Adelaide Language Festival celebrates diversity

Thursday, 1 May 2014

The University of Adelaide is hosting a free public event this month to celebrate diversity in languages, and to help people in the community learn more about the advantages of being multilingual.

The Adelaide Language Festival will be held at the University's North Terrace campus on Friday and Saturday 16-17 May.

Crash courses of 30 languages from around the globe will be given at the event, which also features guest speakers and sessions on why learning languages gives you a healthier mind, and whether we should reclaim dead languages.

Among sessions on Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, Persian, Latin, Arabic and Kaurna, there are also sessions on the fictional Klingon language from the Star Trek movies and TV series, and the international constructed language Esperanto. Singing and dancing will also be featured.

The event is the brainchild of Ghil'ad Zuckermann, Professor of Linguistics and Endangered Languages at the University of Adelaide, who is a champion of language diversity.

The Adelaide Language Festival will be opened by the Federal Minister for Education, the Hon. Christopher Pyne MP, with the keynote address to be given by Professor Roly Sussex OAM (University of Queensland).

WHAT: Adelaide Language Festival
WHEN: Friday 16 May: 10.15am-12.15pm
Saturday 17 May: 10.00am-4.15pm
WHERE: North Terrace campus, University of Adelaide
venues: Bonython Hall (16 May), The Braggs Lecture Theatre (17 May) and Lower Ground Napier Building (17 May)
COST: Free and open to all - no bookings necessary

For full program details, visit the Adelaide Language Festival website: www.hss.adelaide.edu.au/linguistics/alf

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