MINELRES: Mercator Newsletter 1 - February 2003

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: Johannes Hamersma <jhamersma@hotmail.com>


http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm
[Mercator-Education] [Mercator-Legislation] [Mercator-Media]

First Common Newsletter

>From now on Mercator-Education, Mercator-Legislation and Mercator-Media
will send out a common newsletter. You will be informed of developments
in the field of minority languages regarding Legislation, Education en
Media at the same time.

Mercator Symposium [8/4/2003 - 10/4/2003]
First Mercator International Symposium on European Minority Languages
and Research: Aberystwyth 8-10 April 2003

News
Legislation (you will be forwarded to the legislation website)
Italian public radio and television (RAI) commits itself to protecting
linguistic minorities
Teaching of Galician in border areas of Castile and Leon is far from
being fully normalised
Croatia adopts constitutional law on minorities (Eurolang)
Spanish legislation discriminates regional languages in Spain (El
Triangle)
There will be no minority representatives in the new minority committee
at the German parliament (Eurolang)
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages enter into force
in Cyprus
France's council of state annuls education in regional languages
Eblul opens an info point in Dublin (Press release)
The European parliament publishes report on "the European Union and
lesser-used languages"
The Basque public terminological database will be updated (Gara)
The new Finnish language act is not to enter into force until the
beginning of 2004
Publications

Education (you will be forwarded to the education website)
Regional dossiers: Turkish in Greece
European Network of good-example bi- and trilngual Schools
Overview of languages in the new memberstates
Some interesting books

Media
Portuguese Regional Weekly gives space to Mirandÿs
New Scottish Gaelic Computer Products
Occitan Radio left out of Frequency Allocations
New CD-rom teaches Cornish

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Portuguese Regional Weekly gives space to Mirandÿs
Nordeste (www.jornalnordeste.com), a weekly regional paper in Bragança,
Portugal has begun to dedicate a page to the Mirandÿs language, giving
readers an opportunity to learn the language. According to sources
involved with the project, the first section exclusively in Mirandÿs
was to be included in an issue appearing on 21st January. The stated aim
is to spread the language and encourage the people of Miranda to write
in their own language which has hitherto been confined more or less to
oral discourse. The official status which has been accorded to Mirandÿs
has allowed the publication of orthographic conventions and written
norms which will be of assistance with the new section in the newspaper.
The page is to include pieces about research on the language, poems and
an anecdote. The creation of this section is to have the support of the
Mirandÿs scholar Amadeu Ferreira, a native of the Bragança district
and president of an association for the development of Mirandÿs
culture. The page is, according to its producers, open to the
involvement of all those concerned with the protection of the language.

New Scottish Gaelic Computer Products
Ìletec, a computer solutions company based on Ìle (Islay) in the
Hebrides has recently developed, among other Gaelic IT products, a
Gaelic keyboard for PC and Mac (see www.gaelic-keyboard.co.uk). The
keyboard facilitates the production of certain Gaelic accented
characters, prioritising them over other letters on the standard
keyboard which are not generally used in the language. Another product
in the pipeline is a Gaelic speaking clock for the computer desktop. It
is expected this will be launched shortly.

Occitan Radio left out of Frequency Allocations
The Conseil Supÿrieur de l’Audiovisuel, the authority responsible for
the allocation of frequencies to independent radio stations in France,
has this month (January 2003), after a two year process of inviting
applications, selected the radio stations to which it wishes to allocate
available frequencies in the region of Languedoc Roussillon. Of the
projects for Occitan stations, only the one in Narbonne has been
accepted. The projects in Castelnaudary and Carcassonne, as well as R�
dio Lengadoc (www.radiolengadoc.com) in Seta – Montpelher (Sóte -
Montpelier) have been rejected. The implications of this for the media
use of the Occitan language are particularly grave given the general
lack of Occitan on public radio in the region.  In Seta, the relevant
frequency has been allocated to a France-wide commercial station. R� dio
Lengadoc was founded in July 1999 by the Association Son e Resson
Occitan.  It had been broadcasting on air on a temporary frequency
between 18.00 and 22.00 and 24 hours a day on the internet. Since the
decision not to grant a permanent frequency it now broadcasts on the
internet only.

New CD-rom teaches Cornish
Friday 24th January 2003 was the launch of a new CD-rom by the company
Eurotalk. They have created this computer programme to teach the
language in schools, at home, and elsewhere. The idea behind the project
is to help schools teach the language even if there are not enough
Cornish teachers around. The voices are those of Pol Hodge and Frances
Bennett. Both Common Cornish and Unified Cornish Revised are used on the
CD-rom. To hear an excerpt from the CD-rom click here.

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Publications

Mercator Legislation bulletin no. 52 (IV trimester 2002)
Council of State Decision regarding the bilingual education system 2002
France
Council of State Decision allowing under public regulations the Diwan
institutions 2002 France
Organic law regulating the right to petition 2001 Spain
Council of the European Union: Resolution of the Committee of Minister
on 3 July 2002, on the implementation of the Framework Convention for
the Protection of National Minorities by Italy
...........
[From the MINELRES moderator: Apparently, the Committee of Ministers of
the Council of Europe is meant above]
...........
Dossier no. 12
Transfrontier cooperation and language policy: the case of the
Lëtzeguergesch language

Working Paper no. 10
The ratification by the United Kingdom of the European charter for
regional or minority languages - By Robert Dunbar, Senior Lecturer in
Law of The School of Law at the University of Glasgow. (Soon available
in Catalan)

You can also order:

a.. LLL - Links of Language Legislation. Handbook on the main EU
language legislation documents
b.. LLL - Enllaços de Legislació Lingüística. Guia d'accÿs als
principals documents de legislacío lingüística de la UE

These are paper publications. If you want to purchase a copy (cost: €9
+ post expenses), please contact: mercator@ciemen.org
For more information about linguistic rights and legislation, visit
Mercator-Legislation.