Multilingual worlds – neglected histories. Uncovering their emergence, continuity and loss in past and present societies

Project Information

MULTILING-HIST

Grant agreement ID: 101002696

DOI

10.3030/101002696

EC signature date 7 May 2021

Start date 1 March 2022

End date 30 November 2027

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 998 310,00

EU contribution

€ 1 998 310,00

Coordinated by

UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI
Poland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MULTILING-HIST (Multilingual worlds – neglected histories. Uncovering their emergence, continuity and loss in past and present societies)

Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2025-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project addresses the complex, multi-level processes shaping historical and contemporary multilingualism. Adopting a multidisciplinary perspective and guided by decolonial research paradigms, we study historical and contemporary data from four regions: selected historical multilingual hotspots from Central-Eastern Europe, Mesoamerica, South Africa and the Archipelago of Vanuatu. These contexts offer cross-cultural implications for understanding the causal frameworks underlying multilingual trajectories as well as factors that (may) contribute to its development, maintenance, and/or reduction and loss. These goals address significant questions about the past and the present of human development. Our case studies also offer a novel possibility to study the ‘invisibility’ of multilingualism and uncover its neglected history(ies), combining historical and present sources, qualitative, quantitative and experimental methods as well as mathematical modeling and GIS spatial mapping. Societal multilingualism is not a topic that can be addressed using real-world experiments, and so it is difficult to identify the importance of single social or environmental variables in driving the emergence, maintenance, and loss of multilingualism. An important objective is therefore to build computational models that simulate the process of language acquisition for individuals in a population under different experimental setups that can help us identify the variables with the greatest effect on stabilizing/destabilizing multilingualism. This approach is crucial for identifying the causes of multilingual stability/destabilization, an understanding which is critical for maintaining stable forms of grassroots multilingualism and preventing further loss of linguistic diversity in a globalized world. In addition, the project engages with decolonial research paradigms by addressing the goals, needs and concerns of participating communities with regard to the preservation of local multilingualism and cultural traditions. Our research also aims to include marginalized voices such as non-hegemonic/non-normative sexual orientations, genders, and sexes in the scholarly discussion of multilingualism. The social significance of the expected results is grounded in providing informed diagnoses and predictions with huge potential for improving existing language policies and educational strategies oriented toward the preservation of linguistic-cultural diversity.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Overall, work performed so far has been performed in all regional hotspots of multilingualism on four continents. All the necessary tools and research scenarios have been developed and largely implemented (except for experimental games), including qualitative and quantitative tools. Our works has included qualitative and quantitative fieldwork (semi-structured interviews, language portraits and language biographies, GIS linguistic mapping, applying a quantitative survey questionnaire implemented in ODK), archival research in Mexico and Europe, analysis of and contemporary historical sources, developing the key parameters and considerations for mathematical modeling of multilingualism, theoretical-methodological developments and work on the related publications. All team members and local experts and collaborators have been recruited, all ethical clearances obtained and doctoral dissertation projects developed and approved. Team members have undergone various forms of capacity-building and training and have been able to learn local languages and language variants. Fieldwork has been carried our in two regions in Mexico, Kashubia and Wilamowice in Poland, Latgale in Latvia, Malekula Island in Vanuatu, South Africa, Mali, Tanzania, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. Our first results include for example the diachronic map and a related database of multilingualism in Mesoamerica based on geolinguistic data from a large corpus of historical and contemporary sources. The mathematical model envisioned in the project was designed, critically discussed and the code was largely developed. Specifically, the research has identified a range of real-world factors that affect language learning and language use/disuse, simplified and abstracted a series of these factors for quantitative operationalization in a simulation environment; a model framework in R programming language was built, documented and stored and made available for other researchers on the GitHub online platform. We also identified the necessary factors to include for a maximally simplistic model and worked collaboratively to compile a prioritized list of modeling experiments. We have also been able to engage in community-driven initiatives and activities supporting linguistic diversity and decolonial partnership between academics and local communities.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

So far, the project has achieved a number of results going significantly beyond the state of the art, both with regard to scientific knowledge and research methodology. We have been able to combine quantitative and qualitative methods and complementary insights from several disciplines (history, linguistics, social linguistics, social anthropology, mathematics) in uncovering invisibilized multilingualism and explaining the mechanisms behind its emergence, reduction and loss. Archival research focusing on case studies in Mexico, Wilamowice area, and Latgale leads to the methodological reflection about the silenced multilingualism in historical written sources given that written records never reflect the complexity of the linguistic situation on the ground. We have also combined research on the so-called Western/Global North multilingual contexts and hotspots of linguistic diversity in the so-called Global South. This has had important consequences for adapting, developing and applying decolonial research paradigms to studying historical and contemporary multilingualism as already reflected in two publications, the first providing a critical overview of the ethnolinguistic vitality theory and studies on multilingual communication and the second unravelling forms of internal colonialism in Poland that has obscured grassroots linguistic diversity in historical and contemporary contexts. Our work in Europe, Mexico and South Africa has uncovered the more complete scope and complexity of multilingualism, including their geospatial dynamics, that have not been reported adequately in existing publications. We have been able to show how fluid linguistic boundaries and positive inter-ethnic relationships contribute to stable linguistic diversity and local sustainability. In Africa, the project has also generated novel evidence of the acceleration of grammaticalization processes in the verbal system of pidgins, on the relationship between radical multilingualism and sexuality (radical queerness), the relationship between multilingualism and multimodality as well as human-to-animal communication. Finally, the agent-based models produced so far are a step beyond the nuance of any currently published models of multilingual dynamics and will be further developed, refined and applied in the project

"Poems in the city" social campaign. Public transport in Warsaw

After language portraits workshop in Kraslava

Fieldwork in Vanuatu

Collaborative traditional recipes book in Totonac, Nahuatl and Spanish

Fieldwork in Latgale

Language potraits workshop, Wejherowo, Kashubia

The opening of the exhibition in Sławoszyno, Artur Jabłoński and Maria Machul

Project meeting in Warsaw

Participatory historical workshop in Nahuatl, high school in Cualtepec, Mexico

The opening of the exhibition in Sławoszyno. Public lecture by Justyna Olko

Project meeting in Leipzig

"Poems in the city" social campaign. Poster in Wymysioerys

The opening of the exhibition in Sławoszyno. Public lecture by Justyna Olko

The opening of the project conference session in Varaklani. The main organizer, Dr. P. Grablunas

Workshop with prof. Brigitta Busch, Warsaw