MINELRES: Mercator Common Newsletter January 2005

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Mercator Newsletter - No.10, January 2005 
[Mercator-Education] [Mercator-Legislation] [Mercator-Media] 

>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. 

News 
Miscellany 
4th Mercator International Symposium
Mercator Media 
Translation of Culture, Culture of Translation: Languages in Film,
Television and Literature 
a.. Media News - MM 
b.. Legislation News - ML 

a.. III Mercator International Symposium - ME 
b.. GeoNames 2005 - ME 
c.. Authors needed for dossiers - ME 
d.. New structure and design of ML's site - ML 

Publications 

a.. Forum 8 - MM 
b.. Bulletin 60 - ML 
c.. Dossier 17 - ML 
d.. New articles - ME 


IV Mercator International Symposium
"Translation of Culture, Culture of Translation: Languages in Film,
Television and Literature" 

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):

a.. The politics of translation 
b.. The effects of 'global' culture 
c.. Cultural policy and translation 
d.. Language transfer and cultural transfer 
e.. Translation and language planning 
f.. International partnerships 
g.. Digital technology and the internet 
h.. Sign languages in the audiovisual media 
i.. Learners and fluent speakers as audiences/readers 
j.. Children as audience/readers 

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 
a.. Basque Teaching On Line [+] 
b.. Irish Language Daily Faces Hostile Campaign [+] 
c.. Radio stations in the northern Basque Country demand coherent policy
from authorities [+] 
d.. Language Policy for Brittany [+] 
e.. Breton-French Translation Program to be Developed [+] 
f.. Estonia closes Russian language TV channel [+] 
g.. Sweblul wants a joint web portal for the minority languages in the
Baltic Sea region [+] 
h.. Sign Language Chat continues on Finnish digital television [+]


Legislation news - Mercator Linguistic Rights and Legislation

a.. Spain: new driving license differentiates between Catalan and
Valencian [+] 
b.. Crisis in Belgium between the Flemish and Walloon communities [+] 
c.. Linguistic compromise of the luxembourg EU presidency [+] 
d.. Tatar language will continue to be written through the cyrillic
alphabet (RFE/RL newsline) [+] 
e.. Gaeltacht placenames will be in Irish in march [+] 
f.. Finland submits its second report on the Framework Convention for
the Protection of National Minorities [+]

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:

a.. Malta: Maltese Language Act 
b.. Macedonia: Law on Local Elections 
c.. Estonia: Citizenship Act 
d.. Estonia: Amendment of Regulation No. 164, Mandatory Levels of
Proficiency in Estonian for Employees of Companies, Non-profit
Associations and Foundations and for Sole Proprietors 
e.. Estonia: Amendment of Regulation No. 249, Approval of Mandatory
Levels of Proficiency in Estonian, Extent of and Procedure for
Consultations Prior to Estonian Language Proficiency Examinations and
Format of Certificate of Proficiency in Estonian Language 
f.. Last bibliography highlights 
g.. Last links highlights


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:

a.. The rules governing the languages of the European Union: which
languages and to what extent? A practical guide 
b.. El r�gim ling��stic de la Uni� Europea: quines lleng�es i amb quin
abast? Una guia pr�ctica
(by Bernat Pujadas) 

Articles on ML's in education in the new EU-member states online -
Mercator Education

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=34>
63

GeoNames 2005: International Conference - Mercator Education 
GeoNames 2005: International Conference on Minority Names/Indigenous
Names and Multilingual Areas 
Place: Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, The Netherlands 
Date: 14-15(16) April 2005 
http://geonames.geog.uu.nl/

Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, in the heart of the Frisian language minority area
in the Netherlands, will be the venue of a short international
conference on minority names, indigenous names and geographical names in
multilingual areas, organized jointly by the Frisian Academy and the
Dutch and German Speaking Division of the United Nations Group of
Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN). [+]

Authors needed for new dossiers - Mercator Education 
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. 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 Eur 600,- for a new dossier
and Eur 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