FOHLC Europe at the roundtable on “Engaging with Language and Heritage”

By Sabine Little and Aga Pedrak

FOHLC Europe, or Forum of Heritage Language Coalitions in Europe, is an exciting new collaboration between several organizations involved with heritage language education in Europe. With the FOHLC Europe steering group being geographically dispersed, it is not often that we get a chance to meet face to face, so it was a rare pleasure when Aga Pedrak from Ireland and Sabine Little from England got a chance to meet up at Nottingham Trent University’s roundtable on “Engaging with Language and Heritage” in March 2023. The one-day conference was organised as part of the university’s Knowledge Exchange programme, an opportunity to bridge the gap between academia and other organisations, to learn from each other, and to create knowledge together. The event included attendees from museums and libraries, NGOs, storytellers, and, of course, academics. 

The concept of language and heritage was, unsurprisingly, interpreted in many different ways. Intangible cultural heritage, or “living heritage”, which includes language, but also stories, dialects, oral traditions, etc., is part of UNESCO’s endeavours to protect, maintain, and support cultural heritage. Museums, for example, are often dedicated to local histories and stories, but not always, as Jacob O’Sullivan from Museums Galleries Scotland pointed out, in collaboration with the local communities they serve. Other projects were dedicated to the recording and preservation of local dialects, such as the Dialect and Heritage project at the University of Leeds, and the work of Natalie Braber at Nottingham Trent University on uncovering and preserving the “Pit Talk” among miner communities. 

Collaborations with migrant communities were highlighted in projects that sought to ensure these communities were able to coproduce the work that took place in their communities. Chagossian Voices, for example, support the interests of displaced Chagos communities anywhere in the world, and Latin American House works for the interests of Latin American communities in the UK. Sabine talked about the multilingual children’s library project in Sheffield, working with heritage language schools to facilitate a series of events in support of a multilingual collection. Indu Meddegama and Maja Skender-Lizatovic presented the newly established Community Language School hosted via the York St. John Communities Centre that serves as a learning hub for multilingual children of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

With so many local, national, and international connections being highlighted on the day of the roundtable, it was the perfect backdrop to introduce FOHLC Europe to a wider audience. Explaining the history of the group, introducing the team, and going over work to date, we laid the groundwork for highlighting the importance of heritage language education for the maintenance of “intangible cultural heritage” – a discussion point revisited throughout the day. It also created an amazing opportunity for the voices of heritage language teachers, managers, and coalition leaders to be heard as we shared feedback received after FOHLC Europe’s annual conferences in 2021 and 2022. As we argue that there is a persisting need for national and international collaboration in order to support existing and new initiatives emerging in the field, it was especially important to us to emphasize that voices of all stakeholders in heritage language education should be acknowledged and equally valued in the on-going debates on current opportunities, barriers, and future steps to enhance maintenance and development of heritage languages and cultures in Europe.

We hope that the roundtable will lead to future collaborations, and we will of course share these here on this blog as they develop. As this post kicks off our new FOHLC Europe’s blog, we would like to take this opportunity to invite you to engage with us using this platform. We are looking forward to receiving your comments and blog posts that would reflect on your experiences with participating in/running heritage language programmes, as well as organising/attending various events related to heritage languages, cultures, and their maintenance and promotion. We are eager to hear from you!