The Languages of Smaller Populations: Risks and Possibilities. Lectures from the Tallinn Conference, 16–17 March 2012. Urmas Bereczki

Чтение книги онлайн.

      The Hungarian Institute in Tallinn, the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, and the NPO Fenno-Ugria, are organizing a conference which will focus on the different aspects of fear that coincide with losing one’s mother tongue. The dual purpose of this interdisciplinary conference will be to highlight key aspects of the history of the concept of language extinction as well as to look for possible links between the concerns about the loss of a language and the cultural phenomena (like survival strategies for endangered languages) of society today.

      The Program Committee invites proposals for papers, which should focus on the presenters’ individual research in the context of the aforementioned concepts. Proposals should consist of a 200–250 word abstract; a brief academic curriculum vitae, including degrees earned and academic concentration(s) (50–100 words); institutional affiliation; compete contact information and a description of any audio-visual requirements. Proposals must be received by the deadline date of 10 February 2012. Submissions must be sent as an email attachment (Word document only), to the Program Committee Secretary as listed below. Proposals must include the participant’s last name in the document’s title as in “Smith.doc”

      Presentations will be limited to no more than twenty minutes with an additional ten minutes allocated for discussion following the presentation. The primary language of the conference is English. The lectures will be simultaneously translated to Estonian.

      The conference will take place in the Small Conference Hall of the Estonian National Library, Tõnismägi 2 ,15189 Tallinn on March 16, 2012 13:30–17:30 and March 17, 2012 10:00–17:30.

      Round-trip airfare to Tallinn and accomodations during the conference will be provided for invited lecturers by the organizers and/or sponsors of the conference. Participants will be personally contacted by the Program and Organizing Committee regarding specific transportation and accommodation needs.

      Program and Organizing Committee

      Urmas Bereczki, Hungarian Institute

      Martin Ehala, University of Tartu

      Kadi Raudalainen, NPO Fenno-Ugria

      Tõnu Seilenthal, University of Tartu

      Jüri Valge, Ministry of Education, Estonia

      Anna Verschik, Tallinn University

      Sponsors

      British Council

      The Danish Cultural Institute

      Embassy of Hungary

      Embassy of Latvia

      Estonian Ministry of Culture

      Estonian Ministry of Education and Research

      Finnish Institute in Estonia

      French Institute in Estonia

      Hungarian Institute

      NPO Fenno-Ugria

      Representation of the European Comission in Estonia

      Partners

      Akadeemia

      AS Veskaru, catering

      Estonian National Library

      Keel ja Kirjandus

      Linguistica Uralica

      Sirp

      Secretary of the Program and Organizing Committee

      Helina Pukk, Hungarian Institute

      [email protected]

      Opening Words

      Your Excellencies Ene Ergmaa, Speaker of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu), Former First Lady Ingrid Rüütel, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen! I welcome you to the Conference on „The Languages of the Smaller Populations: Risks and Possibilities.“

      First and foremost, I would like to thank you for having accepted the invitation to participate in this conference. Our topic is timely; it is, in a sense, „in the air.“ Topics of similar themes are presently the focus of various other conferences taking place in Estonia and abroad.

      Our conference is unique in that our goal is to analyze the relationship between language and culture from unconventional and often astonishing points of view via a variety of different disciplines and in direct relation to current situations. Building on this foundation, our conference will also consider the prospects for the survival of the languages of smaller populations. Unfortunately, we will not be able to focus on as much of the historical background of these problems as we had originally planned due to the inability of some of our original participants to ultimately attend the conference. Nonetheless, this conference will address the realities of a far larger geographic territory than we had originally dared hope. The conference will span territories and related language concerns from the Far-East, across Eurasia, through Europe to British Isles, Greenland, and across the Atlantic to Mexico.

      The issues associated with the languages of smaller populations are much broader and more global than it may seem on the surface. The scientific and cultural dimensions associated with the languages are themselves complex. We think and create culture in different languages, languages which have a continuous influence each other. The result is an extremely complicated network consisting of an immense number of different components. If one component, one single language, falls out of this system, its loss will influence the entire network, although the system СКАЧАТЬ