A summary of the news for September.
On 7 and 8 September, the Centro Internazionale sul Plurilinguismo of Udine University, Italy, organised a symposium "Language Teachers: Training For a New Paradigm". This was the first of a series of symposia that are organised as part of the EUNoM project. EUNoM is a network funded with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union.
The main point made during the different presentations was that the changes in society (globalisation, internationalisation) call for a change in language teacher education, too. It is important that students acquire language awareness and the ability to deal with different languages, without necessarily speaking those languages at native-speaker level. As Professor Mike Kelly of the University of Southampton put it: “We need to move away from ‘learning a language’ to ‘learning to language’.”
As announced in previous newsletters, Mercator Research Centre has developed a bilingual language development project for Antillean toddlers. The working title of this project is “More languages, more opportunities”, and is executed by Antillean paraprofessionals (language coaches) during home visits and group gatherings. Nienke Boomstra, PhD student and responsible for the research concerning the effects of the project, asked Afûk to develop the bilingual materials. Afûk is a Frisian organisation. Their main goal is to enhance the knowledge and use of Frisian language. Fifteen years ago they, so to speak, gave birth to Tomke, main character in books for toddlers. Since the stories and adventures Tomke experiences are not limited to the Frisian community, and in fact are universal, the idea was to engage Tomke in “More languages, more opportunities”.
Since April 2010, the website adapted to “More languages, more opportunities” is online: www.bondiatomke.nl. This website is bilingual, just as the reading materials. When entering the interactive part of the website, one can choose to play the games and listen to stories in Papiamentu or Dutch. From July 2009 onwards, six bilingual books have been developed:
Tòmke i Ròmke: Hep, hep…hap (health)
Tòmke i Ròmke: Fiesta den desèmber (December holidays)
Prèt den wenter i lènte (having fun in winter and spring)
Tòmke i Ròmke den tràfiko (trafic)
Bin den mi kasita (the home)
Paña nobo (clothes)
Parents and children are very enthusiastic about the materials. They feel they are appealing and good to work with. Language coaches often report the children to come running to the door with the books in their hands when the coaches arrive for the home visit.
Six more books will be developed in the next twelve months. Whether the intervention project will positively influence the bilingual language development and enhance the interaction between mother and child will be the focus of the research. First outcomes are expected in the second half of 2011.
Bringing up young children in a bi- or multilingual way in theory and practice, that is what the MELT project is about. MELT stands for Multilingual Early Language Transmission. Four European language communities cooperate in this project: Fryslân (Frisian in The Netherlands), Swedish speaking municipalities of Finland (Swedish in Finland), Wales (Welsh in Great Brittain) and Brittany (Breton in France).
The MELT project is based on an initiative of the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity (NLPD) and is funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission for the period 2009 – 2011. Preparatory seminars were held in Wales, Occitania and in the Basque Country. The project officially started with a seminar in Fryslân (The Netherlands) in April of this year. There will be one more in Helsinki (2010) and a final conference in Brussels (2011).
Projectleader
The four regions all have their own role within the project, fulfilled by local organisations. Fryslân is represented by the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning (hosted by the Frisian Academy). Mercator is responsible for scientific research and is also overall projectleader of the MELT project. The Centre for Frisian Childcare (Sintrum Frysktalige Berne-opfang, SFBO) is the executor of the practical part in Fryslân. This centre has a partnership with Mercator.
Chief Executive of the SFBO, Sytske de Boer, said: "It gives me great pleasure to be part of this exciting project. The future of the language depends on the new generation’s ability to speak and to use it in their everyday lives. Children can learn languages quickly, and by introducing the language to them from an early age we will lay down a strong foundation for them to further develop their skills in the long term.” SFBO has played a key role in introducing Frisian to young children in Fryslân for over twenty years now. De Boer said: “Collaborating on the MELT project gives us an opportunity to share the ideas and expertise of our organisation in an international context. I’m sure we will learn a few lessons and best practices from the other countries as well."
Toolkit
As a representative of the Swedish-speaking municipalities in Finland, Folkhälsan has the responsibility of the development of a toolkit in eight languages. This toolkit builds on existing initiatives and best practices in the regions, such as the book “Language Strategy for Day Care Centres” written by Lillemor Gammelgård, which focuses on the Swedish language immersion program in Finland. The toolkit is a key component of the MELT project. It has to make parents and teachers aware of the benefits of a multilingual upbringing. The tookit will offer them guidelines to support that process. The toolkit will be developed during the project and completed with examples of good practice in the participating regions. These are provided by the preschool teachers and training courses for the preschool stage.
An important product besides the toolkit is the awareness raising brochure aimed at young parents dealing with questions about bringing up their children in two or more languages. This brochure will take into account the different language situations in Europe.
Dissemination
Wales is represented by the Welsh Language Board (WLB), supported by the nursery schools movement Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin (MYM). Within the MELT project MYM handles the dissemination of information and products.
The products of the MELT-project are not only meant for the 4 mentioned partners, but also for the 11 language communities of the NPLD and later on for all multilingual regions in Europe.
Brussels Congress 2011
Bretagne / Brittany is represented by the Regional Council of Brittany (Conseil régional de Bretagne), supported by Divskouarn, which is responsible for the strengthening of Breton and multilingualism in Brittany in the preschool stage (école maternelle). As part of the MELT project, they will organise the final congress in Brussels in October 2011. On this conference results and recommendations of the project will be presented to the participating regions and the European Commission.
Dr. Alex Riemersma, researcher at the Mercator Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, has been appointed as lector Frisian and Multilingualism in Education and Upbringing. This lectorate is a coöperation between the Fryske Akademy, NHL University and Stenden University. The lectorate is subsidized by the province of Fryslân.
With this lectorate Riemersma wants to set up an innovation project for the interconnection between trilingual primary school education and multilingual secondary school education. Besides that he wants to establish a master on Multilingualism. Due to the coöperation between the two universities Stenden and NHL and the research institute Fryske Akademy, there is an obvious relationship between the teacher training (primary and secondary school) and educational research. The research focuses on developing the language skills of students. These are the languages Dutch, Frisian and English. In addition, research on the educational aspects of the use of English and Frisian as a language in other subjects in secondary education will be carried out.
European expansion
The international connections of the research group will be expanded using the existing knowledge and contacts through various projects of the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning from the Fryske Akademy. The research group aims to expand existing networks with a European network of teacher involved in multilingual education.
Lector Riemersma
The appointment of Alex Riemersma is for a period of four years. In addition, the lecturer remains associated with the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning from the Fryske Akademy, where he is a researcher since 2007. Alex Riemersma (1953) has since 1984 worked for the NHL as a teaching methodologist Frisian. In 1994 he graduated together with Sikko de Jong on research into the control of Frisian and Dutch at the end of elementary school. Supervisor was Professor Guus Extra, University of Tilburg.
In the fall of 2010 a new project will start with the title: Vanishing Voices from the Uralic World: Sound recordings for archives in Russia (in particular Udmurtia), Estonia, Finland and Hungary. Dr. Tjeerd de Graaf, research fellow at the Mercator Research Centre, has received a grant of about 53.000 Euro from the Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library for the continuation of his work which is devoted to the safeguarding of language material on historical sound recordings in the Russian Federation.
The Uralic language family consists of about 40 languages, which are spoken by approximately 25 million people. Most of these languages can be found in the Russian Federation, some of them in special regions (like Udmurt in the Udmurt Republic and Mari in the Republic Mari-El), whereas many of them are severely endangered or nearly extinct. Therefore the available sound material of these languages is very important for their safeguarding and possible revitalization. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Scholars in the related countries (Estonia, Finland and Hungary) have great interest in collections of recordings for languages and cultures such as Udmurt, Mari and other ones.
The project will improve the recording facilities in the sound archive of the Udmurt Institute for History, Language and Literature by providing the necessary equipment for digitisation and storage of digital samples. Historical data which are stored on cassette and open reel tapes will be collected and a selection from the about 600 hours of available recordings will be made. Most of the material will be related to the endangered Uralic languages like Udmurt, Mari and their cultures. These data will be stored on external hard discs and sent to the British Library and other institutions such as the sound archives in Helsinki, Tartu and Budapest. Specimens on CD are on request provided to scholars who do research in a particular field of the Uralic languages and cultures.
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has decided to subsidize the proposal Language Portal Dutch / Frisian. The subsidy amounts to 1,7 million euro's, payable from the special NWO budget for big, prestigious proposals in which all sciences compete. This is the first time that the subsidy has been granted to a linguistic project, and it is only the second time that it has been granted to a project from the humanities.
The subsidy has been applied for by a consortium in which the Frisian Academy is a major partner, together with the Meertens Institute and the Institute for Dutch Lexicology at Leiden (INL). In addition, the project is backed up by boards of advisors from all leading universities in the relevant fields of research. The joint venture has been planned to take up five years. The chief aim of the project is to provide a complete parallel description of Dutch and Frisian grammar, that is, phonology, morphology and syntax. The grammar will be written in English.
On-line grammar as part of a virtual institute
Linguists will collaborate to produce this grammatical description in a Wikipedia-like environment. The parallel description facilitates an optimal comparison of the grammars of Dutch and Frisian, in which all similarities and differences will become visible. At the same time, this format is very efficient, since phenomena in which the two languages pattern alike, need only be described and analysed once: at most the example sentences will have to be translated from Frisian to Dutch or vice versa. In addition, the technical realisation will also allow the user the freedom to just focus on one language. Thus, complete grammatical descriptions of Dutch and Frisian will be produced. The grammar will be part of a virtual institute for the Dutch and Frisian languages from which all quality resources can be accessed. On the basis of the scientific grammatical description, more accessible and normative grammars will be produced which are geared to the needs of the general audience consisting for example of teachers and language-learners.
European perspective
In the case of Frisian, a lot of preparatory work has already been done, although the Frisian equivalent of the German 'Duden' or the English 'Quirk' does not yet exist. The same applies to many other minority languages, for which a comprehensive grammatical description is missing. It is our hope that the success of the Frisian/Dutch venture will spark off similar initiatives elsewhere in Europe. Those interested in obtaining more information can contact dr. Eric Hoekstra (ehoekstra(a)fryske-akademy.nl).
The selection jury of Liet International 2010 has selected the last five finalists of the 7th edition of European minority language song contest Liet International 2010, which will be held in Lorient, France on the 27th of November. The independent jury, which was composed of independant music experts from Brittany, Friesland and the Council of Europe, had a tough job. They listened to 46 songs in 21 different minority languages from all over Europe, from Galicia to Russia, from the Faroe Islands to Cyprus. Also the variety in styles was huge, ranging from folk to rock, rap, pop, tango and even folkopera.
Out of those 46 songs the jury has selected the following five artists for Liet International 2010 in Lorient, Breizh/Brittany, France:
1. Rachel Walker, Fada Bhuam, Scottish Gaelic
2. Eivør Pálsdóttir, VOKA, Faroese
3. The Temporary, Cupan Toast, Irish
4. Mafia Galega, Billarda Sempre, Galician
5. Jousnen Jarved, Verrez Tullei, Vepsian song from Russia
It will be the first time that Liet International will present songs in Faroese and Vepsian. Faroese is a minority language in Denmark, spoken by 48.000 people on the Faroe islands. The Liet Foundation is impressed by the quality of the music production in this small nation. The song of Eisvor Palsdottir was one of the nine songs Liet International received. All songs were of good quality and produced professionally. Vepsian is endangered Finn-Ugrian language spoken by only 4.000 people in Russian Karelia.
Five other bands/artists already qualified for Liet International earlier this year by winning a song contest in their part of Europe.
These five artists/bands are:
6. Xera, the winner of the Premiu al meyor cantar, Asturias
7. Pia Maria Holmgren, winner of the Sámi Grand Prix, Sámi from Sweden
8. Equal Souls, winner of Liet 2010, Fryslân
9. Stéphane Casalta, winner of Suns, Corsica
10. Resistence in Dub, winner of the public vote of Suns, Friûl, Italy
During the coming weeks the Festival Interceltique de Lorient (FIL) will select a Breton song and artist for Liet International 2010. As the host of the European minority language song contest it is their privilige to do this. This means that, apart from the Breton finalist, the line-up of Liet International 2010 is ready.
The seventh edition of Liet International is the first which will take place in France. Liet International was invited to Lorient, Brittany by de Region Breizh/Bretagne and the Festival Interceltique de Lorient (FIL). Since 2008 Liet International is organised under the patronage of the Council of Europe. Liet International is also supported by the the autonomous region of Asturias in Spain and by the province Friesland in the Netherlands.
Liet International was conceived and developed in Friesland, the Netherlands, by the Liet Foundation in 2002. Since then Liet International has become one of the larger events for the promotion of minority languages to a larger audience, attracting lots of media from all over Europe. The last edition of Liet International took place in Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, the Netherlands in 2009 and was won by Sámi rockband SomBy from the north of Finland.
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