Challenges of Minority Languages in the Globalization Age
Next week there will be a Congress in Bilbao: Challenges of Minority Languages in the Globalization Age. Basque and foreign speakers will exchange our views, and I will by one of those on the Basque side, as the organizers, the Basque branch of Unesco (part of the World Languages Network), offered me a spot to talk about Basque presence in Internet. So, my talk will be on October 10th: The highs and the lows of Basque on the Internet. There will be simultaneous translation between Basque, Spanish and English, so I'll talk in Basque but probably I'll use a powerpoint presentation written in English.
Participation in the congress is open, until the 220 places available are filled. You can apply in this website. The venue is the Euskalduna Palace of Bilbao.
This is the program:
9th October
9.00 - 9.30 WELCOMING RECEPTION
9.30 - 10.00 PRESENTATION:
Basque government, Provincial Administration, EUDEL (Association of Basque Municipalities)
10.00 - 11.00 Talk: “Euskaltzaindia, a minority language academy and its challenges in a globalized world”. Andres Urrutia, President of Euskaltzaindia, Royal Academy of the Basque Language
11.00 - 12.00. Talk: “Language Rights. Human Development and Linguistic Diversity in a Globalizing World”. Suzanne Romaine, Merton College at the University of Oxford
12.30 - 13.30 Talk: "More rather than Less: Minority Language Rights in the Age of Globalisation?”. Fernand de Varennes. Murdoch University (Australia)
16.00 - 17.00. Talk: “Using Electronic Technology for Language Revitalization”. Delyth Prys, Bangor University (Wales)
17.00 - 18.00 Talk: “internet.cat: The Catalan on the Internet and Internet in Catalan. Difficulties (and opportunities) of Minority Languages in Cyberspace”. Amadeu Abril, ESADE Law School, Universitat Ramon Llull de Barcelona
10th October
09.30 - 10.30. Talk: “UNESCO and Multilingualism in Cyberspace”. Misako Ito. UNESCO – Information Society Division – Universal Access and Preservation Section
10.30 - 11.30. Talk: “The highs and the lows of Basque on the Internet”, Luistxo Fernandez, CodeSyntax and Tagzania founder.
12.00 - 13.00. Talk: “Oral Tradition Teaching: What Kind of Education? The Case of Griots in Mali”. Simon Toulou, University of Geneva
13.00 - 14.00 Talk: "Towards a multilingual society: issues and practices, some examples". Marielle Rispail, IUFM Nice
14.00 - 14.15 CLOSING CEREMONY
OK, so I didn't quite guess the Basque bits right - close enough. I just wanted to say thanks for posting the link and for making your own presentation available - I really wish I could have been there to see the presentation and to have a long conversation over a beer afterwards. If you have published anything more along these lines I would be very interested in knowing about it.
The number of blogs in Basque seems particularly impressive relative to the situation with Welsh, where we have estimated there are approximately 200 blogs.