Graham Davies Posted September 13, 2004 Share Posted September 13, 2004 Dear Colleagues Just a reminder that it's the European Day of Languages on 26 September 2004. The ECML in Graz has several Web pages celebrating the event: http://www.ecml.at/edl/ Can anyone help identify the languages on the "Talk to me" stickers at: http://www.ecml.at/edl/default.asp?t=stickers My first shot - just an intelligent guess - follows. I am sure I have got a few wrong: 1. English, 2. French, 3. German , 4. Italian 5. Spanish, 6. Greek, 7. Latvian, 8. Dutch 9 Estonian, 10. Romanian, 11. Catalan, 12. Croatian 13. Macedonian, 14. Armenian, 15. Bulgarian, 16. Finnish 17. Czech, 18. Lithuanian, 19. Icelandic, 20. Albanian 21. Polish, 22. Maltese, 23. Slovenian, 24. Russian 25. Portuguese, 26. Norwegian, 27. Serbian, 28. Swedish 29. Slovakian, 30. Hungarian, 31. Georgian, 32. Turkish 33. Danish, 34. Ukranian, 35. Azerbajdjanian, 36. Gaelic 37. Letzeburgesch, 38. Rumansch, 39. Belorussian I picked up some nice multilingual stickers and postcards at the Linguanet Europa stand at EUROCALL 2004. These have been published by CILT/ALL for the European Day of Languages: http://www.cilt.org.uk/edl/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Davies Posted September 14, 2004 Author Share Posted September 14, 2004 If you are still puzzling over the languages at the ECML website, I have been contacted by CILT who confirm that I got them all right, with a few suggested additions/corrections: 10. Add Moldovan as well as Romanian 12. Add Bosnian as well as Croatian 35. Azerbajdjanian is known as Azeri 36. Irish My own comments on the above: 10. Moldovan is a variety of Romanian. Moldova was part of the Soviet Union and cut off from Romania (which borders it) until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 - and then the language reverted to its original Roman alphabet, having been written in Cyrillic under Soviet rule. When Moldova found its national identity again the language enjoyed a revival. 12. Bosnian is variety of Serbo-Croatian and has also found its identity now that Bosnia is recognised as a separate country rather than a federal state of what used to be Yugoslavia. Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian are mutually comprehensible. 35. Azeri is the correct term for the language. 36. Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic are very close. I evaluated an EC-funded email project in 1994 which involved linking schools in one of the Gaeltacht regions of Ireland (West Galway) with schools in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The children had few problems understanding written email exchanges - but it might have been different if they had been speaking to one another as spoken Gaelic has strong regional variations, even within the Gaeltacht in Ireland. Welsh (my father's language) - although part of the same Celtic group of languages - is a lot different from Gaelic, but some words are similar. While travelling in the Gaeltacht last year I could make sense of some place names. Re Moldovan and Bosnian, the difference between a language and a dialect is often determined by political considerations rather than linguistic considerations. Max Weinreich described a language thus: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" - or "A shprakh iz a diyalekt mit an armey un a flot" in the original Yiddish ("Yivo and the problems of our time", Yivo-Bleter, 1945, Vol. 25, No. 1, p. 13.) I speak and understand High German, but I cannot understand Swiss German or Bavarian/Tyrolean, both of which are described my many linguists as dialects of German, but they fulfil the criteria for being considered different languages from High German. "Eichhörnchen" (squirrel) in German is "Oachkatzel" in Bavarian/Tyrolean - "Oachkatzelschwoaf" ("squirrel's tail" and also the name of an alcoholic cocktail) being a shibboleth to test whether you can really speak Bavarian/Tyrolean. Scots (Lallans, not Gaelic) and Ulster Scots (Ullans) are classified as different languages from English. I've often been in situations in Scotland and Northern Ireland when I have completel failed to understand what was being said to me - but, having been married to a Belfast Girl for more than 30 years, my ear is now tuned into Ulster Scots and I understand perfectly expressions such as "he got a quare gunk" and "thon wee fellow fernenst me". See the European Minority Languages website: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/saoghal/mion-chanain/en/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audrey McKie Posted September 23, 2005 Share Posted September 23, 2005 Dear Colleagues I just thought that I would try to revive this tread as the European Day of Languages is approaching fast. Are you doing anything special in your school? What has the response been by colleagues from other faculties? if any or if involved. I have just started in a new post in Cheshire and I am pleased to see that the Languages has got a pretty high profile, possibly because we have a Dep Head and an Asst Head in the Faculty... This is what we've organised (I say WE but I mean the Head of Faculty): -an inter-tutor quiz about languages and European countries and cultures -willing teachers to greet students in a foreign language -students are challenged to teach teachers a aord or a fact about a language or country (which they didn't alrready know) One of the Maths NQTs, who is fluent in French is planning to do her lessons in French for that day too. I think this is fantastic and I am positively impressed ny the lack of reluctance of the staff here to get stuck in! Tell us all about your plans or what you have done in the past or did if you don't get to read this before Monday... Happy European Day of Languages Joyeuse Journee Europeenne des Langues Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Davies Posted September 23, 2005 Author Share Posted September 23, 2005 There was a lively thread concerning the European Day of Languages around 10 days ago in the Linguanet Forum at http://www.mailbase.org.uk/lists/linguanet...um/archive.html Lots of interesting suggestions came in from teachers. The European Award for Languages 2005 is being presented on the 2005 European Day of Languages, Mon 26 September, at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by Sir Trevor McDonald. I have been invited to attend this event. See CILT's website for further information about the European Day of Languages http://www.cilt.org.uk/edl/ Try the A-Z challenge: How many languages can you say "Hello" in? I counted 15 languages in which I can greet someone - and also order a beer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audrey McKie Posted September 23, 2005 Share Posted September 23, 2005 Graham said I counted 15 languages in which I can greet someone - and also order a beer! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Typical!!! Thanks, very helpful Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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