Minority language activism

We trace the formation of the Kadehine, a Mauritanian cultural and political movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, with a focus on aspects of the "political underground" central to the movement's strategies and organizing principles. As an anthropological history of the Kadehine, we focus on the organizing perspective afforded by its sources (largely interviews and movement literature). These sources emphasize the importance of clandestinity, as well as the influence of New Left ideas. We then develop a concept, "political underground," describing the importance of clandestinity and its relationship to the radical politics of its time.

Due to globalization, cultural assimilation, the long-term impacts of colonization, and official (or de facto) policies hostile to linguistic diversity, many languages of the world are threatened or endangered. Free online technological tools can assist in documentation efforts and revitalization programs, while also providing safe online spaces in which materials can be systematically recorded and shared. Led by community activists and linguists, Living Dictionaries are collaborative multimedia projects that are editable, expandable, and searchable. Using the latest web technologies to facilitate the creation and storage of language data paired with digital images, audio and video recordings of native speakers, the platform is user-friendly and available in fourteen languages.

Online dictionaries have become a key tool for some indigenous communities to promote and preserve their languages, often in collaboration with linguists. They can provide a pathway for crossing the digital divide and for establishing a first-ever presence on the internet. Many questions around digital lexicography have been explored, although primarily in relation to large and well-resourced languages. Lexical projects on small and under-resourced languages can provide an opportunity to examine these questions from a different perspective and to raise new questions (Mosel, 2011). In this paper, linguists, technical experts, and Zapotec language activists, who have worked together in Mexico and the United States to create a multimedia platform to showcase and preserve lexical, cultural, and environmental knowledge, share their experience and insight in creating trilingual online Talking Dictionaries in several Zapotec languages. These dictionaries sit opposite from big data mining a...

Due to the growing need for effective communication strategies to promote environmental responsibility and address environmental challenges, this study examines Ecolinguistics' roles in addressing environmental challenges and raising EFL learners' awareness of their critical role in building a more equitable world. It aims to raise environmental responsibility among EFL learners and allow them to take action. The study used an online questionnaire of three dimensions, rated on five Likert scales, and a free, open-ended question to collect data from (n= 100) EFL graduates and undergraduates to explore the relationship among perceptions, knowledge, and active reflections on environmental issues. The quantitative data analysis revealed a strong link between language and environmental attitudes. The participants believed in the impact of language on positive changes in people's way of thinking about the environment. The participants' reflections on the open-ended question provided various solutions, from linguistic and nonlinguistic awareness-raising to youth engagement, policy changes, individual action, creative communication, and environmental management strategies. The study concluded that Ecolinguistics significantly stimulates environmental consciousness and advocates for a comprehensive approach involving education, policy, and individual action.

In this chapter, I explore issues of language diversity loss from an ecological perspective of interconnectedness between speakers and the environment. To this end, I focus on ethnic minorities living in the socalled margins of Europe who, similarly to indigenous peoples worldwide, have been and continue to be disproportionately exposed to conditions of environmental destruction and thus to forms of environmental injustice. I argue that human intervention in the environment of ethnic minorities for the purpose of economic development, e.g. mining activities, not only disrupts local ecosystems and ways of life through degradation and pollution but also exerts negative effects on the cultural diversity of the affected areas, including their vulnerable minority languages, making it harder for minorities to survive as distinct socio-cultural entities. To illustrate the harmful repercussions of mining on the natural and linguistic environment, I present the challenges faced by a number of minority communities and their endangered languages in Europe, including the Sorbs in Lusatia (eastern Germany), the Vlachs in the Timok Valley (eastern Serbia) and the Sámi in northern Sweden. I emphasise that the voice of ethnolinguistic minority groups seems to be largely excluded from the debate on environmental change, as the modernisation and nationalisation imperatives of modern states have prevailed over the need to protect linguistic, cultural and biological diversity. In conclusion, I raise the question of how the struggles

Nynorsk, one of two official and state- sanctioned written forms of Norwegian, has been a hotbed of socio- political debate in Norway since the engagement of National Romanticist rhetoric in discourses of Norwegian national identity from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until today. Used by roughly 15% of the Norwegian population today (see Grepstad 2015), Nynorsk is in effect also a minoritized language variety, and consequently the site of minority language activism which historically has promoted and defended socio- political ideals associated with the promotion of tolerance and widespread use of spoken dialects. In this chapter, I touch on recent observations of this movement which reflect a historical trajectory of Nynorsk language activism and its relationship with other social campaigns in Norwegian society over time.

is paper focuses on language policy and social changes which have taken place in Croatia during and since the 1991-5 war. I rst describe the historical background, the war and the nineties being marked by excesses of linguistic purism and prescriptivism, alongside the formation of post-Yugoslav states in which national belonging was key to de ning citizenship. rough examining the relationship between changing linguistic and social orders, I raise a number of issues for discussion. I argue that the legal framework of minority language rights has consolidated and legitimated a nationalist imaginary, increasing social divisions and reinforcing hierarchies asserted by some nationalists between national categories. For this reason, I suggest that the uncritical endorsement of or promotion of linguistic diversity can be dangerous. Second, in an activist-anthropological vein, I discuss possible reasons why academics trained in the social sciences and humanities have rarely participated in sociolinguistic debates concerning the new Croatian standard. I suggest such discussions could greatly bene t from interventions by social scientists, so as to bring sociolinguistics into contact with other strands of the social sciences and humanities and move away from what I believe to be a problematic policy focus on "identity".

is paper focuses on language policy and social changes which have taken place in Croatia during and since the 1991-5 war. I rst describe the historical background, the war and the nineties being marked by excesses of linguistic purism and prescriptivism, alongside the formation of post-Yugoslav states in which national belonging was key to de ning citizenship. rough examining the relationship between changing linguistic and social orders, I raise a number of issues for discussion. I argue that the legal framework of minority language rights has consolidated and legitimated a nationalist imaginary, increasing social divisions and reinforcing hierarchies asserted by some nationalists between national categories. For this reason, I suggest that the uncritical endorsement of or promotion of linguistic diversity can be dangerous. Second, in an activist-anthropological vein, I discuss possible reasons why academics trained in the social sciences and humanities have rarely participated in sociolinguistic debates concerning the new Croatian standard. I suggest such discussions could greatly bene t from interventions by social scientists, so as to bring sociolinguistics into contact with other strands of the social sciences and humanities and move away from what I believe to be a problematic policy focus on "identity".

The paper introduces the idea of developing an Open Dictionary of Contemporary Serbian Languageusing the crowdsourcing method with a clear vision of the necessity of modernizing the work in the field of Serbian lexicography. The crowdsourcing procedure is expected to obtain the latest, present-day vocabulary,i.e. new words which have not yet been presented and described in existing dictionaries of the Serbian language.The crowdsourcing task requires participants to suggest new words, along with the description oftheirmeaning and examples which they find most appropriate.There are two primarygoals: (1) solving the problem of timely and comprehensively recording and presenting new vocabulary in real time and (2) creating a user-oriented dictionary of new words and expressions.The main idea is to create a dictionarywhich wouldoffer simple explanations of the semantic, grammatical and pragmatic features of new words and expressions in the Serbian language.The practical, lexicographic objective is to show the need for the development of such a dictionary which would fill the gap that exists in Serbian descriptive lexicography and neography.

Social media has long been recognized as an important domain for the maintenance of endangered and minoritized languages, as well as a platform for language activism. Based on a decade of participant observation in the Louisiana Creole Virtual Classroom, a revitalization community based on Facebook, this paper describes how speakers and learners of minoritized and endangered languages can form online communities for activism, resource development, learning, and teaching. Louisiana Creole is critically endangered and has received little to no institutional support. Meanwhile, the Virtual Classroom has succeeded in creating a large number of new speakers through peer-mediated learning and the creation of learning resources. The orthography developed in the Virtual Classroom has now achieved widespread acceptance, as has the glossonym Kouri-Vini. Both are leveraged for the purposes of language making. The Virtual Classroom has given rise to an enduring revitalization movement with implications extending far beyond social media. Indeed, as this paper argues, scholars and practitioners should be cautious not to view online revitalization through a dichotomous lens which induces an artificial separation between the online and the offline. Online language revitalization, like its offline counterpart, is underpinned by language-ideological concerns which are evident in many of the shared practices of the Virtual Classroom.

Persian, the lingua franca of Iran, is spoken as a mother tongue by all monolingual or polyglot Iranian citizens who belong to a rich variety of pedigree-Iranian ethnic populations, including Gilak, Mazandarani, Baloch, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Assyrian, Armenian, Lur, Talysh, Tat, and so on. There are random political dissidents who desperately desire to sell their myth that Persian has long been a ‘colonizing’ force, but the vast majority of Iranians earnestly argue that Persian has never been a ‘colonizing’ language; it has always been a lingua franca or a language of communication freely and consciously chosen by the inhabitants of the Iranian plateau who cherished it throughout history. This paper (a) draws on the existing literature on ‘language colonization’ and ‘language weaponization’ to afford a clear understanding of these topics and (b) aims at demystifying the status quo of Persian. It concludes that Persian has never been a colonizing force and argues that the ‘teaching of local languages’ is quite acceptable, but ‘teaching in local languages’ is the call by radical separatist groups who aim at the disintegration of a historically-unified nation.

The article provides an insight into the project “A New Botanical Dictionary: Terms in Latvian, Latin, English, Russian, and German” implemented in the second half of 2017 and in 2018 within the Ventspils University of Applied Sciences (VUAS) internal call for proposals “Development of Scientific Activity at the VUAS”. The VUAS Faculty of Translation Studies in collaboration with the Faculty of Information Technologies in their scientific and research work along with other Latvian universities aim to occupy a niche in the branch of applied linguistics, therefore the research is related to this discipline and offers solutions in practical lexicography. The study describes a new botanical dictionary (NBD) – a mobile application prototype – with Latvian as a basic language. An insight into the macrostructure of the dictionary and the structure of entries is given. The research deals with questions concerning IT solutions in general (simple) and semantic search in particular. It also in...

Online dictionaries have become a key tool for some indigenous communities to promote and preserve their languages, often in collaboration with linguists. They can provide a pathway for crossing the digital divide and for establishing a first-ever presence on the internet. Many questions around digital lexicography have been explored, although primarily in relation to large and well-resourced languages. Lexical projects on small and under-resourced languages can provide an opportunity to examine these questions from a different perspective and to raise new questions (Mosel, 2011). In this paper, linguists, technical experts, and Zapotec language activists, who have worked together in Mexico and the United States to create a multimedia platform to showcase and preserve lexical, cultural, and environmental knowledge, share their experience and insight in creating trilingual online Talking Dictionaries in several Zapotec languages. These dictionaries sit opposite from big data mining a...

Since the 1970s, music has been a powerful means of self-representation for the Sámi, the only recognized Indigenous peoples of Europe. Sámi
artists have engaged and experimented with a wide array of musical genres, among them Rap. Since the mid-2000, SlinCraze (Nils Rune Utsi) has been one of the most popular and influential Sámi rappers. This contribution examines the lyrics of Suhtađit, one of SlinCraze’s
most famous songs, in light of the past and current challenges Sami people face on the Norwegian side of Sápmi. In doing so, this paper examines the importance of producing music in an endangered language and addresses the multifaceted ramifications of this practice. The analysis of Suhtađit sheds light upon Indigenous responses to power
asymmetries and systemic violence permeating contemporary Norwegian society. This paper shows that, through his music, SlinCraze is engaging in a process of linguistic valorization aimed at instilling positive linguistic attitudes in the younger Sámi population. Rap music does indeed offer young Sámi an empowering tool of self-representation and the possibility
of developing a sense of belonging to the Sámi cultures understood as contemporary and dynamic.

Being immersed in a covert conflict within a censored society, the Linguistic Landscape provides valuable insights into the dynamics of multilingual communication during war. Following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, political involvement among ethnic minority groups in Russia has experienced a surge. The use of minority languages signifies a hidden but significant form of protest, empowering ethnic minorities to assert their agency and political claims. Through an examination of anti-and pro-war signs in minority languages and interviews with language activists, this study explores how these languages are employed within the LL, revealing the motivations and attitudes of their authors. Minority languages in antiwar signs serve as secret codes while also personalizing protests and appealing to group solidarity. However, pro-war signs also evoke solidarity and ethnic values. Analysis of the anti-and pro-war signs illustrates their connection to other texts in minority languages, referencing discourses and ethnic symbols within the community of speakers of a minority language.

Bolivia es un país plurilingüe y multicultural, donde existen relaciones asimétricas de poder que abarcan la diversidad cultural y lingüística del territorio nacional. Las lenguas oficiales y las lenguas extranjeras imponen sus estructuras a la realidad como único orden de conocimiento, ejercen la violencia ideológica y simbológica. En este sentido, "Algunos piensan que ser analfabetos es solamente no poder leer ni escribir letras" (Rivera, 1989, p. 15). La Resumen El presente trabajo corresponde a una "Propuesta de Alfabetización para Lenguas Originarías (Aymara)", dirigido a las todas las nacionalidades y/o pueblos indígenas originarios y campesinos, puesto que existe un vacío de propuesta seria en el ámbito de la alfabetización en lenguas originarias desde la época colonial republicana hasta la actualidad. El objetivo de esta propuesta es llenar ese vacío con una metodología de educación popular en la alfabetización aymara. Así también, fortalecer la identidad sociocultural, revitalizar las lenguas indígenas y los procesos de normalización, normativización y estandarización, tanto en la lectura como en la escritura. De esta manera, para el presente estudio de tipo descriptivo-cualitativo, se realizó una revisión bibliográfica donde se empleó la técnica de la observación participante. Se realizó un análisis objetivo y crítico sobre los contenidos de alfabetización en la revisión literaria primaria y secundaria de manera diacrónica. Por otra parte, se muestra consideraciones para la alfabetización, como el derecho a la educación establecidas en las normativas, las experiencias de procesos educativos institucionales que se caracterizan porla incidencia en la erradicación del analfabetismo durante el periodo de la república, el marco curricular que soporta la esencia de elementos e instrumentos culturales y la línea discursiva de reivindicación de la nación aymara, donde se toma en cuenta los tres niveles del currículo del Sistema Educativo Plurinacional. Se realizó una propuesta metodológica de alfabetización en la lengua originaria aymara, desde la familiarización de la cartilla, aprestamiento, la etapa formativa, hasta la consolidación de los procesos de alfabetización, con un contenido de treinta temas planteados de manera didáctica y secuencial, con el fin de llegar a una población meta de jóvenes, adultos y adultos mayores.

A minor dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of MA in Theatre and Performance Studies Faculty of the Humanities University of Cape Town 2018 COMPULSORY DECLARATION This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.

We discuss the development of a publicly-accessible online knowledgebase relating to existing print and online dictionaries of Indigenous languages across North America. This knowledgebase is part of the larger Relational Lexicography project which fills an existing resource gap through the development of resources for people undertaking community dictionary projects

Contemporary political action for ethnic and national minorities in Europe appears to be increasingly directed towards supra-and transnational structures. This development seems indicative of the growth of a European space for minority activism–a public space that is less state-centered, that allows claims to be framed in terms of European standards and therefore facilitates the emergence of an active European citizenship. In theory, this “Europeanization” of minority politics may offer minority activists additional avenues for ...

Реценз енты: доктор филологических наук, профессор факультета антропологии Европейского университета в Санкт-Петербурге Н.Б. Вахтин; кандидат социологических наук, доцент кафедры сравнительных политических исследований Северо-Западного института управления РАНХиГС Г.Н. Юсупова Баранова, В. В. Языковая политика без политиков: языковой активизм и миноритарные языки в России [Текст] / В. В. Баранова ; Нац. исслед. ун-т «Высшая школа экономики».-М. : Изд. дом Высшей школы экономики, 2023.-238, [2] с.-(Монографии ВШЭ: Гуманитарные науки).-500 экз.-ISBN 978-5-7598-2580-7 (в пер.).-ISBN 978-5-7598-2805-1 (e-book). Сохранение и развитие миноритарных языков в современном мире нередко связано с усилиями языковых активистов. Что можно сделать для поддержки языков в регионах России, кто занимается этим на низовом уровне, какие направления оказываются важными для сообществ? В этой книге рассказывается о языковых проектах в области преподавания языков, в творчестве (от комиксов до рэпа), о создании текстов и использовании миноритарных языков в Интернете и о том, как опыт языкового активизма и низовых инициатив может быть включен в языковое планирование на официальном уровне. Монография, написанная на материале полевых наблюдений и на основе интервью с языковыми активистами, адресована как лингвистам и антропологам, так и всем, кому интересны родные языки. УДК 81ˋ272 ББК 81.21(2Рос) Опубликовано Издательским домом Высшей школы экономики http://id.hse.ru

ISSUE 3 / POETRY BY FELIPE H. LOPEZ / TRANSLATION BY FELIPE H. LOPEZ AND BROOK DANIELLE LILLEHAUGEN RLA DIZH "Rla dizh" is written in Dizhsa, also known as San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, a Valley Zapotec language spoken in what is now Oaxaca, and by communities in diaspora. The Spanish translation is by Felipe H. Lopez and the English translation is done in collaboration with Brook Danielle Lillehaugen.

Caseidyneën Saën is an open educational resource on Colonial Zapotec created by activists, educators, academics, and students. In this multilingual presentation, we interrogate the relationships within this diverse team and show how collaborative, community-embedded work can serve both pedagogical roles and activist agendas within higher education and transnational Native communities

While top-down policies and declarations have yet to establish equal status and opportunities for speakers of all languages in practice, activists and advocates at local levels are playing an increasingly significant role in the creation of new social imaginaries and practices in multilingual contexts. This volume describes how social actors across multiple domains contribute to the elusive goal of linguistic equality or justice through their language activism practices. Through an ethnographic account of Indigenous Isthmus Zapotec language activism in Oaxaca, Mexico, this study illuminates the (sometimes conflicting) imaginaries of what positive social change is and how it should be achieved, and the repertoire of strategies through which these imaginaries are being pursued. Ethnographic and action research conducted from 2013-2018 in the multilingual Isthmus of Tehuantepec brings to light the experiences of educators, students, writers, scholars and diverse cultural activists whose aspirations and strategies of social change are significant in shaping the future language ecology. Their repertoire of strategies may inform and encourage language activists, scholars, and educators working for change in other contexts of linguistic diversity and inequality.　

The article provides an insight into the project “A New Botanical Dictionary: Terms in Latvian, Latin, English, Russian, and German” implemented in the second half of 2017 and in 2018 within the Ventspils University of Applied Sciences (VUAS) internal call for proposals “Development of Scientific Activity at the VUAS”. The VUAS Faculty of Translation Studies in collaboration with the Faculty of Information Technologies in their scientific and research work along with other Latvian universities aim to occupy a niche in the branch of applied linguistics, therefore the research is related to this discipline and offers solutions in practical lexicography. The study describes a new botanical dictionary (NBD) – a mobile application prototype – with Latvian as a basic language. An insight into the macrostructure of the dictionary and the structure of entries is given. The research deals with questions concerning IT solutions in general (simple) and semantic search in particular. It also in...

Easter time is a vibrant period in the two Greek-speaking communities of southern Italy. It's when the Salentine Greek language-simply called Griko-echoes in the villages of Grecìa Salentina (Salento, Puglia) through the words of I Passiùna tu Christù, or The Passion of the Christ. I passiùna is a form of popular theater through which singers narrate the death and resurrection of Christ. The performances take place in the Griko-speaking villages during the week preceding Palm Sunday until Holy Thursday. Each village has its own unique version. Historically, two men, usually locals, would sing the forty verses at village crossroads or on tobacco farms, accompanied by an accordionist or organ grinder, and would end with the collecting of alms.

Greek Language, Italian Landscape traces the transformation of language ideologies and practices of Griko, a variety of Modern Greek used in the southern Italian province of Lecce, in Apulia. Building on ethnographic and linguistic data collected in Grecìa Salentina and Greece, Manuela Pellegrino recounts the story of Griko, highlighting the effects of the interplay of language ide ologies and policies promoted by the European Union, Italy, and Greece. She shows how the longstanding concern about language demise has, over time, generated social relationships and fueled moral feelings and political interests that have ulti mately shaped the predicament of Griko.

Uno, nessuno, centomila: il caso del Griko-Puglia" ("One, No One and One Hundred Thousand: the case of Griko-Apulia") My aim in this talk is to introduce the case of Griko and to highlight the lexical and phonetic variation among the villages of Grecìa Salentina (Apulia, Southern Italy) where this Greek variety is used. If the absence of a hegemonic centre among the Griko-speaking villages explains historically the absence of a 'standard' Griko, I argue that today locals' tendency to resist standardization rests on affective grounds. In fact today Griko is no longer used primarily as a language of daily exchange; yet memories of language use are 'alive' and contribute to shaping its use up to the present: locals' attachment to their own variety, to a specific pronunciation and/or lexical choice become therefore strategies through which they keep the past alive, together with the memory of the people they associate Griko with. I will conclude providing evidence of how the Griko community is internally fragmented into multiple communities of social actors who engage with different forms of language activism. Event: La lingua greca nell'Italia meridionale tra ieri e oggi "The Greek language in Southern Italian, yesterday and today"

The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s Sustaining Minoritized Languages of Europe (SMiLE) project has produced ethnographic case studies focusing on the process of revitalization and motivational responses to social, cultural, political, and economic factors in six communities. This talk focuses on the Griko and Greko case study, the two Greek linguistic minorities of Southern Italy. Greko is spoken in a small number of villages located in Calabria, and Griko is spoken in villages in Apulia (Grecìa Salentina), who have been newly connected through the SMiLE project. Co-Principle Researcher Manuela Pellegrino will summarize the main activities and findings of the 18-month SMiLE project with M. Olimpia Squillaci on investigating the future of these minority languages. Through two videos entitled Imì ce i glosse-ma “Our languages and us” made by Griko and Greko speakers earlier this year, she will highlight the similarities and differences in dominant attitudes towards language valorization, revitalization and sustainability between these related communities.

In this talk I highlight the underlying socio-historical and ideological landscapes that may favour or inhibit the performance of agency in language activism. Based on fieldwork conducted among speakers and activists, I investigate these issues by presenting the situated case of Griko, a Greek variety used in the Southern Italian province of Lecce (Salento, Apulia). In it I chart the matrix of social actors who have been engaging with its cause over time and I highlight their shifting claims, motivations, and goals as they emerge in a dialogical and at times tense interaction with national and translational language policies and ideologies. By analysing the main language ideological debates surrounding Griko, the meta-discourses embedded in the extant activities promoted in its support and their overall reception, I claim that in my ethnographic field, agency is constantly contested and negotiated among a multiplicity of social actors. It is furthermore strictly intertwined with the notion of authority over the language and its heritage as enacted with reference to morality, in its dual articulation: as the recognition of the moral right to represent Griko and as a fulfilment of a perceived moral duty towards the language and its speakers, past and present.

This qualitative case study explores how undergraduate students from the Russian State University for Humanities used social network sites (SNSs) for their decision to transfer to higher education institutions (HEIs) abroad. Participants reported using specific SNS features, such as likes and shares, for measuring HEI rating and indicated that ability to use native language was among motivating factors for membership in a specific SNS. The reported benefits of SNSs included instantaneous connections with likeminded individuals, realistic visualization of campuses, and unbiased and multidimensional views presented by SNS members. One of the emerging findings was that participants with no connections abroad relied exclusively on SNSs for their college choice. Participants with connections abroad relied on the advice of international contacts, and SNSs played a complementary role. HEI professionals may consider hiring and training international students to maintain consistent and meani...

The article provides an insight into the project “A New Botanical Dictionary: Terms in Latvian, Latin, English, Russian, and German” implemented in the second half of 2017 and in 2018 within the Ventspils University of Applied Sciences (VUAS) internal call for proposals “Development of Scientific Activity at the VUAS”. The VUAS Faculty of Translation Studies in collaboration with the Faculty of Information Technologies in their scientific and research work along with other Latvian universities aim to occupy a niche in the branch of applied linguistics, therefore the research is related to this discipline and offers solutions in practical lexicography. The study describes a new botanical dictionary (NBD) – a mobile application prototype – with Latvian as a basic language. An insight into the macrostructure of the dictionary and the structure of entries is given. The research deals with questions concerning IT solutions in general (simple) and semantic search in particular. It also in...

Online dictionaries have become a key tool for some indigenous communities to promote and preserve their languages, often in collaboration with linguists. They can provide a pathway for crossing the digital divide and for establishing a first-ever presence on the internet. Many questions around digital lexicography have been explored, although primarily in relation to large and well-resourced languages. Lexical projects on small and under-resourced languages can provide an opportunity to examine these questions from a different perspective and to raise new questions (Mosel, 2011). In this paper, linguists, technical experts, and Zapotec language activists, who have worked together in Mexico and the United States to create a multimedia platform to showcase and preserve lexical, cultural, and environmental knowledge, share their experience and insight in creating trilingual online Talking Dictionaries in several Zapotec languages. These dictionaries sit opposite from big data mining a...

The following article discusses the poetic output in Beneška Slovenia (Benečija) written for the Senjam Song Festival of Benečija. While considering the context of the region's history and migrations, it focuses on the literary aspects of the festival, particularly on the analysis of the themes and the poetry writing technique. It builds on certain theoretical premises from literary imagology and psychoanalysis. The subject of the analysis are the lyrics from the period between 1971 and 2012, published in a three-volume collection featuring over 150 authors. The article notes the following most prevalent themes: issues of assimilation, migration, and the dying of villages in Benečija. Categorised by basic mood, they fall under one of two extremes: they are either cheerful and humorous in order to encourage and bring joy and hope to the Slovenes of Benečija; or they are pervaded with deep pain and concern over the situation in their region. The lyrics of the latter use a particular writing technique, which merely hints at the pressures of assimilation, conveying them through images and metaphors.

Nowadays it is not easy to invent a new tradition. Modern conditions demand new approaches and reasoning.in the 1980s, in Estonia, a new ideology, ethno-futurism, appeared. it was an avant-garde movement that offered a bridge between the past and future of contemporary ethnic culture. The notion defines “ethno” as indigenous, authentic, and prehistoric; and “futurism” as cosmo-politan and urban. very soon this idea extended across boundaries of this country and reached the Udmurts. Just at this time, in Udmurtia (Russia), some young artists, writers, journalists, and scientists wished to create something very new in a changing world. they wanted to maintain and develop ethnicity and ethnic culture within the context of globalisation. Udmurtia became a symbolic centre of ethno-futurism. it was necessary to bring this ideology to all others and make it attractive. In a short time, megaproject organizers focused on creating ethno-futuristic festivals (it organized eleven festivals); th...

In this contribution, we aim to address the following questions: What does it mean to do language advocacy in 2022? Under which conditions does it operate? What are the fights, aims, and challenges? On the one hand, answering these questions heavily depends on the political, social, cultural and linguistic context, as well as on the interests, stakes and positions of the advocacy actors. On the other, we argue that recent political economic transformations are conditioning language advocacy more than ever. In the following, we will outline two transformations we consider particularly prevalent, i.e. neoliberalization and securitization, discuss what language advocacy actually means, and exemplify this with the case of the Network LanguageRights (NLR), a language advocacy group based in Vienna, dedicated to language rights of minorities and minoritized speakers in the Austrian context, and with a focus on language policies. We will further zoom into one particular discussion occurring at the heart of the NLR, which will lead us to a concluding discussion of possible ways of rethinking language advocacy, in particular in paying attention to the notion of linguistic citizenship.

This paper considers the issue of language policy and planning in Serbia, as managed by the main competent institution, the Serbian Language Standardization Committee, a trans-state, national institution dealing with vital issues of language policy and planning. Specifically, assuming a Bourdieusian perspective, it investigates the ideology behind the Committee’s policies, grounded in a series of language myths, and the way these policies influence professionals and everyday language users. The effects of a rigid, strict educational system and a standard language culture by educators are shown in detail focusing on the Torlak dialect in Southern Serbia. The Serbian case reveals a constant promotion of censorship and a heightened understanding of the benefits of self-censorship in the language market. This can be seen in the pressure exerted on certain speakers and the threat their mother tongue represents for their status in the labor market.

This paper considers the issue of language policy and planning in Serbia, as managed by the main competent institution, the Serbian Language Standardization Committee, a trans-state, national institution dealing with vital issues of language policy and planning. Specifically, assuming a Bourdieusian perspective, it investigates the ideology behind the Committee’s policies, grounded in a series of language myths, and the way these policies influence professionals and everyday language users. The effects of a rigid, strict educational system and a standard language culture by educators are shown in detail focusing on the Torlak dialect in Southern Serbia. The Serbian case reveals a constant promotion of censorship and a heightened understanding of the benefits of self-censorship in the language market. This can be seen in the pressure exerted on certain speakers and the threat their mother tongue represents for their status in the labor market.

I confirm that this dissertation presented for the degree of Master of Science by Research in Scandinavian Studies (II) has been composed entirely by myself. Except where it is stated otherwise by reference or acknowledgement, it has been solely the result of my own fieldwork and research, and it has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. For the purposes of examination, the set word-limit for this dissertation is 30 000. I confirm that the content given in Chapters 1 to 7 does not exceed this restriction. Appendices -which remain outwith the word-limit -are provided alongside the bibliography. As this work is my own, I accept full responsibility for errors or factual inaccuracies.

In this review essay, we compare five recent publications relating to dictionary work with Indigenous languages. The review covers three dictionaries, one monograph about lexicography in service of Indigenous language revitalization and the second volume of a two-volume dictionary-cum-encyclopedia. The structure of this review essay is as follows: following a brief introduction to each of the languages covered in these five publications, we include sections comparing orthographic choices and representations, internal structure and entry design, an examination of each dictionary's approach to the incorporation of neologisms and the software choices made by compilers. In addition, we offer an analysis of each dictionary's intended audience and access requirements, some structured reflections on authorship and ownership, an exploration of each project's commitment to community engagement, strategies for the representation of dialectal variation and finally, relevant information about how each dictionary project was funded and resourced.

South African debates on decolonization tend to centre on the injustices of the apartheid system (1948–1994) rather than on those that occurred during the preceding centuries of colonialism. The violent conquest and forced assimilation of the Khoisan goes particularly unmentioned. Their absence in these debates is increasingly challenged by growing numbers of people claiming Khoisan identities and campaigning for indigenous rights in the post-apartheid era. By thinking through the socio-political and academic settings in which this absence is both manifested and contested, I distil issues that deserve further attention in order for the Khoisan to be meaningfully included in debates on decolonization. I scrutinize two main factors that add to the complexities of this ‘layered’ decolonization: the strategic essentialism surrounding Khoisan identity and culture, and the prevalent notion of an insurmountable incommensurability between indigenous people and others. 1 This essay is based ...

Recent migration towards Europe is characterized by the massive presence of adults whose educational paths have been interrupted and who are thus developing literacy for the first time in a new language. A literacy test elaborated at the University of Palermo, Italy, showed that, on a sample of 774 migrants, about 30 percent could not read and/or write short words. This test assessed the learners’ abilities to read and write, whether in the Roman alphabet or in other writing systems, and whether in Italian or in other languages of learners’ repertoires. These learners with emergent literacy mostly came from sub-Saharan Africa, an area characterized by diverse forms of multilingualism, and are representatives of “connected migrants” due to the centrality of digital communication practices in their migration experience; hence, the importance of research on such communication practices. This study examined the multilingual writing on Facebook of 10 migrants in Italy with emergent liter...

It is a well-known fact that, in a global context, most of the world's lan-guages are in danger of becoming extinct within a couple of generations. Con-sider that, of an estimated 6,000 languages spoken worldwide, by 2050, eighty percent of this diversity could be lost (Krauss, 1992). ...

We must be seriously concerned when our narratives of injustice are told and retold but nothing changes in the lives of the disenfranchised. Yet we, the professionals who work side-by-side in these communities, continue to benefit. … We should be judging our worth not only by our contributions to the research, but by our contributions to the advancement of the communities in whose service we are committed.