Thematic mapping of nêhiyawêwin

In September 2023, Hanno Dahmen concluded his internship under the joint supervision of Peter Merx (Geodienst) and me (Minorities & Multilingualism) The choropleth map above represents speakers who declared Plains Cree as (one among) their mother tongue(s) in the Canadian Census 2021 in the different census divisions of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The dotted map

The “productscape” of milk products in Israel

Deia Ganayim and I have published a paper about the linguistic landscape of milk products in Israel in the Journal of Language and Discrimination (November 2023). The paper addresses the topic of Arabic and Hebrew visibility on basic necessity goods, like diary products, in Israel, where since March 2018 Arabic has been downgraded from “official

It was again Poster Day!

On Wednesday 15 November 2023 the students in Language Planning and Policy presented their class work to the staff members of the MA Multilingualism Their posters reflected our class work in sociolinguistics, with research on language attitudes and use, language contact and revitalization. The students used qualitative research methods for their projects. A lot of

Lecture series abstracts

Register here for one or more lectures Also online: https://meet.google.com/ojw-oshg-fzw 13 November 2023. Jenny Audring, Leiden University. The importance of being unproductive. 15-17h room T10 Turftorenstraat, Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen Productivity is a major conundrum in linguistic theory. Even the most fundamental questions are still a matter of debate. Is productivity an actual

Lecture series on productivity in linguistics @RUG

The University of Groningen will host a series of nine lectures on productivity, co-financed by LOT, the Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics. Research Master and PhD students who want to join one or more of the events will receive a reimbursement for their travel expenses from LOT. The lectures can be joined also online here:

Zpannend Zernike!

On 30 September / 1 October, Groningen hosted the Weekend of Science (named after Frits Zernike, Nobel Prize in physics, 1953). The event is for everyone, including families and children. It was not easy to figure out a way to engage families and children in the research I am currently conducting about morphological productivity. Inspired

Noorderzon flash lecture

On 24 August I gave a 15-minute lecture (twice) to groups of people at the Noorderzon in Groningen. The Noorderzon Festival of Performing Arts and Society is a yearly event in Groningen, a curious combination of a cutting-edge international arts festival and summer fest. Thanks to the coordination provided by the Young Academy Groningen (YAG),

The Ceremony of Merits 2023

Friday 7 July the University of Groningen celebrated the end of the Academic Year 22/23 For the occasions all kinds of employees have been invited because of their exceptional contribution to our university in the past year. Students, PhDs, administrative and academic staff gathered for an afternoon of celebration and closure. I was invited because

SPCL 2023 Groningen

The Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics gathered in Groningen on 26-28 June 2023 The theme of the conference was “Creoles, minority languages and other contact varieties: Sharing perspectives”. It was a pleasure to host in Groningen such a group of brilliant people in our field. The conference kickstarted with a memorable panel on social

Welcome Margaux in the SHADES team

Margaux Dubuis joined the SHADES team on April 1, 2023 as a PhD candidate. Margaux will focus on Mapudungun (isolate, Chile/Argentina). She will perform a corpus study of complex constructions in Mapudungun and an analysis of acceptability judgements of novel constructions, to understand which word formation strategies are more or less productive in the language.