New Speakers in the City

Nous menons actuellement une enquête sociolinguistique où nous souhaitons mieux comprendre la situation actuelle de la langue bretonne à Rennes. Pouvez-vous remplir ce formulaire, si vous parlez ou apprenez le breton, ou simplement si vous habitez en Bretagne. Il s'agit d'une possibilité simple d'aider à mieux analyser la communauté linguistique bretonne, en participant à une meilleure connaissance de cette dernière. La version française: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScKnsg8pslzQh5cUdh_kbVzV-4NNDHPnOTBxy33cS4kSxPlUA/viewform Ar stumm e brezhoneg: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeGR2lU6HyIxcavEfgilNpiK6k7ONlGX5fvDK7p7dUVOnXGVA/viewform Merci beaucoup! Mersi deoc'h!

Serbske Nowiny is the only newspaper published daily in the Sorbian language. Below is an article that appeared in the newspaper on April 8th 2021. It is about the panel that we offered as a team at the XVIII International Conference on Minority Languages, organized online by the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, as well as about the interview conducted with Joanna by Cordula Ratajczak right after the conference.

The Celtic Studies Research Unit, together with the  Department  of Tourism, Culture, Arts,  Gaeltacht , Sport and Media of the Government of Ireland is pleased to announce the following event on  Friday 12th March 2021 , between  11:30-15:30 , as part of this year's celebration of  Seachtain na Gaeilge  (Irish-language week). Please email Prof. Michael Hornsby by 11th March for the link to this event. This is an open event, for anyone interested in Irish language matters, minority language studies and multicultural approaches to language revitalisation.  Tá fáilte is fiche romhaibh / everyone welcome.

We are happy to announce the launch of a Wiki on Lower Sorbian in Germany within Mercator's Wiki on minority language learning. The Wiki can be accessed here . Work on the Wiki was made possible by the funding from the Polish National Science Centre , grant no. NCN OPUS 162018/31/B/HS2/00844. Map credit: Šewc, Hinc (1968) Gramatika hornjoserbskeje rěče, 1. zwjazk. Budyšin: Ludowe nakładnistwo Domowina.  https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbische_Sprache#/media/Datei:Sorbische_Dialekte.png

We are happy to announce our Panel entitled "New speakers in the city: Language revitalization without native speakers" during the XVIII International Conference on Minority Languages, organized by the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao. The conference will be held on March 24th-26th online. The program can be found here . Abstract of the colloquium In many places in Europe, language revitalization is increasingly attributed to young, predominantly urban and highly mobile people who are not “native” speakers of the language in question and are not based in its traditional, rural “heartland”. In recognition of this, the panel New Speakers in the City: Language Revitalization Without Native Speakers brings together four members of a project looking at such “new” speakers of Breton in Rennes (Upper Brittany, France) and of Lower Sorbian in Cottbus (Lower Lusatia/Brandenburg, Germany), each from their own unique disciplinary perspective. The goal of the project is to unde...

Nowy Casnik, the Lower Sorbian weekly with headquarters in Cottbus, has published an article about Joanna, her fieldwork in Lower Lusatia and our project in the 49th issue (beginning of December 2020). You can see it here:

Liebe Freunde und Freundinnen der niedersorbischen Sprache, Wir führen gerade eine soziolinguistische Studie durch, womit wir die aktuelle Lage der niedersorbischen Sprache verstehen wollen. Wenn Sie Niedersorbisch sprechen, lernen, oder in der Niederlausitz leben, bitte füllen Sie das Formular aus (Link unten). Es ist eine einfache Möglichkeit, uns zu helfen, die Sprachgemeinschaft des Niedersorbischen besser zu verstehen und zur Aufrechterhaltung der niedersorbischen Sprache beizutragen! Pśijaśele a pśijaśelki dolnoserbskeje rěcy, Pśewjedujomy rowno sociolinguistisku studiju, z kótarejuž comy aktualnu situaciju dolnoserbskeje rěcy rozměś. Pšosym wupołniśo toś ten formular, gaž dolnoserbšćinu powědaśo, wuknjośo abo gaž bydliśo w Dolnej Łužycy. Jo to lažka móžnosć, nam pomagaś, aby rěcne zgromaźeństwo dolnoserbšćiny lěpjej rozměli a k zdźaržanju dolnoserbskeje rěcy pśipomagali! Deutsche Version des Fragebogens Dolnoserbska wersija napšašnika Vielen Dank! Źěkujomy se!  Michael ...

WA Friday Lunch Talk ONLINE (MS Teams: WA Staff), May 29, 13:15-14:15, "Language revitalization without native speakers: Breton and Lower Sorbian" by dr Joanna Chojnicka & prof. Michael Hornsby Start: 2020-05-29 13:15 End: 2020-05-29 14:15 WA Friday Lunch Talks are monthly meetings with presentations of current research results or research in progress by WA faculty, staff, or PhD students. Each talk is of 45 minutes (+15 minutes for discussion). We welcome all to a talk ONLINE (MS Teams: WA Staff)  "Language revitalization without native speakers: Breton and Lower Sorbian" by dr Joanna Chojnicka & prof. Michael Hornsby from the Centre of Celtic Studies (Friday, May 29, 13:15-14:15). dr Joanna Chojnicka Centre for Celtic Studies & prof. Michael Hornsby Centre for Celtic Studies Language revitalization without native speakers: Breton and Lower Sorbian In this talk, we would like to present a new research project carried out at the Centre for Celtic Studies...

On February 20-21 Joanna is going to represent our team during the Language, Identity and Education in Multilingual Contexts (LIEMC2020) conference held at the Hague University of Applied Sciences. Our presentation is entitled Language Revitalization Without Native Speakers: Breton and Lower Sorbian and will take place on February 20 in the afternoon session (16:30-18:30). The full programme is available here and the conference website is accessible here . The Hague University of Applied Sciences https://liemc2020.wordpress.com/conference-venue/

Call for papers for the conference "Conventional and unconventional ways of transmitting and revitalizing minoritized languages: in European context and beyond", to take place at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland, on 12-13 September 2020 Over the last few decades, we can observe a great interest in sustaining the linguistic diversity of the world. Not only are there a growing number of language activists and activities aimed at protecting minority languages at the legal level so that they are recognized by states and dominant communities, but also to maintain them in use and to reinstate their lost domains of usage. Scholars researching language shift and loss, language revival and revitalization underline that the chosen strategy and its effectiveness depend on multiple factors, such as the ethnolinguistic vitality of a speech community, the level of language loss, language attitudes and language trauma. All these factors infl...

The Centre for Celtic Studies at the Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland is pleased to invite established scholars and early career researchers to submit abstracts for thematic sessions or general session papers (max. 300-350 words plus bibliography) for talks of 20 minutes plus ten minutes of discussion, which will take place during 9-11 October 2020. Please submit your paper proposals via email to pccs@wa.amu.edu.pl . PCCS meetings provide a forum for high quality papers on a variety of aspects of Celtic Studies, including histories of the Celtic regions, Welsh / Irish / Scottish Gaelic / Breton literatures, Celtic folklore, archaeology, teaching of Celtic languages, and cultures of the Celtic countries. We also invite papers on sociolinguistics of the Celtic languages. According to Monica Heller, we are currently witnessing the creation of ‘new spaces’ for minorities to express themselves, while producing tensions which exist between the ‘idealized’ ...