| Mercator
Newsletter - No.10, January 2005 |
| From now on, the Mercator Common Newsletter will be a monthly newsletter. This way you will be kept informed with more recent and updated information. |
| 4th
Mercator International Symposium Translation of Culture, Culture of Translation:
Languages in Film, Television and Literature |
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IV
Mercator International Symposium MERCATOR-MEDIA |
| Dates Announced for the 4th Mercator International Symposium The 4th Mercator International Symposium will be held on 26, 27 and 28 October 2005 in Aberystwyth, Wales and will have the theme of "Translation of Culture, Culture of Translation: Languages in Film, Television and Literature". Language transfer, which includes, for the purposes of this symposium, subtitling and dubbing of both film and television as well as literary translation, is a multi-faceted phenomenon from the point of view of minority languages. It can be used to disseminate cultures which find themselves outside the audiovisual and literary ‘mainstream’ and to maximise audience or reader numbers for minority cultural products. Moreover, translation into minority languages not only increases the volume of available material in a marginalised language, but may have a wider cultural impact and contribute to the development of the language as a dynamic creative medium. On the other hand, the effect of ‘importing’ cultural references on a large scale may not always be viewed positively. This symposium will seek contributions to this discussion from those active as practitioners and policy-makers in the audiovisual and literary fields (producers, directors, broadcasters, subtitlers and dubbers, scriptwriters, publishers, authors, translators) as well as those concerned with these issues in an academic context. While the emphasis will be on autochthonous minority languages (that is to say the languages of groups long-established on their current territory and using a language other than the primary official language of their state or a language in some sense socially and/or politically marginalised) connections may be made with issues of concern to smaller state languages, migrant languages and cultural production originating from beyond the metropolitan mainstream. We shall welcome contributions which make those connections. Key areas of discussion will include (but need not be limited to):
Abstracts of approximately 500 words or suggestions for panel discussions should be sent (as Word files or as plain text within the e-mail) to george.jones@aber.ac.uk by 1 June 2005. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 1 July 2005. Written abstracts/proposals submitted for consideration will be accepted in Welsh, English, German or French. Abstracts in other languages can be considered subject to prior agreement with the organising committee. Full details of registration and programme will shortly appear on the
Mercator Media website http://www.aber.ac.uk/mercator. |
| News January 2005 (links to the Mercator websites) |
| Media News - Mercator Media |
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| Legislation news - Mercator Linguistic Rights and Legislation |
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The internet portal Kaixo.com, in cooperation with HABE (the organisation which organises Basque language courses for adults), has set up the first on-line euskaltegi (centre for teaching Basque to adults). The virtual euskaltegi offers the possibility of learning Basque free of charge. Students have access to dictionaries, grammar lessons and an on-line teacher. The website is multilingual, using Basque, Spanish, French and English. Irish Language Daily Faces Hostile Campaign The Irish language daily newspaper Lá has faced financial difficulties because of delays in the payment of an Intereg grant which the editor, Mr Ciarán Ó Pronntaigh believes result from hostile questions raised by Unionist politicians. The company has undergone two audits and been given a clean bill of health but at the time of writing has still not received its grant. The funding is to be used to run a new office in Donegal in cooperation with colleagues in the Irish Republic. As a result of the difficulties two jobs have already been lost. At the same time, Lord Laird, an Ulster Unionist peer and ex-chairman of the Boord o Ulstèr Scotch, an organisation concerned with the Scots Language in Ulster, has been demanding the creation of a daily newspaper in Ulster Scots and claiming that more money should be spent on initiatives connected with that language. Those wishing to support Lá can sign an on-line petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/32130966/petition.html. Mr Ó Pronntaigh emphasises that, although the delays with the Intereg grant have been problematic, Lá fully expects to resolve the difficulties. The newspaper first appeared in 1983. Radio stations in the northern Basque Country demand coherent policy from authorities Euskal Irratia, an association made up of the radio stations Xiberoko Botza, Irulegi Irratia and Gure Irratia, has appealed to the authorities for a coherent policy. These radio stations have been considering their future. In addition to concern about the fall in the number of Basque speakers, they are calling on the authorities to establish, once and for all, the criteria they adopt when giving grants, and to pursue coherent aims. These worries are not new but the French Government’s intention of discontinuing the employment scheme for young people is of particular concern. Basque radio stations attended last year’s seminars on the languages of France. At that time the three radio stations outlined seven indispensable measures to ensure their survival. A copy of the report was given to the then French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, during his visit to the Basque Country. This time an appeal has been made to the authorities to act coherently while stressing the need for a general plan. In the context of general measures they have called on France to ratify the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. They have further called for the drawing up of regulations that will acknowledge the official status of minority languages. As these radio stations constitute a popular movement having the structure
of an association, funding is their number one concern. “It is vital
that the funding we receive from one quarter is not taken away by another,”
said Naroa Gorostiaga, the Coordinator of the Euskal Irratia association.
They get funding from the authorities to balance their yearly accounts.
It is a constant struggle for them to draw up medium and long-term plans,
because they do not know in advance what funding they will have for
the next year. That is the title of a document unanimously adopted on 17 December
by the Regional Council of Brittany. Breton and Gallo are now recognised
officially alongside French by the council as languages of the region.
The document seeks to take into account all fields of language use:
education, media, training etc. So far, no budget has been allocated
for the implementation of the policy. This will be determined in February. Breton-French Translation Program to be Developed Stur, a company based in Saint-Brieuc and Carhaix, is known for the
creation of the first Breton spell-checker in 1999. They are now working
on the development of a Breton-French translator. The work will take
four years but there will be some results within the first year. The
company is assisted in the project by the Délégation Générale à la Langue
Française et aux Langues de France, the Regional Council of Brittany
and the Councils of the Départements of Finisterre and Morbihan. Estonia closes Russian language TV channel One of Estonia's oldest local TV-cable channels was shut down just before New Year’s Eve in Tallinn. The Russian-medium ‘Orsent’ channel had been broadcasting since 1992, but the Estonian Language Inspectorate had only recently accused it of a violation of the Language Law. The Inspectorate had warned ‘Orsent’ about the necessity to provide all its programmes with Estonian language subtitles in September. This demand, according to the Inspectorate, was ignored. Victor Titov, General Director of ‘Orsent’, feels certain that real reason for closure is political. He remarked that ‘Orsent’ had broadcast several films about the neo-Nazi movement in Estonia and the demolition of Soviet war memorials. Peeter Sookruus, Head of the Media Department of the Ministry of Culture said "it is very sad that Mr Titov is trying to give a political shade to the matter, without mentioning that he just could not, or would not meet the requirements of Estonian legislation." In an interview with the Estonian newspaper Paevaleht, Titov claimed
that all films and shows broadcast by ‘Orsent’, were supplied with translations
into the Estonian language, apart from live broadcasts. Sweblul wants a joint web portal for the minority languages in the Baltic Sea region Sweblul, the joint organisation for Sweden’s national minorities aims to create a common web portal for minority languages in the Nordic coutries, the Baltic countries and Poland. The aim of the portal is to raise the profile of the minority languages of the Baltic Sea region as well as to further co-operation between representatives of different minorities. Some funds for the project have already been raised in Sweden, Finland and Norway. Fiblul, the organisation for Finnish minority languages, and organisations representing the Kvens of Norway are to take part in the financing of the project. Sweblul is now waiting to hear whether it has secured the rest of the necessary funding from EBLUL and the European Commission. 13 December 2004, SR Sisuradio/Kaisa Vuonokari (http://www.sr.se/sisuradio/nyheter/arkiv.asp?DagensDatum=2004-12-13&Artikel=520450) Sign Language Chat continues on Finnish digital television A new series of Kohtaamispaikka (“Meeting Place”), a television programme offering a discussion forum, or chat, for Finnish Sign Language users will be broadcast in Finland this year. The first series was broadcast in Autumn 2004 on Diggari, a digital channel reaching 700,000 viewers. The one hour programme is broadcast once a week. Kohtaamispaikka is aimed at viewers using Finnish Sign Language and Finnish as a discussion and meeting place. It aims to promote understanding of Sign Language culture as well as communication between cultures. At the same time it facilitates an opportunity for communication within the community of Sign Language users. The programme can receive text messages and computerised video messages which are then interpreted into Sign Language by its two presenters who also act as interpreters. The presenters are students of Sign Language interpretation at the Polytechnic of Kuopio. The series, which has been created by Prosign ltd (a company producing television programmes, video games and multimedia in Sign Language), 3KTV (a cable and digital TV operator) and the Polytechnic of Kuopio, receives funding from the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications. 21 January 2005, Kuurojen Liitto (The Deaf Association) |
| Publications |
| Mercator Media Forum - Mercator Media |
Mercator
Media Forum, the annual journal published by the Mercator Media
Centre, has just reached its eighth issue.
The journal seeks to promote discussion and flow of information between
those involved with the media in the autochthonous minority languages
of the European Union. This issue was put together by guest editors
John Packer and Sally Holt, of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe. It contains the proceedings of a conference held by the OSCE
in Baden bei Wien in October 2003 at which a set of guidelines was launched
on the use of minority languages in the broadcast media. The proceedings
include the text of the guidelines themselves. Mercator Media Forum
can be ordered either by contacting Mercator Media itself (see the website
www.aber.ac.uk/mercator)
or from the University of Wales Press (http://www.uwp.co.uk). |
| Bulletin 60 - Mercator Linguistic Rights and Legislation |
| IV Quarter 2004 | English and Catalan versions. Now the Bulletin is available in PDF Format. These are the main contents of the Bulletin: |
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| Dossier 17 - Mercator Linguistic Rights and Legislation |
| The last dossier is available in English and Catalan. It is also available in PDF Format (inside Bulletin 60) in our Publications section. You will find it in Mercator-Legislation's website: |
| Articles on ML’s in education in the new EU-member states online - Mercator Education |
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The enlargement of the EU with ten new member states (Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Malta and Hungary) in May last year, brought a lot of new minority language communities into the Union; there are approximately ninety communities which cover about thirty different languages. Most of them are so-called ‘trans-frontier languages’ which are either minority or majority language, depending on the state where they are spoken (for example Hungarian in Slovakia and Slovenia, Polish in Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia). There are also unique languages in one state, such as Kashubian in Poland, and unique languages spread over more states, such as Ruthenian in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland as well as non-territorial languages, like Roma and Yiddish spoken in several states. Mercator-Education is focusing on education in minority languages
in these states now as well. Mercator-Education already published a
regional dossier on Kashubian in education in Poland and plans to publish
more dossiers on minority languages in new member states. Moreover,
articles on the role of such minority languages in pre-primary, primary,
secondary and higher education in e.g. Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania are now online available on the website
of Mercator-Education. |
| Miscellany |
| III Mercator International Symposium - Mercator Education |
| III Mercator Symposium – papers and presentations On the website of Mercator Education are now the powerpoint presentations
and some papers available http://www.mercator-education.org/infotype/webpage/view.asp?objectID=3463 |
| GeoNames 2005: International Conference - Mercator Education |
| GeoNames 2005: International Conference on Minority Names/Indigenous Names and Multilingual Areas Place: Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, The Netherlands The programme starts on Thursday, April the 14th. Papers will be presented on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, there is the option to participate in a toponymical/historical excursion to the 'Terpen' area, (artificial mounds erected against flooding in the Middle Ages). In the programme, the following themes will be discussed:
Of special interest may be the paper "Cartographic
educational materials for bilingual Sorb areas" (in section
6) and the section 4A "Legal aspects of minority names/indigenous
names". More information about the congres can be found on our
conference site. |
| Authors needed for new dossiers - Mercator Education |
| In the last Mercator-Newsletter, one could already read that new dossiers were published on Irish in education in Northern Ireland and Kashubian in education in Poland. An update of the regional dossier on Slovene in education in Italy was announced then as well. This update doesn’t differ that much from the first version; some new figures, maps and diagrams have been added and some annoying printing errors of the first edition have been removed. The updated version of the dossier on Slovene can be downloaded from the Mercator-Education website. For ordering a printed version please send an email to Mrs. Adrie Kaspers, akaspers@fa.knaw.nl. The regional dossier on Kashubian was the first dossier on a minority language in a new member state of the EU. In the coming year more dossiers on minority languages in education in new EU-member states will follow. We are planning to publish in 2005 new dossiers on, amongst others, Slovakian in education in Hungary, Hungarian in education in Slovakia, Lithuanian in education in Poland, Ukrainian/Ruthenian in education in Poland and Polish in the Czech Republic. Furthermore we are planning to update some older
dossiers. Especially the dossiers on Occitan in education in
France (1996), Swedish in Finland (1997), Basque in France (1998) and
Slovene in Austria (1997) need to be updated. We haven’t found authors
for all the mentioned dossiers yet. Therefore we would like to ask those
persons who are interested to update a dossier or to write a new one
on a minority language in education in a new or an older member state,
to contact Mr. Tsjerk Bottema, tbottema@fa.knaw.nl.
Mercator-Education pays an author's fee of € 600,- for a new dossier
and € 300,- for an updated one. |
| New structure and design of Mercator-Legislation's website |
Mercator-Linguistic Rights and Legislation's website has been throughly transformed. To make it easier for our visitors to find all our news, publications and databases, we have changed the aspect of the menu, which now also includes some new sections and subsections. From now on, you can have access to all past and future Mercator International Symposia in a section and you can also find all information related to the Action Plan for language learning and linguistic diversity in the new EU & languages section. We hope you will enjoy it. http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm |
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