A Linguistic Festival is a mass educational event dedicated to languages and linguistics which is organized within the framework of the humanistic-
oriented international project of the name "Language Festival". The idea of this project appeared due to the initiative of Dennis Keefe,a Franco-American Esperantist and public figure. He organized the first Language Festival (in Esperanto:
Lingva
Festivalo) in Tours, France in 1995.
In contrast to frequent commercial fairs of training courses organized in various countries, the festival was aimed at the discovery of the diversity of the language world through open presentations of languages in the form of informative lessons. The first language festival drew the attention of about 800 students, whereas two years later it was attended by 3,600 people. A report about the first festival was published in the international Esperanto magazine "Kontakto". The event was highly appreciated by the readers, and in 1996 Russia also organized a Language Festival.
The first Language Festival in Russia held in Cheboksary was similar to Tours festival. Over the past 26 years the geography of the festival movement has expanded significantly. A number of countries of the near and far abroad (including Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Georgia, Moldova, Venezuela, China, the USA, Finland, Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Sweden) grew interested in the ideas of the Language Festival. 2008 Language Festival with 13 500 participants held by one of the leading universities in the Chinese city of Nanjing is recognized as the largest event in the history of the festival movement.
About 15 Russian cities, namely Cheboksary, Ulyanovsk, Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Volgograd, Kemerovo, Ufa, Izhevsk, Kaluga, Yakutsk, Velikiy Novgorod, are currently engaged in Language Festivals' organization on the territory of Russia. Among Russian as well as foreign cities Cheboksary is the absolute leader. Since 1996 it has been a host for 17 traditional Language Festivals attracting up to 2-3 thousand people (website of the Language Festival in Cheboksary: http://www.lingvafestivalo.org).
The organizers of the festival compare the acquaintance with the wealth of the language world with a journey during which a discoverer meets a lot of doors to the “neighbor” linguistic worlds outside the native language. The most common structure of language festivals has developed over the past years in Russia and abroad. It includes an inauguration and a day or several days of presentations crowned with a closing ceremony where participants receive diplomas and souvenirs. An integral and pleasant part of an inauguration is "a presentation of presentations" during which participants come to the stage and make an announcement of their presentations. Today more or less traditional format of Language Festival has the form of presentations (mini-lessons), 30-50 minutes each.
As a rule, presentations are held in parallel blocks, which means that every visitor has the opportunity to choose where to go. It is interesting to note that in recent years the format of the event is being enriched as well as the range of languages is being enlarged. This adds up to the festival's greater appeal and reliability of a real international celebration. Today in addition to usual language presentations, festivals include informative lectures on linguistics, so called linguistic “drawing rooms” organized for communication in a particular language, linguistic contests, as well as literary contests devoted to languages, book exhibitions where one can get acquainted with a wide variety of sources in different languages of the world. Besides, festivals may include unique language concerts which arouse much interest of the audience.
To a large extent the active development of the festival movement hasbecome possible due to the activity of Esperanto organizations in various countries. The ideas of the Language Festival havegradually proved to be close both to professional linguists and many of those who are not indifferent to the phenomenon of human language and the linguistic diversity of the world. It is also impossible to pass over the fact that from the very beginning the humanistic orientation of the festival has been in tune with the guiding principles of UNESCO's work.
A good example is UNESCO's initiative to declare 2008 as "The International Year of Languages" during which the governments and educational institutions were to "increase their own activities to promote and protect all languages, particularly endangered languages, in all individual and collective contexts". For these reasons the Language Festival gradually turned to be organized not only by Esperantoorganizations but also on the initiative of universities and under the auspices of the Committees on UNESCO affairs. A pioneer in a new direction of the festival movement was the International Festival of Languages in Bashkortostan. Three philological departments of Bashkir State University and the Committee of the Republic of Bashkortostan on UNESCO affairs combined forces in the preparation for the festival. It is still quite a new page in its history and its further content as well as many other things connected with the festival depend almost on each of us.
Additional information: Esperanto organizations unitesupporters of Esperanto which is an auxiliary language created in the second half of the 19th century for peaceful and free international communication. The participants of one of the most developed association in Russia - the Chuvash Esperanto-Association - note:"the community of Esperantists is one of a few world language communities all the members of which, without exception, are bilingual or multilingual; each member of this community makes a decision to study at least one language other than native one, and achieve a conversational level; in many cases this leads to the study of many languages... and, as a rule, to the expansion of horizons”, to the recognition of equal rights of the world languages. Thus, the ideas of Esperanto organizations are very close to the spirit of Language Festivals.
At present all existing Language Festivals are united in their common vocation which results in pursuing several universal tasks of Language Festivals:
- to show the diversity of world languages, uniqueness and value of each of them.
- to serve for the expansion of participants and guests' linguistic outlook.
Starting with the beginning of the festival these two tasks are fulfilled in the linguistic component of presentations where we can get clear and understandable not only for experts information about the structure of a language and its place among other world languages,and, of course, where we can have the opportunity to learn some words and phrases in the language.
- to stimulate interest in the study of foreign languages and the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation. According to this task, presentations of languages include the possibility to get acquainted with different sources which can help us in our study of the language we are interestedin.
- to strengthen professional and cultural ties between participants and guests of the festival.
- to promote the development of a respectful attitude to various nations of the world.
As we know, at present the issues of inter-ethnic harmony and intercultural communication have become a matter of special urgency. Negative situations in this area are largely explained by the fact that people who look a little different or speak an unknown for us language seem to be strange or even frightening. However, if you give people the chance to meet and get to know each other, hostility on ethnic grounds is likely to decrease. It will be clear that people near us are the same people as we areand they have the same personal qualities. Besides, such acquaintance undoubtedly expands our knowledge about the world enabling us to enjoy its multiplicity and uniqueness.
- to introduce the idea of the value andoriginality of a native language andthe role it plays in constructing national, cultural, and personal identity [http://www.lingvafestivalo.org/EN/node/2]. Native speakers presenting their languages at the festival help us to realize the value of a mother tongue.
Offering a uniquely broad-based overview of this textbook examines a wide range of specific cases from various parts of the world in order to arrive at some general principles concerning the links between language and identity. It will benefit students and researchers in a wide range of fields where identity is an important issue, and who currently lack a single source to turn to for an overview from.
Dear friends, we invite you to plunge into the atmosphere of our linguistic celebration and realize that language is “the best means to establish friendship and harmony”!