Ott Tammik, ERR News
A conference on the survival of languages rare, endangered and extinct is being held at the National Library on Friday and Saturday.

The main topic of the conference will be survival strategies of languages of small ethnic groups and the balance, or lack thereof, between the fear of losing the native language on the one hand and various modern cultural trends ot the other.

“The problems that today concern small nations, may in a few decades become topical for much larger nations and their respective languages,” a press release said.

Arnaq Grove from Denmark will discuss the future of the Greenlandic language, and Delyth Prys from Wales will speak about her experience with language revival in her homeland. Other topics include the challenges facing Friulan as well as Finno-Ugric languages.

On Saturday evening, the Drama Theater will present a play inspired by an Estonian researcher who traveled to Siberia to learn Kamassian, now an extinct Samoyedic language, from its last native speaker, who died in 1989.

The event will be attended by the Estonian president, as well as visitors from France, Italy, Hungary, Latvia, Finland, Russia and elsewhere.

Märkmed: