The Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute of Foreign Languages at the University of Iceland organised a conference on cultural and linguistic diversity on 2nd and 3rd November. The conference was associated with a proposal to set up a World Language Centre in Reykjavík and two main topics were discussed:
1. future visions for the World Language Centre to be established at the University of Iceland; and
2. comparative research in linguistic, literary and cultural studies
The conference was opened by Geir H. Haarde, the Prime Minister of Iceland (John Howard please note) who stressed the importance of multilingualism in the modern world and the need for people to learn several languages, not only for their economic advantages, but also to appreciate the richness and beauty of their own native language and culture. The Prime Minister is himself a fluent speaker of Icelandic, English, Danish, Swedish, German and Italian (beat that Alexander Downer). The PM was followed by Vigdís herself, the former President of Iceland (1980-1996) and UNESCO goodwill ambassador for languages, who stressed the need for academics and the general public to appreciate cultural and linguistic diversity. We non-Icelanders in the audience were wishing that we had even a fraction of this top-level political support for linguistics and languages back in our home countries.
FollowWikid plug
Recently Jangari proudly told me that his Wikipedia page on Wagiman was ranked as “good” by wikimedia. Well they got that right. Check it out, it’s fantastic. Good on you Mali. Give the man a PhD scholarship! He’s clearly ready for big things.
Against monolingual mindsets
Michael Clyne has a good article in today’s Australian Higher Education Supplement where he attacks the monolingual mindset of the Federal Government, as shown by Alexander Downer’s extraordinary remarks in an interview, a transcript of which appears on his website. Here are the low points.
MR DOWNER: (speaks French) But I mean I don’t think in diplomacy the fact that you can speak foreign languages is anything special and obviously he runs the risk of being seen by a lot of Australians as a show-off.
PRESENTER: So you think that’s how it went down with foreign visitors as well?
MR DOWNER: No because foreign visitors are here trying to deal with English – although of course the bulk of them do speak English but not all of them do – but they are dealing with interpreters and people who speak different languages every day of the week. So…
PRESENTER: Looking at the reaction on television…
MR DOWNER: …there’s nothing that unusual about people speaking foreign languages.
PRESENTER: Well speaking Mandarin is unusual and for someone who could potentially be the next Prime Minister. It is a bit like when Tony Blair went to France and spoke fluent French to the French.
MR DOWNER: Well I mean I don’t think it makes any difference to people’s lives, personal lives, their living standards, their jobs or anything.
PRESENTER: Alright, so he is a bit of a show-off.
7 September 2007, Interview – ABC with Jon Faine
I speak English, and I can prove it
One of my prized possessions after having lived in the UK for five years now is a “Pass Notification Letter” which I received on 30th October 2007 when I sat for the Life in the UK Test administered by the Border and Immigration Service of the Home Office. The letter states:
Following your test today in knowledge of life in the United Kingdom this is to certify that you have reached the level required for the purposes of obtaining indefinite leave to remain – Your success in this test also demonstrates that your level of competence in English meets the required standard for naturalisation or indefinite leave to remain. No further proof of this is needed.
I had to sit the test because my work permit ended on 10th November and I wanted to apply for “indefinite leave to remain”, ie. permanent residence (rather than apply for a further 5 year work permit extension). Since April this year everyone applying to stay in the UK or become a naturalised citizen has to sit and pass the test, or else take a certified ESOL course. The test is administered by computer and has 24 questions that must be answered within 45 minutes – a pass of at least 75% is required. I bought a Life in the UK Test Study Guide (which says on the cover it is “the essential study guide for British citizenship & settlement tests, over 100,000 copies sold”) for £7.99 and boned up on the five chapters (A Changing Society, UK Today: A Profile, How the United Kingdom is Governed, Everyday Needs, Employment) and took the 10 sample tests in the back. Feeling apprehensive but somewhat prepared I paid my £34 fee and joined 25 other hopeful applicants in the basement of my local registered test centre where we were shouted at by a Test Authoriser that we were “under examination conditions – if anyone looks at another person’s computer screen they will be removed from the test room, reported immediately to the Home Office for cheating which is sufficient grounds for deportation”. Thanks, just what we all needed. Anyway, I managed to answer enough questions correctly and passed.
So what does the test actually test?
European Australianists Workshop 2007
On Saturday 27th October the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen hosted a European Australianists workshop, organised by Ruth Singer, post-doctoral fellow at the Radboud University. The workshop was attended by about 15 people and had a packed programme of nine talks from 9am to 6pm. Unfortunately, I had to leave in the early afternoon to catch a flight back to London and missed some of the later presentations.
Inuit language at the crossroads
The Canadian territory of Nunavut, created in 1999, has a population of 26,665, of whom 85% claim Inuit identity (2001 Census data). Of these approximately 85% claim to speak the Inuit language at home. (ibid. “Inuit Language” subsumes two major dialect groupings: Inuinnaqtun in the west and Inuktitut in the East.) With their huge political majority and their geographical isolation, the Inuit ought to have no trouble maintaining their language, but the challenges they face demonstrate that minority language maintenance is a difficult process, even when the odds appear to be extremely favourable.
The government of Nunavut has recently introduced two language-related bills, which have now progressed to second reading in the legislative assembly. The first, Bill 6, is an official languages act which establishes Inuit Language, French and English as official languages of the territory. The second, Bill 7, is an Innuit language protection act that seeks to promote the maintenance of the Inuit Language.
Prof. Ian Martin, language policy consultant to the Nunavut government and to the Inuit organization, NTI (Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated), presented his assessment of the stituation in a talk at Glendon College of York University this past week.
Hey Whitefella, where’s your country?
This morning I read the transcript of Marion Scrymgour’s very moving Charles Perkins address. I was struck by the tragic story of her recently-departed father who was taken away from his parents. He passed away never without ever knowing who his mother was.
As I read this transcript, I got a phonecall from my mum who asked me about whether I’m coming home for Christmas. She lives in Perth. The juxtaposition of these two things made me revisit questions I often ask myself, “Where is home and how do I know that it’s there?” A question I get all the time that I struggle with it is “Where are you from?” Sometimes here in Sydney, I’m able to give a dismissive answer, “Western Australia”, and hope that the person asking the question doesn’t realise how big WA is. But really the question is not so easily dismissed.
UNESCO’s world day of audio-visual heritage
Yesterday (27 October) was the first celebration of UNESCO’s world day of audio-visual heritage. The trailer on that website, put together from the holdings of various audio-visual archives around the world, gives a flavour of the kind of material that is held in audio and film/video archives worldwide. Australia is fortunate to have many cultural institutions that hold and look after material recorded in Australia: the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straid Islander Studies (AIATSIS), the National Library of Australia (NLA), the National Archives of Australia (NAA) and many others.
The perils of fieldwork
We have a number of PhD students at SOAS who are working on languages spoken in the Pacific, including the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. In addition to the usual hazards of fieldwork like biting animals, malaria and other tropical diseases, and the occasional tsunami our students now have another thing to watch out for: Australian immigration officials. All of them have to stop over in Australia on their way to the field and if the recent experiences of one student (I’ll call him “AB” for convenience, mindful of the fact that he has to go through Sydney on his way back to London) are anything to go by, the apparent fear and paranoia that is present on entry to Australia is yet another fieldwork hassle.
The student concerned is of Greek descent, born in Romania and officially registered with a Romanian name (as required by that country, which, along with a number of others, demands that minorities take names that conform to the style of the majority population). The circumstances of his birth led to a problem when he got to Sydney.
European Science Foundation and Endangered Languages
Over the past two years a group of European researchers including myself, Michael Fortescue (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Nikolaus Himmelmann (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany), François Jacquesson (LACITO, CNRS, France), Maarten Mous (Leiden University, Netherlands), and Mauro Tosco (L’Orientale, Naples, Italy) have been working on a European Science Foundation EUROCORES proposal called “BABEL: Better Analyses Based on Endangered Languages”.