Free Ukrainian! Special linguistic operation for the Ukraine: Free Ukranian-Danish-Ukrainian dictionary for displaced Ukrainians and their helpers.

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udvalgt billede

(див. український текст нижче)

When I visited an old friend, a farmer, in the countryside, he told me that he had given a safe haven in his farmhouse to a couple of Ukrainians who had fled the violence in their homecountry. The ladies and their families were very happy with their new place. In the meantime, they have moved on to Horsens and Hammel.

The challenge was, that my friend and the Ukrainians could not communicate with each other, because they had no language in common. The Ukrainians only spoke Ukrainian. It is an illusion that “everybody” speaks English. I estimate that one in 30 of the refugees speak some (some) English.

Then I thought: there is a task for … ↪

LingoSlam 2022! More exciting than ever!

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pokal

It happened again! On April 22, 2022 (please also note the date!) 5 ingenious linguistics students competed with great humorous and performative (pun intended) abilities against each other to win in the four categories “poetry”, “academia”, “creativity” and “humor”, and not least – in anticipation for the overall winner – the LingoSlam trophy. The latter led to a surprise, but more on that later. Everything was, as usual, carried forward by a high-spirited and cheering crowd!

LingoSlam is a long-standing tradition that has always been a testament to the ingenuity, high professionalism and not least the ability and willingness of linguistics students to entertain a large crowd of like-minded people.

LingoSlam was invented and for many years organized by Peter … ↪

Report from Liet International 2022 – Corsican victory and almost a Danish-language winner

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Liet International 2022

The music competition Liet International is specific to minority and regional languages. In the time before I became a linguistics student, I heard about it through the then-existing Sprogmuseum, and I remember finding the topic very interesting. Back then I did not expect that over 10 years later I would get the opportunity to be among the live audience – when in took place in Denmark, Tønder, on Friday 13th of May 2022, right between the semifinals and grand final of another song contest. I went there together with three other participants in Lingoslam.

At Liet International, there were 13 artists, each with one track. None of the participants sang in English, but they represented one language (or more) … ↪

Mbessa: The Cameroonian language that refused to be swallowed by Kom

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Africa Map Cameroon
Mbessa (Mbesa) is a kingdom of over 25,000 people in the Anglophone Northwest Region of Cameroon. Mbessa, like the hundreds of other kingdoms in the grassfields of the Northwest Region, is actually called a Fondom and it is headed by a powerful traditional authority called the Fon, and specifically called Foyn in the Mbessa language. It should therefore be understood that Fondom equals kingdom while Fon or Foyn equals king.

The kingdom of Mbessa was founded in the 18th century (circa 1772) by an exiled Nkar man called Tfukenu and a self-exiled Oku prince called Nsuung Nyiete (Mala 2013). Geographically, Mbessa is located between Akeh, Din, Kom and Oku, all of which are neighbouring Fondoms.

Mbessa is found in a

… ↪

Creator of Dothraki language from Game of Thrones visits Aarhus University

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Game of Thrones title card

The creator of the fictional language Dothraki, from the HBO series ‘Game of Thrones’, will fly all the way

from Hollywood to Aarhus University on 14/9 – 19/9 2022, where he will give a presentation on his experience as a professional ‘conlanger’.

He will also be holding an informal meet-and-greet where there will be the opportunity for an autograph or a selfie!

A conlanger is a person who creates fictional languages, or a language that did not emerge naturally. David J. Peterson is probably the most successful conlanger in the world. He is Hollywood’s “go-to conlanger” and has therefore created a considerable number of fictional languages ​​for movies and series such as: Thor 2, Defiance, The Witcher, Game of Thrones, … ↪

PRESS RELEASE: Liet International 2022 definitely in Nordschleswig/Denmark

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Skaermbillede 2022 03 30 kl. 09.19.22 1

From 1st February 2022 there are no longer COVID-19 restrictions in Denmark. Therefore the host of Liet International 2022, the umbrella organisation of the German minority, Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger (BDN) in cooperation with the foundation of Liet International have decided to definitely organise Liet International 2022 on 13 May 2022 in Tondern/Tønder, in the south of Denmark. Local host Uffe Iwersen says “We as German minority in Denmark are very proud to host LIET International 2022 in Tønder/Tondern. The German-Danish border region is one of the most diverse regions in Europe in terms of language and culture. It’s the perfect place to celebrate European diversity.”

28 songs were submitted for Liet International 2022. A selection jury consisting of Nick Veenstra … ↪

A Computational Linguist with HOPE

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logo HOPE

Hope project logo

In late February 2020, I found myself sitting at a table in the Interacting Minds Center with a diverse group of Aarhus University researchers discussing how to research the social and behavioural aspects of the emerging Covid-19 epidemic. The expertise of the other researchers spanned media and information studies, anthropology and ethnography, religious studies, political science, and computer science. I represented linguistics. At the time, Covid-19 had not (to our knowledge) reached Denmark, and it was still at least a week before the WHO would officially designate it a global pandemic. We suspected that this virus might have significant consequences for our lives, but we could never have imagined how much and how quickly.

Just weeks later, … ↪