Speakers were Fakhruddin Akhunzada, Naseem Haider and Muhammad Zaman Sagar (Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI) at Islamabad, Pakistan). The three seminar speakers work with a regional language resource centre, based in Islamabad, called Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI). The organization was founded in Peshawar in 2003 to provide the 25-30 local language communities in the mountainous north of Pakistan with support in their own efforts to maintain and promote the use of their mother tongues. In this presentation they will give plenty of examples of activities carried in the language communities (such as research, orthography development, literature production, the setting up pilot literacy projects, the establishment of community schools, awareness-raising efforts, media campaigns, etc.), and show how these have contributed to maintaining and increasing the level of vitality in some of these Pakistani language communities. They will also share some of the challenges encountered when working with minor languages in a context where official support and recognition are minimal and there is much pressure to abandon one’s language in favour of state-sponsored or more influential languages. One of the key lessoned learned is the importance of multi-community activism, i.e. regional collaboration in training teachers, activists and local researchers, raising awareness about language issues in media, and in influencing language policies, on national and provincial levels.

Time: Thursday, September 21 2017, 3-5 pm (15:00-17:00)
Room: C307, Södra huset, Frescati, Stockholm Univeristy, Stockholm