Action in Education for the promotion of Irish, Catalan and Ryukyu as minority languages

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Since the project was approved and initiated in April 2016 I established contact with stakeholders in the field for the protection of the Ryukyu languages in Okinawa and visited them at the end of May 2016.In Okinawa, I met with Prof. Miyara and Prof. Ishihara from the University of the Ryukyus. I also met with Ms. Tomoko Arakaki, from the Ryukyuan Heritage Language Society. Ms. Arakaki put me in contact with Ms. Takayo, a English second level teacher in Okinawa who is studying a Masters Degree on Language revitalisationin the Christian University.I had the opportunity of meeting with Makiko-san, friends of Ms. Takayo and who worked in a second level school in the South of Naha and has her parents and grandparents who are native speakers of Uchinaaguchi. She was able to give me an insight into the situation with regard to people her generation who have been in contact with the minority language at home but do not speak it and were never encouraged to do so. As a teacher, she was also able to state the absence of the language in the school context.From the talks with Prof. Heinrich and from meeting with Prof. Miyara and Prof. Ishihara, as well as with Ms. Arakaki and Mr. Gijs, it emerged that we could all work together to conduct the part of the project referring to the Ryukyu languages. They all committed to collaborating in establishing contact with second level schools in the island as to distribute a questionnaire on language attitudes towards Ryukyu languages among upper secondary school students.