Conferences: ACAL 2017 & two BAAL events

Here is some information on three upcoming conferences that deal in one way or another with African language topics. The first, the 48th Annual Conference of African Linguistics (ACAL), will be held at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, Indiana, US on March 30 - April 2, 2017 (CFP already passed). The other two are organized by groups connected with the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL): The BAAL - Cambridge University Press Seminar Series (BAAL-CUP), will be held at Aston University in Birmingham, UK on 27-28 April 2017 (CFP deadline Feb. 20); and the BAAL - Language in Africa Special Interest Group (BAAL-LIASIG) Annual Conference, will be held at the University of Reading in Reading, UK on May 12, 2017 (CFP deadline March 31).

ACAL 48

The ACAL, run since 2013 by an organization with the same acronym, the Association of Contemporary African Linguistics, is a major annual academic meeting on African languages and linguistics. I personally had the chance to present at ACAL 35 in 2004, and to attend ACAL 38 ten years ago.

This year's conference is hosted by the Department of Linguistics at Indiana University. "The conference will focus on all aspects of African linguistics, from linguistic description to theoretical analysis and sociolinguistics."

Links to registration and the program page (though the latter was blank at the time of this writing).

BAAL-CUP

The BAAL-CUP seminar has as its theme "Minority Languages in New Media: Towards language revitalisation in Europe and Africa." The term "minority language" is a little tricky, but in the African context, I read it as applying to most if not all African languages.

Per the seminar information, it "is intended to identify and discuss emerging trends in the study of minority languages in new media and technology. This includes the ways in which minority languages are supported through their presence in new media, and how minority language users are making use of their languages in digital landscapes traditionally dominated by global languages such as English."

"New Media  refers to digital communication platforms such as online news  sites, blogs, wikis, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and other Social Media."

Links to the CFP and registration.

BAAL-LIASIG 2017

The LIA SIG conference this year has the theme "Language without Borders: Multilingual Communication in Africa and the Diaspora."

Per the CFP, topics addressing the theme may include for example: oral communication; multilingualism; language choice; codeswitching; translanguaging in education; and translation.

Links to the CFP and registration.

So, what about the last year?

Busy. Some work highlights:

• Vastly expanded the Pan African Localisation wiki (and that's still in progress). The idea with this is to develop a comprehensive information resource for people of a range of backgrounds approaching localization in African languages. First of all, localizers - people working on or planning a project for some aspect of localization in one or more African langauges. Also policymakers (ICT, language, and increasingly localization), development program planners, local activists, etc. It involves bringing a lot of information together (in many cases just basic with outlinks) and interlinking it. Localization to a certain degree involves bringing together of "previously unrelated skills, or matrices, of thought" (per the well known formulation of Arthur Koestler in another context some years ago) so this wiki is combining information on African languages and sociolinguistics, along with language technology tools, ICT4D information, mention of policies etc. In fact, all these "skils or matrices of thought" can also be understood as interacting parts of a larger "localization ecology," which is a concept I'm working on.


• Presented at and participated in "Regional Consultation on Local Language Computing Policy in Developing Asia" and "PAN Localization Project Phase II Meeting"meetings of the PAN Localisation Project, held in Thimphu, Bhutan in January. The PAN L10n project is funded by IDRC and has been particularly successful in facilitating localization work in several countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The discussion of "local language computing policy" involved representatives from several other countries in the region.


• Attended a one-day seminar on "Recent Experiences on Measuring Languages in Cyberspace" at UNESCO in Paris. This was on 22 February, the second day of a two day observance of "International Mother Language Day."


• Helped organize and participated in the "Pan African Research on L10N Workshop & Localization Blitz" held in Marrakech, Morocco in February 2007. This is another piece in IDRC's strategy to develop a network for localization in Africa. The workshop was organized by the Tactical Technology Collective - same organization that put together Africa Source I (Okahandja, Namibia, 2004) & II (Kalangala, Uganda, 2006) and the Localisation Dev workshop (Warsaw, Poland, 2004). Many of the participants also had been at the PanAfrican Localisation Workshop in Casablanca, Morocco (2005); three others and I came from the seminar in Paris mentioned above.


• Attended the 38th ACAL 2007 & 11th ALTA 2007 Conference held at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, US, in March 2007. This was an opportunity to connect with various people involved in research on and teaching of African languages. It has been my thought for a while that linguists and language instructors can be involved more with localization efforts.


• Submitted extensive comments on the Africa section of the "International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development" in May. More about this in a later post.


• Taught a distance course on "Language and Development Communication for the Payson School of Tulane University. This was an interesting challenge and opportunity to learn as well as teach. I hope I have the opportunity to give this course again.


• Continued to interact online with various people working on aspects of localization and internationalization. This is not really news though - have been doing this in one form or another for several years.

At the Annual Conference of African Linguistics(ACAL) - the 35th - this year at Harvard University. Had an opportunity to present on African languages and ICT, network, and learn quite a bit about other research relevant to my work and that of Bisharat. I will try to post more on observations and ideas in some next postings.

At this point I will modify the heading/description of this weblog to add a different take: "Beyond Niamey" will also have the sense of the implications of the Niamey 1978 "expert meeting," one of several in Africa on the topic of harmonization of transcriptions, and emblematic of the efforts to standardize scripts for the languages of the continent. Much of the work that was done in such conferences going back to before the seminal Bamako 1966 expert meeting and continuing after, has implications for discussions today about African languages and ICT.