Welcome to Glottopolitics, Translator’s new monthly bulletin curating stories about language politics from around the world.
I’m Sophia Smith Galer and I’m the author of How To Kill A Language. I write and make content broadly around “language and languages”.
I’m writing to you following a busy month discussing linguicide in Irun in Euskadi, the Basque Country, and in Warsaw, Poland. In Irun, I was part of a roundtable on how language activists are using tech and AI where I learned that groups around the world are trying to innovate safely and responsibly in a world where Big Tech, er, isn’t; in Warsaw, we had a great time discussing the difference between a language and a dialect, and asking the provocative question “Does the difference actually matter?”
What do you think? Get in touch let me know – we read everything you send!
Anyway, what else happened this month? Keep reading for stories from Portugal, France, Uzbekistan, Latvia, Taiwan, and a Kurdish story submitted to Glottopolitics by one of Translator’s contributors!
Brazilian speech therapists say Portugal won't license them for speaking the "wrong" Portuguese
"It's glottophobia," a Brazilian therapist told the Guardian. Brazilians are by far Portugal's largest migrant group - more than 480,000 people by the Portuguese migration agency's count - and in 2023, 55% of them told Statistics Portugal they'd experienced discrimination, the highest share of any nationality.
