International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019: Perspectives Conference

The conference will celebrate the UNESCO Year of Indigenous Languages from a variety of perspectives: policy, education, linguistic, community, and others. Experts from around the globe will present keynote talks in a variety of formats (e.g. interviews, panel discussions, formal presentations, etc.). A primary goal of the conference is to engage the broader community and bring indigenous language speakers together with heritage language speakers, academic scholars, educators, and policy makers to explore and share perspectives. To this end, we are working with our international partners and the local refugee and immigrant communities as well as the American Indian Language Development Institute, the Myaamia Center, and other area indigenous communities. We have a number of indigenous and heritage language community members for our keynote speakers and regular conference presentations.  We are also working with our community partners to ensure that a number of the 35,000 speakers of languages other than English in the Fort Wayne community attend the event. Specifically, we are working with area high school programs, area complementary schools, and community leaders to ensure the event is appealing to the Fort Wayne community.

In addition, special interest groups  from around the world have organized panel discussions to be presented throughout the conference (e.g. indigenous language and international education policy; indigenous language and well-being; indigenous community member perspectives on the Year of Indigenous Languages, etc.). Further, the broader community will be engaged and give presentations. Finally, we are holding the event in concert with  the Mon Language and Literature conference.