From January 2005 the Mercator Common Newsletter is a monthly newsletter. This way you will be kept informed with more recent and updated information.

V Mercator International Symposium: "Linguistic Rights as a Matter of Social Inclusion"

Barcelona (Catalonia)
19-21 October
Mercator Legislation - ML

Mercator Education - ME

Mercator Legislation - ML

IMMIGRATION, SOCIAL INCLUSION AND MINORITY LANGUAGES WILL BE THE ISSUES AT STAKE IN THE FORTHCOMING MERCATOR INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

August 2006 – Barcelona (Catalonia) and Mercator Legislation will host the V Mercator International Symposium entitled “Linguistic Rights as a Matter of Social Inclusion” on 19, 20 and 21 October 2006.

The Symposium will deal with language rights and political theory, minorities within minorities, language and citizenship, political innovation and social inclusion, etc. It will also address controversial issues such as: who should have official language rights? Should linguistic rights apply to indigenous languages only or should they apply to immigrant ones as well? What is the role of minority languages in such a context?

Furthermore, the Symposium will focus on international legislation and language rights, education, national minority and immigration languages as economic value, social and linguistic cohesion through sport, culture and leisure and access to health care through language.

International experts in these fields such as Alan Patten, Ricard Zapata, Máiréad Nic Craith, Csaba Tabadji, Guus Extra, Kutlay Yagmur, François Grin, among others, will participate in the Symposium.

We remind you that the Symposium is free of charge and that you can download the registration form in our website.

Registration closes 9 October 2006 and will be on a 'first come first served' basis.

Details at: secretaria@ciemen.org

Check http://www.ciemen.org/mercator for further information.

Legislation news - ML

• Issued the first national plan for Scottish Gaelic [+]
• Latvia won't grant citizenship if language tests are failed [+]
• The Council Of Europe says there is scope for improvement of linguistic rights in Slovakia [+]
• Merging of Welsh language board with government planned [+]
• A Ph.D theses analyses the language policy by the Autonomous Governments of Valencia between 1983 and 2003 (Univesity of Valencia) [+]
• Ban on official use of Russian in the Jambyl region of Southern Kazakhstan disconcerts non-Kazak speakers [+]
• Six militants of the board for the defence of the Asturian language are processed for demanding the officiality of the language [+]
• Publication of the 2005 Report on the fundamental rights of the EU [+]
• Austrian Chancellor announces compromise on Bilingual Signs [+]
• The Department of Education of the Government of Navarre finally legalises the Basque-Medium schools in Southern Navarre [+]

Media news - MM

• Irish Film returns to the screen on DVD [+]
• Romansch TV goes to Kernow [+]
• Call for political unity over threat to Danish language TV in Germany [+]

Irish Film returns to the screen on DVD

At an event organized by the Irish language promotion organisation Gael-Linn on 5 July 2006, Minister for the Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O'Donoghue, T.D. launched the DVD version of the film Mise Éire . Made by Gael-Linn in 1959, Mise Éire was put on the big screen throughout the country in 1960 and was the first full-length film ever made in Irish. It is through this film that Seán Ó Riada earned his title as one of Ireland's leading composers, and the score of Mise Éire is thought to be the most important Irish composition of the 20th Century. The film is a historical account of the important years in Ireland between the end of the 19th Century and 1918. The film was directed by George Morrisson and consists of 300,000 feet of newsreel footage. The DVD is published and distributed by Gael Linn (http://www.gael-linn.ie/).

Romansch TV goes to Kernow

There was something different about the Yeth an Werin, an informal Cornish language get together,  held in the City Inn in Truro on 26 June.   One corner of the pub was set up like a film set, with strong lights and cameras all around it, but in place of Wycliffe or Ross Poldark, the stars were a group of Cornish language speakers.

A crew from a Romansch TV company  had come to film a large group of Cornish speakers. Romansch is an autochthonous language of Switzerland.

Bertilla Giossi, from Televisiun Rumantscha, said, “There are five types of Romansch in Switzerland, and a standardised version as well. We want to have it taught in schools but there is a big fight going on because the other groups are frightened that their versions will die out in the future”. It would appear that the situation with the Romansch language is not too dissimilar to that of Cornish with its three orthographies.

There is news in Romansch on the TV every day and also a magazine programme every Sunday. This year this programme will be looking at a number of minority languages, for example Friulian in northern Italy, Ladin in the Dolomite mountains, and Cornish.

(Source: Eurolang)

Call for political unity over threat to Danish language TV in Germany

Following  reports of the threatened exclusion of Danish television from the German cable system, the chairman of the Danish minority party Südschleswigscher Wählerverband (SSW) in the federal state parliament, Anke Spoorendonk, said on Tuesday: "Only if all parties in Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark co-operate can we prevent Danish television being excluded from the German cable system. 

"The SSW and the Südschleswig association (SSF) have been concerned about this problem for a while…. Therefore we welcome that the state chancellery and the ULR will now support us with an appraisal on this matter.   Now it depends on both German and Danish cable TV channels seeking a compromise."

SSW http://www.ssw.de/

ULR (Unabhängige Landesanstalt für Rundfunk und Neue Medien, Independent Agency for Broadcasting and Media) http://www.ulr.de/index2.html

Subsidy for Frisian e-learning

The project EduFrysk has been given a subsidy of nearly 200.000 Euro. The Province of Fryslân decided to grant this amount of money to the Afûk, the institute for adult language education in Fryslân.

EduFrysk is an e-learning project. The aim of the project is to create easy accesible and attractive digital Frisian language courses meant for adults and secondary school pupils. In the future EduFrysk should not only be accesible by computer but also by regular TV set. This project is unique for Fryslân: until now such courses did not exist for the Frisian language. The Afûk expects more participants for their language courses when e-learning becomes a fact, because with e-learning even Frisians who live abroad can participate.

The Afûk wanted to develop an e-learing programme years ago, so they are very happy to be able to start the project now, thanks to the subsidy.

New domains and website for Mercator – Education

Since a couple of weeks the websites of Mercator-Education can not only be reached through the usual domains www.mercator-education.org and www.networkofschools.org but now they can also be found by using the domains www.mercator-education.eu and www.networkofschools.eu.

July & August - The School of Law, sponsored by the Council of Europe and Welsh Language Board, will host an International Conference entitled "The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Legal Challenges and Opportunities" between the 20-21 November 2006.

With five years since the United Kingdom ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, this Conference intends to take stock and assess the impact of the Charter by exploring its legal implications for all those states which are party to it. The conference will consider the significance of the Charter for lawyers, and how lawyers and legal institutions can promote the Charter's aims and objectives. The remit of the conference includes all legal aspects of the Charter, and likely topics include:

• Implementation within and impact upon domestic law.
• The potential legal implications of non-compliance, and the justiciability of the Charter.
• The Charter's position and status within European and International Law and jurisprudence.
• The Charter's relationship with other international treaties and instruments concerned with minority language rights.
• The contribution of the Charter towards the wider development of minority language protection.

The organisers welcome proposals from potential speakers on these and other topics broadly related to the overall theme.

More information:

July & August - The School of Law, sponsored by the Council of Europe and Welsh Language Board, will host an International Conference entitled "The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Legal Challenges and Opportunities" between the 20-21 November 2006.

With five years since the United Kingdom ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, this Conference intends to take stock and assess the impact of the Charter by exploring its legal implications for all those states which are party to it. The conference will consider the significance of the Charter for lawyers, and how lawyers and legal institutions can promote the Charter's aims and objectives. The remit of the conference includes all legal aspects of the Charter, and likely topics include:

• Implementation within and impact upon domestic law.
• The potential legal implications of non-compliance, and the justiciability of the Charter.
• The Charter's position and status within European and International Law and jurisprudence.
• The Charter's relationship with other international treaties and instruments concerned with minority language rights.
• The contribution of the Charter towards the wider development of minority language protection.

The organisers welcome proposals from potential speakers on these and other topics broadly related to the overall theme.

More information:

July & August - The European Day of Languages (EDL), a Council of Europe initiative, is held annually on the 26 September to celebrate language and cultural diversity, plurilingalism and lifelong language learning.

First launched in 2001, the EDL has become an annual event on the recommendation of the Council's Committee of Ministers. The day is organised in a decentralised way, so everyone is free to focus on the specific themes or objectives they choose. Last year there were nearly 800 events in 36 countries across Europe.

More information:

European Day of Languages website http://www.ecml.at/edl/

EDL event database http://www.ecml.at/edl/search.asp?s=EV

National relays http://www.ecml.at/edl/default.asp?t=relays&l=E

EDL stickers http://www.ecml.at/edl/default.asp?t=stickers

EDL poster http://www.ecml.at/edl/default.asp?t=poster

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