Anyone Know How to Say 'Happy Birthday' in Icelandic?
(L-R): Former President of Iceland Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, Prof Peter Austin, Prof Jen Alwood (Gothenburg University), Gauti Kristmannson (University of Iceland), Baldur Ragnasson (book translator), Sigurdur Svavarsson (book publisher).
Iceland is perhaps not an obvious destination for a scholarly visit from a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
But Peter K Austin, the director of the Endangered Languages Academic Programme at SOAS, recently returned from Reykjavik, where he delivered a public lecture as part of an 81st birthday celebration held in honour of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the beloved former president of Iceland and Unesco Goodwill Ambassador for Languages.
"Iceland is in the process of establishing a Unesco Vigdis Institute for Multilingualism and Cross-cultural Communication – linguistic diversity is an important topic in Iceland, which has an amazing linguistic and cultural heritage, with the sagas dating back over 1,000 years," said Professor Austin, who is the Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics at SOAS. "Icelanders are keenly interested in the global and local economic and social significance of speaking multiple languages.”
The visit coincided with the publication of an Icelandic translation of 1000 Languages, a book edited by Professor Austin which surveys linguistic diversity around the world. This may be the first SOAS book ever translated into Icelandic.
The book (Icelandic title: Eitt þúsund tungumál) contains contributions by Professor Austin as well as Professor Philip Jaggar (Department of the Languages and Cultures of Africa), Dr Friederike Luepke (Department of Linguistics), Dr Lutz Marten (Africa) and Dr Nicholas Ostler (research associate, Linguistics). It was first published in English in 2008 and has also been translated into Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, Rumanian, Estonian, and Japanese.
Professor Austin spoke at the birthday celebration at the invitation of the University of Iceland's World Language Centre -- he is a member of its international advisory board. His lecture, delivered on 15 April, was entitled '7,000 Languages – Global and Local Linguistic and Cultural Diversity’. A video recording of the lecture will soon be posted at http://www.vigdis.hi.is/mynd_og_hljodupptokur.
"Of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, over half are threatened with extinction by the end of this century," said Professor Austin. "SOAS is at the forefront of research and training to document, archive and publish information about as many of these endangered languages as possible before they disappear forever. However, it is a desperate race against time. The new Vigdis Institute will help draw world attention to this important issue.”
The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project at SOAS will celebrate Endangered Languages Week 9-14 May. The week will include displays, discussions, films and workshops about what is happening to languages and what is being done to document, archive and support endangered languages. Highlights will include a daily 'Meet an Endangered Language' and an Open Day for the general public on Thursday 12 May.
(Happy Birthday in Icelandic, by the way, is Til hamingju med afmaelisdaginn!)