Tsjerk Bottema

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• Tsjerk Bottema
• Mercator-Education
• Bernat Pujadas
• Mercator-Legislation
• George Jones
• Mercator-Media

www.mercator-central.org
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Three centres

• Mercator-Legislation (Barcelona/CIEMEN)
• Mercator-Media (Aberysthwyth/University of Wales)
• Mercator-Education (Ljouwert/Fryske Akademy)
• Our job
• Research and information
• Network of specialists in European Union

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About the network

• Kuijpers Resolution, October 1987 and Arfé Report
  (1981) created policy context and prepared the
  way for budget line and resultant projects
• Mercator Centres (3) based in communities which
  themselves speak minority languages preferable
  to one centralised research centre or to centres
  located away from any language minority
  communities
• Field divided thematically between the three
  centres Media, Legislation and Education,
  coordinated and overseen by the European
  Commission
• Definition of minority languages as used by
  Mercator includes a widely diverse set of
  linguistic situations.
• Autonomous work programmes but with collaborative
  projects involving all centres, e.g. MININF, the
  annual Mercator Symposium, regular joint
  electronic newsletter

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Mercator-Media

• University of Wales, Aberystwyth (UK)
• www.aber.ac.uk/mercator

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The work of Mercator-Media (I)

• Wide definition of the term media to include,
  for example archives and libraries as well as
  book-publishing in addition to what is more
  generally understood by media
• Work includes a range of depth from information
  for the general public to academic research and
  the provision of fora for academic discussion
• Information service
• website and on-line database
• question and answer service
• users of the data - diverse, general public,
  students and academics, media professionals
• Research and documentation e.g. implications of
  developments in media landscape for minorities

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The work of Mercator-Media (II)

• Publications, annual journal Mercator Media Forum
  includes academic contributions as well as some
  from practitioners in the field
• Events conferences, summer schools etc
• Importance of Mercator as contact-broker and
  promoter of international cooperation, dialogue
  and exchange of expertise
• Role and importance of media for minority
  language groups generally taken to be obvious
  but nevertheless a significant amount of research
  work remains to be done.

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Mercator-Legislation

• CIEMEN, Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain)
• www.ciemen.org/mercator

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Information Documentation

• Our Goal
• To Provide an Information and Documentation
  Service

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Information

• For whom?
• For specialists (scholars, researchers,
  students...)
• For policy-makers
• For the general public
• How?
• Through our Website

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Information

• For whom?
• For specialists (scholars, researchers,
  students...)
• For policy-makers
• For the general public
• How?
• Through our Website
• Through our Newsletter

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Information

• Joint newsletter

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Information

• Mailing list

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Information

• For whom?
• For specialists (scholars, researchers,
  students...)
• For policy-makers
• For the general public
• How?
• Through our Website
• Through our Newsletter
• Through our QA Service (Questions Answers)

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Information

• QA Service

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Information Documentation

• For whom?
• How?
• What?
• Research on the legal framework of minority
  languages
• Creation of a database of legal documents
• Interdisciplinary character

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Documentation

• Our database
• International Rules

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Documentation
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Documentation
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Documentation

• Our database
• International Rules
• Constitutions

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Documentation
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Documentation

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Documentation
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Documentation
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Documentation

• Our database
• International Rules
• Constitutions
• Main linguistic legislation

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Documentation
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Documentation
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Documentation
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Documentation

• Our Publications
• The Bulletin
• The Dossier
• The Working Papers

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Documentation
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Documentation
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Documentation
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Documentation
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Documentation
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Documentation
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News
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News
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News
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Other sections in our website

• Bibliography
• Events
• Organisations

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Our Activities

• Symposium
• II Mercator International Symposium
• (Tarragona, 27-28 February)

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Our Activities
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Our Activities

• Symposium
• II Mercator International Symposium
• (Tarragona, 27-28 February)

Other publications
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Our Activities
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Mercator-Education

• Fryske Akademy, Ljouwert, Fryslân (NL)

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www.mercator-education.org
The website
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Regional dossiers
Frisian Welsh Swedish (Fin) German
(F) Catalan North Frisian Sami (Swe) Meänkieli
and Sweden Finnish etc
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The work of Mercator-Education

• Digital Library
• to make scientific resources on European minority
  languages and knowledge of experts in this field
  available at one, central place on the internet.
  The digital library will consist of two parts
• A bibliographical part material will be made
  available full text.
• A second part will contain details on
  specialisations of experts in the field of
  minority languages.
• Frisian in the Netherlands will function as pilot

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European network of bi- and trilingual schools

• 30 schools from 10 minority language regions in
  Europe
• Stimulate exchange of information between
  teachers and between specialists
• Create greater publicity for small but
  interesting experiments on bi- and trilingual
  education
• Exchange between schools and pupils (possible
  follow-up for Euroschool)
• Keeping up-to-date by an electronic newsletter

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Final remarks

• Thank you!
• Tsjerk Bottema
• tbottema_at_fa.knaw.nl
• Bernat Pujadas
• cdoc_at_ciemen.org
• George Jones
• zyw_at_aber.ac.uk