The Fryske Akademy organizes the first Conference on Frisian Humanities, in the Municipal Theatre De Harmonie in Leeuwarden, on 23 to 26 April 2018, as part of the project Lân fan taal (Country of languages) of Leeuwarden-Fryslân European Capital of Culture 2018.

The conference is a forum for scientific debate on language and culture in the Frisian countries, now and in the past and in an international perspective, with the purpose of exchanging thoughts on empirical, methodological and theoretical issues. The Conference on Frisian Humanities is the successor to the Frysk Philology Congress, which has been organized in 1956 during the three years.

Why this name change?
'Philology is a name that is used more and more for the whole of language and literature,' Eric Hoekstra of the program committee explains. 'Moreover, philology does not cover the whole scope of the congress, which also focuses on history and social sciences.'

Thus, the Fryske Akademy seizes the opportunity of the European Capital of Culture year 2018 to announce the name change with a special extended congress.

Mix of themes
The congress consists of five subsymposia. In the first two days linguistics will be a prominent theme, whereas multilingualism in Europe is central in the last two days (in cooperation with the Afûk). Across the four days, a number of other topics are discussed, such as the literary tradition of small European languages ​​(and how a small language refers to the "majority language") and the medieval roots of the Frisian language.

The themes mix makes it possible to choose either one or more specific congress days or for the entire conference, which will last four days.

As of September, the website www.frisianhumanities.nl offers more information about registration for the conference and the submission of lecture proposals.

About Lân fan taal
The Conference on Frisian Humanities is part of the Lân fan taal (Country of languages) project of Leeuwarden-Fryslân 2018. In Lân fan taal, many institutes and people in Fryslân and elsewhere work together to give the diversity of language a future. The goal is to position Fryslân as a public and knowledge center for multilingualism.