researcher Cat-Human Interaction, that investigates the communication between (domestic) cats and humans from a linguistic perspective. Read more


	Call for Hosts: Language Policy Forum 2023 The Language Policy Special Interest Group of the British Association of Applied Linguistics holds a biennial two-day event called the ‘Language Policy Forum’. Their Call for Hosts is now open. Read more


	INTERESTING LINKS




	WORLD

● World more violent and unstable because of inaction in protecting rights of minorities, UN expert warns [World]

● Governments of Canada and Manitoba enhance the Canada-Manitoba Agreement on Minority-Language Education [Canada]

● San Diego struggles to hire bilingual poll workers — but voters need them [United States]

● Shortage of teachers Ndebele and Tonga languages [Zimbabwe]

● Does Financial Technology discriminate against people speaking minority dialects? [China/ World]

● Examining the benefits of teaching Indigenous languages in public schools [United States]

● Study finds bilingual babies’ brains work differently; bilingual students speak about experiences [Unites States]

● More local bilingual books for children and support for writers of mother tongue language materials [Singapore]

● Publication: 'Intersections of official and family language policy in Quebec' [Canada]

● Grandma Katrina wants to be the last speaker to save the old language NIuu [South Africa]


	Call for Papers: conference on plurilingual education The 10th International Conference of the Education and Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Association (EDiLiC) takes place in Copenhagen on 28-30 June 2023. Invited are all those engaged in research and practice in plurilingual education, pluricultural education, and in Language Integrated Learning. Read more


	Call for Papers: Multilingual Education & Multilingualism The 4th International Conference on Multilingualism and Multilingual Education (ICMME4) will be hosted at the University of Malta on 12-13 October 2023. Invited are all those engaged in research in bi-/ multilingualism, linguistics and more. Submission deadline: 31 July 2023. Read more


	'Sociolinguistica: European Journal of Sociolinguistics' The new peer-reviewed 'Sociolinguistica: European Journal of Sociolinguistics' covers a broad range of topics related to individual and societal language use. Building on the 35-year history of the yearbook 'Sociolinguistica', it aims to spark debates on the future of macrosociolinguistics in contexts worldwide. Read more


	'Just. Journal of Language Rights & Minorities' The first issue of the new journal 'Just. Journal of Language Rights & Minorities' is out. It is a scientific journal published by the Chair of Linguistic Rights of the University of Valencia and the Generalitat Valenciana, and publishes articles on the protection, observance and promotion of the rights of linguistic minorities. Read more

Erasmus+ project OWL+ Educator Online Survey

Do you teach Frisian, Latgalian, Mirandese, South Saami or another endangered language? Then please take a few minutes to participate in our OWL+ survey! OWL+ is a 3-year Erasmus+ project that aims to equip educators with the skills to take ownership of their linguistic heritage and provide them with adequate information about endangered languages in Europe, show ways of integrating them into different learning contexts, and to help identify the needs of their language at schools. If you teach in a Frisian [NLD/FRY], Latgalian [LTG], Mirandese [POR], or South Saami [NOR] environment, we have prepared versions of the survey tailored to your contexts! If you teach another endangered language, please take this survey [English or Estonian].


	INTERESTING EVENTS



	10-11 November 2022, Madrid (Spain) Bilingualism and Bilingual Education: Sociolinguistic Approaches (BIUNED 2022) Organised by UNED Madrid 16 December 2022, online LANGSCAPE & ENROPE Online Colloquium #3 Organised by the LANGSCAPE International Research Network & the ENROPE consortium 27 February -3 March 2023, Berlin (DE) LANGSCAPE & ENROPE Winter School 2023 Organised by the LANGSCAPE International Research Network & the ENROPE consortium 16-17 March 2023, Leeuwarden (NL) International Conference: Minority Languages in the City Call for Papers: deadline January 20, 2023. Organised by Mercator European Research Centre, the Berlin Brandenburg Akademie der Wissenschaft, and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Social and Language Documentation 17 March 2023, online LANGSCAPE & ENROPE Online Colloquium Organised by the LANGSCAPE International Research Network & the ENROPE consortium 22-24 March 2023, Strassbourg (DE) ECSPM 2023 Symposium: The social role of higher education - Developing the civil society’s awareness and impacting policies on the role of multilingualism in education Organised by ECSPM 26-28 April 2023, Madrid (ES) ALTE's 8th International Conference: Language Assessment Fit for the Future Organised by Association of Language Testers in Europe 23-25 March 2023, Dublin (IE) Conference on Youth Theatre and Performance in Regional, Minority, and Minoritised Languages Organised by University College Dublin 4-6 May 2023, Ottawa (Canada) Colloque du CCERBAL 2023 - Bilinguisme et multilinguisme: Compétences transversales, mobilité et bien-être * Call for Symposia and Papers is open Organised by Centre canadien d’études et de recherche en bilinguisme et aménagement linguistique (CCERBAL), Institut de langues officielles et du bilinguisme (ILOB), Université d’Ottawa. 16 June 2023, online LANGSCAPE & ENROPE Online Colloquium #4 Organised by the LANGSCAPE International Research Network & the ENROPE consortium 20-24 June 2023, Wales XIX International Conference on Minority Languages (ICML) Organised by University of Wales Trinity Saint David 26-28 June 2023, Edinburgh United Kingdom Language Variation & Change 14 (UKLVC14) Call for Papers: soon to be published Organised by Linguistics and English Language / University of Edinburgh 26-30 June 2023, Sydney (Australia) - Hybrid conference International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB14) * Call for Symposia and Papers is open Organised by Macquarie University 28-30 June 2023, Copenhagen, Denmark 10th International Conference of the Education and Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Association (EDiLiC) * Call for Symposia and Papers is open Organised by University of Copenhagen 17-21 July 2023, Lyon (France) AILA 2023 * Call for Symposia and Papers is open Organised by ENS de Lyon 12-13 October 2023, Valletta (Malta) 4th International Conference on Multilingualism and Multilingual Education (ICMME4) * Call for Papers is open Organised by University of Malta


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Report on minority languages in Switzerland

FUEN assembly approves a resolution critical of Spain

INTERESTING LINKS

EUROPE

UNPO critical of French minority language policy

'Authorities biased' against Irish-medium schools

German Sign Language is "not a minority language"

Revirada: online Occitan automatic translator

ECMI Conversations Videos

Jean-Marc Dewaele

Vacancy: Junior Researcher Cat-Human Interaction

Call for Hosts: Language Policy Forum 2023

INTERESTING LINKS

WORLD

Call for Papers: conference on plurilingual education

Call for Papers: Multilingual Education & Multilingualism

'Sociolinguistica: European Journal of Sociolinguistics'

'Just. Journal of Language Rights & Minorities'

INTERESTING EVENTS