Linguae Europaeae

by Eda Derhemi | Editor: Jessica Nicholas (PhD Candidate in French); photos: Kathryn Nicholas This is Part Two of a two-part series.  Click here to read Part One! Bio: Eda Derhemi (PhD in Communication, 2003) is a lecturer in the department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, and an adjunct assistant professor of Communications in the ICR. She completed her undergraduate studies in Linguistics and Literature at the University of Tirana, Albania, and her graduate studies in Illinois. She has extensive teaching and research experience in Italian Language, Linguistics and Media Studies. She worked as a correspondent journalist for Deutsche Welle, and is a regular writer of opinion pieces in the main Albanian media. Her interests are: linguistic endangerment and language death, minority languages and ethnicity in the EU, language of the media and propaganda, Balkan and Mediterranean studies, Arbëresh and Arvanitika. Breathless, I enter in the main area of Hydra’s p...

by Alexandra Gecas | Image source: worldatlas.com Our world is in a perplexing situation when it comes to linguistics: many more people are becoming fluent in several languages while multiple minority languages are facing an uncertain future. Alexandra Jaffe acknowledged various aspects of any minority language (truly any language) such as the difference between “native”, “partial”, and “learner” as well as the differences between a language learned traditionally and a language taught in school. Her focus was on Corsica and Corsican is influenced both by the French and Italian language. She noted that Corsican, a polynomic language, is no longer the first language acquired and has been replaced by French or English. It is not the mother tongue or the foreign language, but rather “a creative source of identity.” In an effort to preserve the language, Corsican is now offered at all levels of public schooling in Corsica and is seen as a “passport to other romance languages.” Im...

Escrito por Kevin P. Scannell | ¿Qué pasaría si todo ese tiempo que pasas frente a la pantalla de la computadora usando los medios sociales con tus amigos pudiera utilizarse para destacar algo del Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad? El Profesor Kevin P. Scannell del Departamento de Matemáticas e Informática de la Universidad de San Luis está proponiendo un proyecto cuyo objetivo es el de animar a grupos que hablen una lengua indígena a que la usen en los medios sociales. ¡Esta innovadora iniciativa implica la traducción de la interfase en Facebook! Con el permiso del autor, estamos reproduciendo aquí el acceso al blog del Profesor Scanell desde Alzando las Voces ( presiona aquí ) titulado: “Facebook en tu Lengua Indígena o en tu Lengua en Peligro de Extinción”. ¡Te einvitamos a que lo leas y te sumes al proyecto! Nota de Rising Voices: Este artículo es republicado en este espacio en colaboración con Indigenous Tweets. Lea el original aquí [en]. El proyecto Indigenous T...

by Zsuzsanna Fagyal-Le Mentec | "Commemorating is remembering the first step of a journey of a thousand miles…" (Unknown) Twenty years ago on November 5th 1992, an important step was taken towards protecting small languages in Europe. The Council of Europe’s landmark international convention, called the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages was opened for signature, calling on the Council’s member states to protect and promote the small languages that have been spoken in their territories for centuries. The European Union Center and participating centers and units on the Urbana campus organized a one-day symposium on November 5, 2012 to reflect on the progress in implementing and monitoring the Charter, and discuss the effects of lack of protection of languages in greater Europe.    1 .    Here is why we did it… Not speaking a language on a daily basis increases the risk of losing it forever. Words start coming slowly, stylistic nuance...

What if those long hours spent in front of the computer screen using social media with friends and family could be used to highlight some of the world’s cultural heritage? Professor Kevin P. Scannell from the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Saint Louis University is proposing a project aimed at encouraging indigenous language groups to use their languages in social media.  The newest initiative involves translating Facebook's interface! With the author’s permission, we are reproducing here Professor Scannell’s blog entry from Rising Voices titled: Facebook in your Endangered or Indigenous Language. Read on and join in! by Kevin P. Scannell The Indigenous Tweets project is still going strong, and the number of languages we're tracking on Twitter continues to grow - we added the 138th and 139th languages ( Inari and South Saami ) to the site a couple of weeks ago.  Last week, the team at Twitter was nice enough to feature Indigenous Tweets on their ...

by Alex Joyce | Editor: Jessica Nicholas (PhD candidate in French) Alex Joyce was a senior in Political Science in the spring of 2012 when she took the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (418) EUC survey class. In this blog entry, she argues passionately in favor of official bilingualism, as demonstrated by Wales, home to one of the best protected Celtic languages (Welsh) in the world. To begin, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPYkYfi_IiM You’ll hear that it was difficult to learn English for Adam who was learning in Welsh for so many years. And Adam still enjoys speaking Welsh! This video is great because it shows how one individual finds Welsh unique and important. Image Source The maintenance and promotion of Welsh in Wales (United Kingdom, see map) has proven to be successful despite the prevalence of English as a dominant language in the UK.  The purpose of this blog is to show all those who think that it is impossible to maintain one official state l...

by Alyssa Shroyer | Editor: Jessica Nicholas (PhD candidate in French) Alyssa Shroyer is a Senior in Early Childhood Education. In the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (418) EUC survey class, she focused on bilingual education in the Autonomous Territories of Spain that possess political power to enact their own measures on local languages and cultures. In this blog entry, she asks whether local pride should take precedence over global utility when opting for types of bilingual education. I recently read an article by Julie Kaminski regarding two schools in northern Barcelona , the Oriol Martorell School and Colonia Guell that have undergone change in the past decade, incorporating the teaching of Catalan as the primary language of their curriculum.  Spanish is minimally taught for all ages.  English is taught as a second foreign language in early elementary school, only 3 hours per week.  Italian is also a part of the curriculum as “it goes well with music.”...

by Jeremy Schmitz | Editor: Jessica Nicholas (PhD Candidate in French) Jeremy Schmitz is a Senior in Psychology and Spanish, and has an interest in languages and cultures of the Iberian peninsula. He studied abroad in Granada, Spain for four months in the spring of 2010. In this blog entry on Catalan that he wrote for the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (418) EUC survey class, he uses his skills in Spanish to write about the importance – and the courage it takes – to speak Catalan in public. Siempre es difícil ganar prestigio para un idioma minoritario, no importa si tiene autonomía o no. El catalán ha conseguido mucho éxito desde la restitución de la democracia en España y tiene un estado oficial en Cataluña y las Islas Baleares . Aunque la promoción del catalán ha sido un paso importante para la revitalización y mantenimiento del patrimonio cultural, también ha presentado problemas. Tener dos lenguas oficiales crea dificultades en la vivienda o en los viajes si uno solam...

by Alyssa Vorkapic | La bandera de la independencia de Cataluña. Barcelona es el capital de Cataluña, una región autónoma de España. Por muchos años, Cataluña quería ser independiente de España. Todavía, Cataluña está luchando por la independencia. Por eso, hay muchas actividades que promueven la independencia cultural. Una cosa es La Festa per la Llibertat , (en español significa La Fiesta para la Libertad). Cada año, esta fiesta se pasa el 11 de septiembre. También, hay La Mercè , una fiesta en los fines de septiembre que muestra la cultura catalana. Esta fiesta es diferente de La Fiesta per la Llibertat, pero los dos funcionan para promover la cultura catalana y la independencia de Cataluña. LA FESTA DE LA LLIBERTAT, L'ONZE DE SETEMBRE Un video que se muestra parte de la Festa de la Llibertat de 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCDc-gx7Wz8 La Festa per la Llibertat es organizada por Ómnium Cultural, una organización que fue fundada en 1961. Ómnium Cultural es...

by Zsuzsanna Fagyal-Le Mentec | “No-one will be lost for words”, promises the European Commission in its short announcement of the European Day of Languages on September 26, 2012. Among the many outreach events are: a multilingual 'speak-dating' session in Prague, a rap challenge in Åarhus, a European languages cocktail bar in Budapes t, foreign language poetry evening in Cardiff, a 'linguistic bath' at 30 libraries in Berlin, and a L anguage Footprint trail for children naming animals in different languages in the UK. To see how the various European nations celebrate their languages, check out this long list of EDL events ! Beyond the folklore, the European Day of Languages is an important cultural policy event, held every year since 2001 at the initiative of the Council of Europe . This year, it is destined to highlight brand new policy initiatives, such as “Erasmus for All”, the European Commission's new education, training and youth program that is schedu...

by Arturo Vergara | Editor: Jessica Nicholas (PhD Candidate in French) Bio: Arturo Vergara, a bilingual speaker of English and Spanish, is a Senior in Psychology. In this bilingual blog entry on Manx, written for the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (418) EUC survey class, he draws the reader into the universe of customs and sounds of a tiny regional minority language of the British Isles: Manx. La Isla de Man… Tal vez están pensando que ese lugar es simplemente irreal, un lugar de ficción, como una Isla Paradisíaca, el lugar de origen de la Mujer Maravilla y sus Amazonas. Bueno, eso no es, y la foto no es un “meme” de internet en alguna lengua irreal. Es tan real como la computadora que estás usando. Es malo que no podemos decir eso con certeza sobre el lenguaje que hablan en esta isla. La situación concerniente al idioma es una de esas historias que no tienes ni idea de qué se refiere hasta que ¡ZAS! La noticia te pega en la cara como cuando alguien te golpea con un...