Lingotell

Lingotell is a small-scale cooperation project between Fryske Akademy (Netherlands), Pro Progressione (Hungary) and Sijti Jarnge (Norway) working together to explore the process of strengthening indigenous and minority languages through the art of retelling, redesigning and redefining stories focusing on South sami, frisian and roma languages. The project aims at strengthening these minority languages as well as to safeguard the cultural heritage of these communities.

Through the self-selected collection and dissemination of narrative stories from these national minorities and indigenous peoples, summarised and placed in the contexts of today, we will start a process of understanding how these stories and lessons of the past, often told in endangered European languages, can be utilised to fuel the mythology of these endangered languages in Europe and thereby also our European multilinguistic shared future. But to do so the stories need to be reformulated beyond the confines of our narrative identities. The stories appear in different forms, such as orally told legends, songs, poems, yoiks, myths, dances, performances and written stories.

The main findings and common features, including the key-factors in the art of retelling, redesigning and redefining stories, will be summarised and made available as a digital package, including podcasts, free to download.

The project will contribute to increased mutual understanding among Europeans, not only between the Indigenous Peoples and regional minority groups directly included in the project, but among people in Europe as a part of our European shared future.

The working process initiates interaction between informants/cultural artists, participants, professionals within the cultural and minority language area, aiming at skill transfer, the anchoring of successful methods of restorying, as well as overall awareness of storytelling and the empowerment of the minority and indigenous in this context.

Audience development will be achieved through extended cooperation with and dissemination to defined participants, especially young people.