Linguae Europaeae

“Una risata vi seppellirà”… o forse terrà viva una lingua! Sulla lingua locale di Parma by Fara Taddei Fara Faddei is a graduate student in French Studies at the University of Illinois. She is currently completing her studies of French literature and culture and planning on enlarging her research to world literature. She is interested in Europe and cinema all over the world. She wrote this blog post while enrolled in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.’ Piazza Garibaldi, centro di Parma. Foto di Carlo Ferrari. Come si crea una risata di gusto? Gli ideatori di io parlo parmigiano, serie di sketch comici nata su Facebook e cresciuta nelle piazze, condiscono le loro risate con un’abbondante dose di dialetto parmigiano, la lingua propria della città di Parma. Parma, nota in tutto il mondo per le tradizionali prodezze gastronomiche, quali formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano e prosciutto crudo di Parma, è una città di circa 200.000 abitanti, situata nella regione del Nord-Italia chia...

by Michelle Cozzini Michelle Cozzini is a graduate student in the Master Program in Accounting Science at the University of Illinois. Of Italian origin, Michelle is planning on working in Ernest and Young LLP Financial and Tax services in the near future. S/he wrote this text in the 418, ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ course in the spring of 2015. La regione di Trentino – Alto Adige è una delle regioni più a nord d’Italia e confina con l’Austria. Anche se la provincia rimane parte dell’Italia, i cittadini trentini non si sentono Italiani, e per la maggior parte nella città di Bolzano, e in altri paesi del Südtirol, non parlano neanche italiano. Questa parte d’Italia è interessante riguardo al rispetto che la lingua tiene sul nazionalismo. Per esempio, se vai in Trentino, i punti più a nord della provincia avranno tantissimi segni che allegano alla cultura tedesca. La mia ricerca su questo tema identifica la storia come spiegazione dell’importanza del tedesco nella cultura. P...

by Bethany Wages Bethany Wages is graduate student in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (R.E.E.S) at the University of Illinois. When she wrote this blog post in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ in the spring of 2015, she was planning on getting her M.A. in R.E.E.S and her MS in Library and Information Science. She is interested in Slavic reference librarianship and pre-Revolutionary Russian history. The Cyrillic alphabet is most commonly associated with the Slavic languages of Russia and Eastern Europe. According to the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages, Omniglot.com: The Cyrillic script is named after Saint Cyril, a missionary from Byzantium who, along with his brother, Saint Methodius, created the Glagolitic script. Modern Cyrillic alphabets developed from the Early Cyrillic script, which was developed during the 9th century in the First Bulgarian Empire (AD 681-1018) by a decree of Boris I of Bulgaria (Борис I). It is thought that St. Klim...

by Katherine Stegman-Frey Katherine Stegman-Frey is a graduate student in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Illinois. She is planning on teaching English and Spanish as a second language and is interested in language and culture and how humans use them. She wrote this blog entry as a student in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.' En 2015, du 14 au 22 mars, on a fêté la 20e semaine de la langue française et de la Francophonie.  Comme contribution, le CSA (le Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel) a affiché un clip sur Youtube où il s’agit du code-switching et de l’emprunt lexical de l’anglais au français. Il va sans dire que le sujet de l’utilisation des mots anglais, des anglicismes, dans les interactions françaises est vraiment vivant et toujours disputé.  En même temps, l’emprunt des mots n’est pas un nouveau phénomène pour les deux côtés de la Manche.  Il existe depuis longtemps et il y a beaucoup d’exemples dans l’histoire.  On trouve quelques n...

by María Elena Guitiérrez María Elena Guitiérrez is a graduate student in Spanish Linguistics at the University of Illinois. She is completing her Masters degree and is interested in bilingualism and second-language acquisition research. She wrote this blog entry as a student in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.' The name of a language is never neutral. There are many social and political implications involved when naming a language, according to Smitherman who examines language and ideology surrounding African American English in her 1991 paper. A language name represents important social information about the group of people who speak that language, especially where minority languages are concerned. Sometimes in language naming practices, language activists create a single name for several different language varieties that historically and politically have several different names. For instance, in the case of “Serbo-Croatian,” it can either be said that it consists ...

by Delvan Willis Delvan Willis is a junior in Political Science at the University of Illinois. He is planning on attending law school after graduation and is interested in International Relations, especially in regards to the Middle East. He wrote this piece while enrolled in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.’ Image Source In case you couldn’t grasp the meaning of the title, this blog is about the struggles and triumphant revitalization of the Welsh language. First a little background on the Welsh language is important! It is the official language (along with English) of Wales, but that is a big problem since only a little more than half a million of the population of about 3 million of Wales can speak the language! To have an official language that such a small percentage of the population is able to speak fluently seems problematic. Consider, however, that this small percentage of speakers is actually an improvement on past times. According to the 1911 census, at the be...

by Barbara L.W. Myers Barbara Myers is a graduate student in European Union Studies at the University of Illinois. She is planning on continuing her studies of Dutch, Swedish, literary translation, and the EU. She is interested in the work of immigrant writers in Benelux and Scandinavia. She wrote this text as a student in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.’ Image Source It would have been easy to conduct the conversation in English—the customer service representative at the ticket desk for the Rijksmuseum was certainly accustomed to dealing with tourists in the lingua franca (ELF). I had heard him speak it clearly with the couple in front of me in line and I had heard it all around Amsterdam in restaurants, on trams, and along the pathways at the Keukenhof. But by beginning the conversation in Dutch, I set the tone for a Nederlands exchange. The guidebooks I read before my first trip to Amsterdam four years ago (Frommer’s) and my return trip this March (Rick Steves and ...

by Eastman Klepper Eastman Klepper is a graduate student in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Eastman will start working for the government after graduation and is interested in the Russian language and culture and the current use and future development of the conventional ground forces of the Russian Federation. He wrote this text as a student enrolled in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.’ Figure 1 Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltics ( Image Source ) The Russian annexation of Crimea and the Russian-supported separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine have has become a major focus for the Baltic countries of Latvia and Estonia.  Due to their NATO membership, and active support “of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other countries that have resisted Russia’s pressures” (Bugajski),  these two countries have become a prime focus of Russian activities to gain the support of the Russian-speaking minorities...

by Andrew Schwenk Andrew Schwenk is a first year graduate student in European Union Studies at the University of Illinois at Urana-Champaign. Andrew is planning on graduating in December 2016 and is interested in heritage management in Europe. He wrote this text in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.’ Image Source In Thomas Mann’s perpetually popular debut novel from 1901, Buddenbrooks, the German author helps make the Buddenbrook family’s unnamed hometown more real through the language he uses. The novel’s characters use a mixture of Standard German, Low German, Lübeck merchant slang, and French. All of this helps situate the family in their mid-19th century, northern German (Low German), upper-class (French) context (Wolf). If Thomas Mann was born a century later, however, would he still use Low German to give his characters their north German credentials? And what even is Low German anyway? Low German, known in German as Plattdeutsch, is a German dialect located in the...

by Bernard Brennan Bernard Brennan is a graduate student in Political Science at the University of Illinois. Bernard is planning on researching the politics of separatism in Europe and is interested in regional integration and challenges to sovereignty. He wrote this text in PS 418, ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.’ Image Source El próximo año, voy a tener la gran oportunidad de estudiar la lengua y cultura catalana, gracias a una beca universitaria que se llama “Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship.” Esta beca será administrada por el Centro de la Unión Europea aquí en la Universidad de Illinois. La primera cosa que he aprendido es que las personas van a decir ciertas cosas y van a formular muchas preguntas sobre este tema. Por esta razón, les presento mi entrada de blog. ¿Por qué? Why? Soy estudiante de posgrado en el departamento de ciencias políticas aquí en la Universidad de Illinois. Por eso, la razón por la que quiero aprender esta nueva lengua está basa...

Little girl at Shreeshitalacom Lower Secondary School in Kaski, Nepal leads class in pronunciation of alphabet. Image Source Saturday, February 21, 2015 is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s International Mother Language Day Celebration. A special event will be held this year in Paris, France, including opening ceremony speeches and debates and the theme for this year's celebration is "Inclusion In and Through Education: Language Counts." From the  event's webpage : As the EFA Goals are far from attained due, in part, to the difficulties of reaching the worst-off segments of the population, the debate around language and education becomes more central. Linguistic minorities are often among the most marginalized populations, with little or poor access to quality education. When they do have access to education, learners from these communities are often either excluded from opportunities to pursue their educatio...