Rechte Spalte

Activities

The activities of ELAMA since 1999 consist of three main areas: the symposia just mentioned above, lectures, and Eurolinguistic publications. In order to give the reader an idea of the topics in focus during the first period,the following list is presented.

1. Lectures, work shops and conference participation on Eurolinguistics in the early phase

The impetus of publications covering language contacts in major parts of northern and north-western Europe, as well as the North Atlantic Rim, continued after 1997 in a special series of guest lectures on the topic ”What is Eurolinguistics about?” These lectures were presented at different European universities in order to spread the new concept of ”Eurolinguistics” and make it better known to scholars and to the general public in a wide geographical spectrum:

  • Workshop in Heidelberg (Dec. 2, 1997) at the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar presented by LAMA: Dr George Broderick (Celtology); Dr Gabriele Birken-Silverman (Romance languages); Dr Olga Voronkova (Slavic and Baltic languages); Dr. Elke Zengerling-Veith (Linguistics and Germanic); Prof. Dr. Sture Ureland (General lLinguistics)
  • Workshop in Tübingen (Jan. 26, 1998) with the same lecturers and topics.
  • Lecture by Prof. Ureland at the Centro Internazionale sul Plurilinguismo in Udine, Italy, (March 17, 1998).
  • Lecture by Prof. Ureland and Dr. Voronkova at the University of Finances in St. Petersburg, Russia (May 26, 1998).
  • Lecture at the Centre of Multilingual Research a the University of Uppsala,Sweden, (March 1998).

2. Papers given at conferences

The concept of Eurolinguistics was also introduced in papers given at various conferences:

  • At the conference of Swedish historians at the University of Stockholm in 1997 (May 22 –24), Prof. Ureland gave a paper titled ”On the Way to Modern languages, which treated the rise of the Scandinavian languages between 1100 A.D. and 1600 A.D. within a Eurolinguistic framework.
  • At the ”Minority Identities Today” conference at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1999 (June 19 – 21), Prof. Ureland and Dr. Voronkova presented Eurolinguistic perspectives in dealing with language contacts on the Baltic Sea.
  • At the 1999 (August 27–28) Finno-Ugrist symposium on ”Sociolinguistic and Language Contact Research in the Northern Baltic Area,” Prof. Ureland and Dr Olga Voronkova conjointly gave a paper in a Eurolinguistic framework at the University of Stockholm.
  • At the 2002 (Dec. 5-7) Conference of the Centro Internazionale sul Plurilinguismo a paper was presented on “Identity and Conflict in Pentaglossic Vilnius” by Prof.Ureland and Dr Voronkova.

3. Eurolinguistic publications

  • Ureland, Sture (1997): ”Sprachkarte von Nordeuropa (Skandinavien und Island)”. In: Kontaktlinguistik. Ein internationales Handbuch, ed. by Goebl et al., Berlin: de Gruyter. pp.1981-1985.
  • Ureland, P. Sture und Olga Voronkova (1999): Kontakt Typologie, Eurolinguistik und die Sprachen im Baltikum und in Skandinavien”. In: Reiter (ed.) 1999: 217 – 267.
  • Nobert Reiter(1999): Eurolinguistik - Ein Schritt in die Zukunft. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz.
  • Fusco, Fabiana, Vicenzo Orioles and Alice Parmeggiani (eds.)(2000): Processi di Covergenza e Differenziazione nelle Lingue dell’Europa Mediviale e Moderna. Udine: Forum.
  • Ureland.Sture (ed.) (2001): Global Eurolinguistics. European Languages in North America. Migration, Maintenance and Death. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  • Ureland,P. Sture (ed.) (2003): Convergence and Divergence of European Languages. In: Studies in Eurolinguistics. Vol. 1. Berlin: Logos Verlag.
  • Müller, Martina (2003): Sprachkontakt und Sprachwandel auf der Insel Skye (Schottland). In: Studies in Eurolinguistics, Vol. 3. Berlin: Logos Verlag.
  • Hinrichs, Uwe und Uwe Büttner (eds.)(2004):Die europäischen Sprachen auf dem Wege zum Analytischen Sprachtyp.In: Eurolinguistische Arbeiten, Band 1. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
  • Ureland,Sture (ed.) (2005): Integration of European Language Research. In: Studies in Eurolinguistics, Vol. 2. Berlin: Logos Verlag.
  • Kämmerer, Carmen(2006): Codeswitching in Predigten des 15. Jahrhunderts: Mittellatein − Frühneuhochdeutsch, Mittellatein − Altitalienisch/Altspanisch. In: Studies in Eurolinguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: Logos Verlag.
  • Ureland, Sture (ed.)(2007): Language Contact and Minority Languages on the Littorals of Europe. In:Studies in Eurolinguistics. Vol 5. Berlin: Logos Verlag.

4. Short Reports of Eurolinguistic Symposia

The Pushkin Symposium in Puskin, Russia, Sept. 10-16, 1999 and following contacts

The goals presented in The Pushkin Manifesto were formulated partly in connection with the foundation of ELAMA and partly during the second meeting of ELAMA in June 1999, and finally at the Pushkin Symposium itself in September 1999. From the very beginning, the difference in scope was stressed between the Europe-wide, interdisciplinary goals of Eurolinguistics on the one hand, and the more narrow national-philological or national-structuralist disciplines with their limited European orientation on the other (cf. ”Against a Rephilologization of Linguistics”). In order to carry out a Europe-wide programme in the sense of the Pushkin Theses, there was and will be a great need for researchers and institutes to co-operate on things European — be it of a linguistic, ethnic or cultural-historical character. Contacts have been established, therefore, between the linguistics and language departments of the local universities (Heidelberg, Mannheim, Tübingen, Leipzig, Berlin), Scandinavia (Uppsala, Stockholm, Helsinki, Jyväskylä), East Europe (Vilnius, Lithuania, Olsztyn, Poland and St. Petersburg, Russia), France (Strasbourg, Lille), Italy (Udine, Rome, Teramo,Urbino, Milano), Spain (Murcia), Croatia (Zadar, Zagreb), Scotland (Aberdeen, St Andrews).

The expertise on language contact and multilingualism found in all these universities were initiated through the success of ”The Second Symposium on Eurolinguistics: Contact Typology, Convergence and Divergence and the Rise of New Languages and Nations in Europe”held in Pushkin, Russia in 1999 (September 10 –16).Another stimulating impetus to multilingual and multicultural activities and international cooperation at a European level was the participation in the Tempus Programme financed by the European Commission at the University of Zadar between 2002-2006, where a broad spectrum of lecturers and visiting professors from different European universities (St Andrews, Antwerp, Vienna, Udine, Mannheim) offered guest lectures and interdisciplinary cooperation for students originating from Croatia. One example is the Eurolinguistics Symposium held in Zadar, in which also speakers from non-Tempus participating countries could participate. See the following report on the Eurolinguistcs symposium in Zadar as an example of such international cooperation in the framework of the Tempus Programme 2002-2006, to which ELAMA was invited to contribute:

The Fourth Symposium in Zadar, Croatia, Sept. 19-22, 2002

(Lelija Socanac, The Linguistic Research Institute, The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb)

Eurolinguistics has been established in the past few years as a new orientation in linguistics that places the multilingual individual in the centre of research. On a wider basis, its focus is on the linguistic and cultural divergence or convergence that arises through the effects of multilingualism. Its task is to describe historical and contemporary contact typologies of the European languages taking into account the historical, political, social and economic factors giving rise to such typologies. Eurolinguistics is thus involved in in-depth studies of the whole historical and social context that has given rise to the network of similarities and dissimilarities in European languages. The insights into the common linguistic and cultural basis of European languages should foster a sense of European identity, counteracting nationalistic tendencies in the science of language. As such, Eurolinguistics is an integral part of a new interdisciplinary branch of the humanities - European studies (Europäistik).

It is along these lines that four symposia on Eurolinguistics have been organised: in Glienicke, Germany (1997), Pushkin, Russia (1999), Mannheim/Strasbourg (2001) and Zadar, Croatia, (2002). The aim of these symposia has been to provide insights on various language contact phenomena in order to liberate linguistics from narrow national and monolingual perspectives and establish a new, Europe-wide view of European languages and their mutual contacts.

Faculty of Philosophy, Zadar and the Linguistic Research Intstitute of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb. It was supported by the University of Mannheim and the Ministry of Science and Technology, Zagreb. It was attended by 23 speakers from eleven countries: Germany (1), Switzerland (2), Italy (1), Russia (1), Great Britain (2), Belgium (1), Sweden (2), Latvia (2), USA (1), Slovenia (1), and Croatia (9). The topic of the symposium was “A typology of language contacts around the Baltic and Adriatic seas”.

The symposium was opened by Sture Ureland (Mannheim) who gave an overall view of the development of Eurolinguistics between 1997 and 2002. In the presentations that followed, participants focused on various aspects of language contacts, with several attempts to compare the patterns of language contact in the Adriatic and Baltic areas. Some participants focused on general aspects of language contact. Remigio Ratti and Alessio Petralli (Lugano) discussed the role of the media in overcoming of borders and barriers in the light of globalization vs. fragmentation processes, focusing on the case of the Italian radio-television in Switzerland. Maja Bratanic (Zagreb) discussed language contacts in EU legal terminology stressing the importance of translation and the role of multilingualism as the basis of the common European heritage. Vincenzo Merolle (Rome) spoke about Europe as a linguistic unit and the legacy of Latin as the source of a large number of internationalisms in European languages.

In the section of Eurolinguistics north (The Baltic Sea area) Jurij Kusmenko (St Petersburg) focused on the emergence of the suffixed definite article in Scandinavia and the Balkans as a result of language contact arising from the same borrowing patterns. Stefan Pugh (St Andrews, Scotland) compared the Baltic and Adriatic regions with respect to structural and sociological aspects of language contact, taking into account language typology, degree of relatedness, time of contact, contiguity, social/cultural position of languages in contact, their literary, political and religious status, language attitudes etc. Sture Ureland (Mannheim) focused on contact typology and multilingualism in an effort to compare the Baltic and the Mediterranean areas, taking into consideration both the geographical characteristics and a wide historical, social and political context. Ludger Kremer (Antwerp) gave a detailed analysis of Low German in contact with other languages both from the diachronic perspective, involving various diglossic situations, and the synchronic perspective, including phenomena such as codeswitching, interference and transference on the lexical, grammatical and pragmatic levels. Erling Wande (Stockholm) analyzed the Baltic-Finnic syntax in Sweden, concentrating on the grammatical cases in Meänkieli, Sweden-Estonian and Sweden-Finnish. Eric de Geer (Uppsala) discussed the exodus of the Ingrian Finns from the St Petersburg area during World War II, taking into consideration the distribution of a population as an important factor in language maintenance. Ojars Buss (Riga) discussed German elements in the place-names of the Baltic area, while Laimiute Balode (Riga), spoke about language contacts on the basis of Latvian hydronyms.

In discussing Eurolinguistics South (the Adriatic and Mediterranean Areas), participants focused on a number of topics from synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Wayles Brown (Cronell, USA), spoke about purism in the South Slavic languages as a part of the tradition of language standardization, showing that languages which are typologically similar can have different degrees of purism. Slobodan Cace (Zadar) presented the evidence of the earliest language contacts in the Adriatic Illyricum between the 4th and 1th century BC based on the early inscriptions. Žarko Muljacic (Zagreb) spoke about Vegliotic, an autochtonous Romance idiom which was spoken on the island of Krk before the end of the 19th century, and the influence exerted on its phonology by Greek, Croatian and Venetian. Branko Franolic (London) discussed loanwords of the Arabic, Persian and Turkish origin in Croatian. Vlado Skracic (Zadar) spoke about different linguistic layers in the Adriatic toponymy. Dunja Brozovic (Zagreb) spoke about the Croatian language island in Molise, Italy, focusing on place-names and proper names. Lelija Socanac (Zagreb) presented the language contacts in the Ragusan Republic, with a special emphasis on the Italian influence on Croatian. Vesna Muhvic-Dimanovski (Zagreb) spoke about similarities and differences between the Italian and German influence on Croatian. Dunja Jutronic (Maribor) drew a picture of the Cakavian dialect through two generations illustrating various aspects of dialect change in contact with the dominant standard language. Goran Filipi (Pula) discussed the linguistic situation in Istria, while Robert Blagoni (Pula) focused his interest on present-day language contacts in the same area.

The symposium has opened a number of new and challenging questions which will provide a starting point for future research with the aim of establishing language typologies in the Adriatic and Baltic areas. The symposium has also given an important contribution to the development of the postgraduate program of "European Studies: Languages and Cultures in Contact" which has been initiated as a Tempus project at the Faculty of Philosophy, Zadar.