Invention of happiness

Some things seems to be completely universal, because at least one word for this concept or even a lot of words exist in various "linguacultures" (Risager 2007 has backgrounds of this concept). But it is indeed difficult to conclude the universality of the concept from language usage alone. However, like the ubiquitous phenomenon "language", word for emotions like "happiness" can also be seen as an an invention, as a product of social evolution. In case of "language" D. Gramling (2016) writes about the "Invention of Monolingualism" and proves quite convincingly in the field of culture studies, that modern monolingualism in the most OECD-countries is a historical product, a fact that Anderson (2006) researched and called in print-cultures "Imagined communities". Compared to "language" or "monolingualism", "Happiness" is likely even more difficult to research, because it is impossible to find out, what people really feel. But claiming Happiness for the people of a country as the US-declaration independence in the phrase "Life, Libery and pursuit of happiness" (see Wikipedia for historical backgrounds) is not a claim for individual happiness, but an objective for society. Values (like Happiness as a collective virtue) were in traditional societies before, related to religious values and hence to transcendent spheres. But with the pursuit of happiness the matters of the earth, the "lifeworld" the human lifespan got recognized (see Wikipedia for this often used concept in German, the concept is here used sociologically). It would be overly simplistic to reduce the historical mission of the US only to this one statement ("pursuit of happiness"), but the great success of this concept seems to be obvious and indubitable. What were the consequences of this successful concept? It could be argued that they are disastrous: Mankind is overusing the earthly basis of its existence (see: How many earth do we need?) Some are still optimistic that dystopian futures can avoided (like Steven Pole in the Guardian) other like James Lovelock (also in the Guardian) are more pessimistic. Some Nitzschean scholars (religiously inspired or not) could call this whole problem "Nihilistic" (see Wikipedia for the lexical field of this multilayered concept). But under the condition there are not only technical problems related to climate change, but also problems of values, how are these going to handled? Antinatalism seems to be a solution for the earth, but is not a solution for human happiness.
 References:

• Anderson, Benedict (2006), Imagined communities, Verso (London)  
• Gramling, David (2016), The Invention of Monolingualism, Bloomsbury
• Risager, Karen (2007),Language and Culture Pedagogy: From a national to a Transnational Paradigm, Multilingual Matters

                        

JALT-National: Language Policy on the ground

The annually JALT-National Conference (2019, URL) is really amazing big, but is not easy to focus on the most important point of view. What is it? Seeing friends or working with colleagues on projects with could be helpful for the students. For the students future political projects, like working against global warming (Wp Portal) is somehow vitally important.In this context it is important to consider that Jalt is not only a national, but also a international conference, with corresponding traffic. (Gurdian has an article about this). Sure, foccussing on climate chance and climate justice is everywhere important, but what is the special contribution of an organization like JALT? What has the fight for climate justice to do with language policy in Japan? The first point is reflexive and has to do with the use of language, more specific with English as a "hypercentral language" (as de Swaan 2001 calls it). This means that the climate justice is a global issue, therefore it also an issue for a global language. The second point is that environmental issues are taken serious in JALT (URL: environmental comimittee). But of course no conference would be the most environmental friendly solution, but then the core activities of JALT would not take place. And that is what I call: "Language policy on the ground", which is related to the first point (global communication), but JALT is working to bridge global (English) and local communication. In this sense the agency of the learner is really central (more on this has Benson 2011), but the agency of the teachers also. Of course teachers should do their job properly and this sense "efficacy" is important. However, is more teacher efficacy a solution for the problem of climate chance. Efficacy is compatible with a top-down paradigm. But teacher's (and learner's) agency is solution for groundbreaking chances, which are inevitable. Only changes from the ground and on the ground can cause the necassary paradigm shift. Of course there has to be a comination of bottom up and top down approaches for an overall change. While there is no shortage of (partly) really good top down programs, like the SDGs from the UNO (URL), bottom up change are not that easy to find. One approach, combining top down and bottom up in language learning is the CEFR. Also in the case of the CEFR top down approaches (from governments or big organizations) are more prominent then bottom up inputs. Therefore the CEFR & LP SIG (inside JALT) is forstering bottom up approaches. This is not new. The novelty of our approach now is that we try to forster a more local and networked approach, which continuing communications. Our forum (15.25h-16.55h, Room 904) on Sunday (3.11.2019) is scheduled to provide this.... 

References:

Benson, Phil (2011), Teaching and Researching Autonomy, 2. ed., Pearson 
de Swaan, Abraham (2001), Words of the world: The Global Language System, Blackwell 

            

Why has it to be culture in the first place?

There is no single human being, who is not affected by culture, but there is also no single human being, who has an overview about "culture". The reason for this can be called with one word "superdiversity" (Arnaut et al 2017), which is yet another word for heterogeneous concepts. This blog concentrates especially on the linguistic aspects of culture, which are itself highly complex. Fortunately science (in broad sense, with includes here humanities as well) provides us with the means to explore deeper layers of culture and unveils its complexity. Especially ethnographic studies (more in Paltridge & Startfield 2016) possess the means to show instrumental aspects of culture, which offer valuable tools to Companies or other Institutions (e.g. publishers). One illustration seen at my own University

(Chukyo University in Nagoya, in the entrance of Building No.5): The picture gives an impression about  Linguistic Landscapes in Japan, a field about which already research exists (Backhaus 2007, Blommaert 2013). But what does it mean, "Linguistic Landscapes in Japan"? Although there are some characteristic patterns in Japan, especially the predominant use of Japanese throughout Japan there are also important differences inside the country. While there is maybe no culture of the building No.5 of the Chukyo-University, there is a culture of that  University, which relates to this picture, because there are languages, which are taught in the Faculty of International Liberal Studies (only Russian is unfortunately missing). Therefore this picture is an expression of the local culture. Whereas this very description is in English has an explicit relation to global culture. "English" has here the status of a lingua franca language, here some backgrounds about Lingua franca (Blog "Meditations"), especially for English (The history of English). In this moment of history, there is still (and again) struggle for the role of progressive Internationalists and its culture (Mafalda Dâmaso, The progressive post). While "culture" can be magic concept, for addressing the connection between local and translocal issues it still an open question, how a global culture could look like.
 
References:

• Arnaut, Karel / Karrebaek, Martha Sif / Spotti, Massimiliano (2017), Engaging Superdiversity: The Poisis-Infrastructures Nexus and Language Practices in Combinational Spraces. in: Engaging Superdiversity.Recombining Spaces, Times and Language Practices, Bristol: Multilingual Matters 
• Backhaus, Peter (2007), Linguistic Landscapes, A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo, Multilingualism Matters  
• Blommaert, Jan (2013), The Sociolinguistics of Globalization, Cambridge University Press 
• Paltridge, Brian & Sue Starfield (2016), Ethnographic Perspectives on English for Academic Purposes Research  in: The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes, Hyland, Ken / Shaw, Philip (eds) p 378-393

     

German in the US: Fachsrpache

Looking at German in the US, there is actually not so much left from the German language in the USA. There are also a considerable amount of people learning it, but considering the fact that the Germans were  one of the largest group of immigrants in the US (see: Wp: History of Immigration to the US and also Schiffmann 1996, Google-books, p. 210-241). With regional differences the until WWI German Instruction in the US was possible, which could maintain German as a heritage language. But with the Meyer vs. Nebraska (Wp) ruling of the Supreme court only Language Education in English was legal. 
Germans are good language learners and when they live in a new country they adapt, therefore German in the German-Studies in the US is gone.I do not mean the German learning and teaching at schools in the US, this is still different. But if there is a German-US cooperation in any form the German part is normally not insisting on the German language. Why should they? German with an academical background can speak the language. So why learning German in the first place? Of course for living in Germany, German is still a valuable asset, especially for living in Germany a longer time or making a career in Germany. But why should an academic with a background in history, social science or cultural studies should learn German? My answer for this would be language for special purpose (Fachsprache). But is this really true and to what extend? The problem for language for special purpose is our days is that an overview is really complicated, at least on the disciplinary level. It is therefore very difficult for one author (like me) to judge this generally. I can give only my opinion on that in 3 areas:

• Systems theory (Social Sciences, especially N. Luhmann)
• Political Philosophy (especially Hannah Arendt)

Systems theory is popular on both sides of the pond (about this word, from World Wide words), it originated in the US as General Systems Theory (Wikipedia gives a redirct) and one of the most recent and elaborate versions is the Theory of Social Systems of Niklas Luhmann, which is also based partly on the Social Systems theory of Talcott Parsons (Wikipedia has backgrounds). Although Luhmann published also in English and a lot of his works are translated into English, his reception in the inner circle countries (esp. US and UK) is still limited, compared to Germany, where he reached a quite interdisciplinary audience.
 

My personal revaluation for this was reading the insightful Identity & Control (Google) from Harrison C. White (Wp), which is among other topics also develops a thick descriptions of institutions (Chapter 5: Institutions & Rhetorics). White claims in this that there that Luhmann has only a very limited theory of institutions. I was very surprised,, because Luhmann was "Verwaltungswissenschaftler", which is translated with mangement science or better with organizations science. But his works about Organization were not translated at this time, which is in parts different now, because Luhmanns opus magnus on this field "Organization & Decision" (Google) translated 2018.        

The political Philosophy of Hannah Arendt is in itself multilingual. Although she was writing only her early works in German, important parts of the German philosophy (Kant, Kritik d. Urteilskraft) are an important foundation of her work. Moreover she translated parts of her writings into German and some books are quite different ("The Human Condition" and the German translation "Vita activa"). Hannah Arendts writings have a broad reception in the US and in Germany. It is without doubt that the political theory of Hannah Arendt changed because of her live in America (see the book-review about the book "The state I am in"), but important parts can't be understood without central German concepts ("Urteilskraft" as "judgement" or "power of judgement" in English). But the new edition of Hannah Arendt's complete works (Gesamtausgabe, see Link) is offering a chance for a bilingual project on a high reflective level. The implications for this are also far-reaching, not only a head count of learners, but the implications of the language can be seen as important. Of course these implications are quite complicated to meassure, but if it can be shown that it is useful to have German in a multilingual mix of languages this would unpack a lot of potentials for the German language in the US and worldwide.   

Managing World-Communication: the GNI example

Not a very modest title, I must admit. But someone has to think about that, at least. Why? You could ask, until know there was no real management of the world communication. The reason for the new exigency lies in one concept: Anthropocene! (Wp) It means that the mankind is now responsible for the well-being of its own planet. The assumption is that the basis of this concept is older and part of the ideas of Modernity. For example the famous "Operation Manual for Spaceship Earth", by Buckminster Fuller (Wp, the text can be downloaded from the URL). Fuller and cyberneticists are showing the technical conditions how a Green New Deal could indeed be implemented. However, it seems to be that central aspects of a Great Transformation of (World-)Society are disregarded: The political and the linguistic dimensions of the Great Transformation. One example is the Global Energy Network, which is which is supported by the GENI (Global Energy Network Institute), The Wikipedia-page of the GENI gives an overview about the history of the project. Looking at the GENI-Homepage covering the World Energy Congress 2013, the problem of merely technical solutions is getting obvious: Although it could be a good idea to connect the world with an Global Energy Network, networking some countries (here mentioned Japan, South & Nord Korea, China and Russia) is politically naïve. The new idea of improving the American Power Grid System with chinese technology (a very recent idea) seems to be a bit more straightforward, because it involves only American Territories, especially the USA. But of course with the Trump administration in the US also this national project is nonconvertible. The other problem seems to be that GENI is not linking to already existing projects. There are already existing Energy Networks worldwide the biggest of which is the (formerly) UCTE grid (Wp) in Europe. The Energy transition (Wp) especially in Europe (and there Germany and Switzerland) are showing that this transitions has to managed nationally and even locally. And here is the linguistic dimension of the World-Society is an important feature. But how could a World communication Management looks like that is really dealing with the climate crisis and other ecological problems? There has to be a mixture of top-down and bottom up approaches, just like in case of strengthening resilience (this blog, older post) And international organizations has to be involved. The UN has done an important contribution with the SDGs and helping young people with fight for future. But UNO can't go alone for various reasons. Especially the western countries are responsible for most of the climate change throughout history,  therefore a "Western" organizations should coordinating the actions of the National Governments: the OECD (Wp) should coordinate the efforts of the Western Governments for establishing a new Green Economy.               

Utopia & Communication in English

Language is needed for the fulfilling of (personal and collective) dreams. The human being is a social animal and therefore we have to rely on language.

One very helpful illustration for this is Maslow's hierarchy of needs (see picture & credits). On every level of the pyramid language is playing an important role. In our world-society, based on the division of labor, language is already an important factor, starting from the beginning.  However, in the OECD-countries language means normally the language of the national society. These "language containers" are got more penetrable lately, but they are still very much in place. Therefore "language" means first the particular language of this country. In my case, living in Japan it is Japanese. But of course as a German living in Japan, German is still in use for me. But there is also a reason to use English: In my case it is because I care about international politics. And as Greta Thunberg (Wp) reminds us (international politic public): The climate crisis (Wp) and its disastrous consequences is the urgent (international) political issue in our time. The effects of the climate crisis are already noticeable, but is going to be worse and worse in the years to come. Therefore I would like to ask the young people, what they think about that? Are they angry like Greta? And also related to this: How are the language choice(s) affected? For younger people language-learning can be seen as an investment in the future. Are the political relations of the English language effecting the language choice? Or is English more seen as a language, which is helping to forward the own career? Can there be a combination of both?          

Nagoya climate Demo

Impressions from the Nagoya climate strike demonstration (20/9/2019)

 The Nagoya climate strike, wasn't a strike at all. It was a small size demonstration, which saw a few people protesting.
The slogan was: "気候が危ない。今すぐ変えろう。
子供の未来。Climate justice. When do we want it? Now!" The first Japanese part has the following meaning: "The climate is in danger. We have to change something. Future for the children."
This language mix is quite characteristic for the international atmosphere of the demonstration in Nagoya. Looking at the signs, the language mix is also obvious. Why are so few Japanese nationals joining the demonstration? Because the mainstream media in Japan don't cover the international protests only as marginalia. I also saw in Internet (350.org)　      

The atmosphere was very relaxed and I also met some colleagues at the demonstration. There were a lot of English speaking persons there and the use of English (as Lingua franca) was quite widespread.

Thank to police, we had smooth walk for 90 minutes. Unfortunately the policemen declined to be photographed. 

Another expat I met the first time at the demonstration. We were speaking about the situation of environment protest in different countries. It would be very unusual to have such a conversation with a Japanese person. We were talking about the group extinction rebellion (Wp) and there sometimes very radical stance towards mainstream politics.    

One of the bilingual signs, which could be seen at the demonstration. I talked with the carrier of the sign about the usage of coal in Japan. I had to ask to the reading of the word (in Japanese), although I can understand the meaning, I often forget you to pronounce the word. I think my Japanese is good, especially for every day purpose, but when it comes to Politics, I have to prepare myself, otherwise even simple words don't recur as it they could be. Also in English my active vocabulary is smaller than of a native speaker, but I can discuss politics good enough to hold a normal conversation.      

Resilience needed (Languages & climate strike, 2)

The begin of the climate strike week (Wp) yesterday (20.9.) was without a strong signal. Guardian pages show the events from all over the world. Really? But this not possible, no single organisation (in this case a newspaper, with a strong web-presence) can cover the whole world. There a several (logical) reasons, why this not possible (complexity, space, time etc), but this blog focus on language and therefore I show from this angle. From Germany this page looks different, as a (German) live-blog shows (Stern). Germany was probably one of the countries with the strongest climate strike actions, which this page shows. The Wikipedia page cited above reports that 1,4 Million people took part. But it is way too early to speak from a unprecedented event: the 1990 saw similar big events, but the movement failed until now. One can speak of a failure in three aspects:

1. No instituional change (esp. in the USA) 
2. The figures are still pointing in the wrong direction
3. No international broad coalition 

After the growing influence of the environment movement in all Western countries did the election of Al Gore fail in the year 2000 (Wp). At this stage environment issues played only a minor role. This collection of the Guardian show the enormity of the problem (now): The very active environmental organisation 350.org (Wp) has its name from the scientific hypothesis that all above 350 ppm (parts per million) carbon dioxide is too high reach the climate tipping point. Therefore it can be said that mankind is now in "uncharted territory" in relation to the world climate (see this article of the Guardian from 2017!). And if, really (big) IF the western countries would find a way to deal with the climate crisis (climate change is indeed to euphemistic notion for the situation mankind is in now), there are still a lot of places, where the people are not taking part at the climate strike. The climate strike maps shows, where this spot are.  While Europe and the USA show a lot activity, other parts of the are less busy (at least with striking for the climate): the Arabian countries, Russia, China. I know not all events are covered here, the march I took part yesterday, in Nagoya (covered on a facebook page) is not linked on the map, so it could be more. Also the Kenya-facebook page is not linked, so they are more. But still a lot of people in a lot countries are not on strike (in some countries the people simply can't effort it to strike). But also in the Western (OECD) countries the situation looks bleak. So what to do? One possible way is building up Resilience in different ways. This needs a transformation of our (world-)society and therefore it is a way to build for the future.            

              

Language & Climate Strike (global environment movements,1)

For a political language activist the 20. September seems to be a promising day. Mankind can only solve the climate crisis globally, there is no other way. And here the two folded Janus-faced nature of language(s) is visible: Without language political communication and activation would not be possible, but the multitude of languages can prevent effective global action. At a first glance the situation in the year 2019 looks promising, because with Fridays for Future or 350.org (and others) there is a global movement. But global action for the environment is of course not a new phenomenon: the Earth Day (Wp) is one of the oldest events in connection with a (progressively) global environmental movement. However, looking at the urgency of the problems of global warming (Wp: Portal) or the massive loss of biodiversity (Wp), only to mention the most complex and urgent challenges. And a challenge it is and mankind is failing in spite of efforts of handling the crisis, which started in the 1990 with the Kyoto Protocol (Wp). But according to Naomi Klein, who published with "This change everything" a very substantial book about the shortcomings of the global environment movements, with includes Greenwashing (Wp) and a blind eye to extractivism (Wp). But her central hypothesis is that increasing (economic) Globalization is responsible for the increasing of the problems. Of course there are gains and measures successful in of environment protection, but it is not enough: The economic Globalization is eating up all the gains. And given the complexity of the problem, this comes not as a surprise. Niklas Luhmann was already warning 1986 (in an English translation 1989) of too easy solutions for the complex problems (the review of Klaus Krippendorf give an introduction into the problem). And language is a part of the problem too! How? In three ways:

1. The blocking English  countries
2. The difficulty to organize multiple political organizations (nations)
3. The different patterns of development 

 (1) It is not a coincidence that especially the central governments of the inner circle English countries (USA, UK and Australia, Canada is making an exception, for the concept Wp) are heavily blocking global environmental laws. The main reason is the Media in these countries. See W. Davies, Guardian to this problem also in relation to fake news  and the denial of climate change is one of the most influential fake news around.   
(2) Global states are still organized as if they were sovereign nations, which they are only to certain degree. Superpowers like the USA, Russia or China are of course more independent, but all countries are belonging to several international treaties and organizations. But decision-making process needs time, maybe too much time and they are organized for special political fields, there is no World parliament, which able to influence Global political issues.
(3) In a (almost) perfect world the Western countries, which are the main originators of the global warming, would enable a strong international Organization maybe the OECD ("climate change") to organize an effective international environment policy. But there are lots of other countries, partly very effected by the climate change, and the Western countries could be only the first countries, other have to follow and also here language policy is central.This is one of the reasons, why I am learning an African language now.

              

Using the new language afterwards (Düsseldorf experience, part 2)

Micropolitics of language is language acquisition, which means basically: using a language. Using a language means learning a language, and learning is ideally Using the language in a refined way. Of course it needs also efforts to acquire a language in the country, where the language is spoken. But in general it is much easier to acquire a language in the country, where the language is used: The Düsseldorf experience means for the students: lots of opportunities for using the language (see previous post). But after returning to your home country (in this case Japan) this is gone, it is no longer possible to use the (German-speaking) surrounding for language acquisition or at least for keeping the language level. After returning to ones home-country it needs additional efforts to maintain the language level. I know about what I am talking about, because I learnt Japanese for several years in Germany and it was a constant struggle not to forget too much words. That was in the 1990s and you will find a lot of people on the Internet arguing that the Internet changed this completely. I am not sure about that, at least for maintaining a intermediate (CEFR B-level) of a language some planning is required. I used different kind of movies to learn Japanese. One movie is called Tampopo (Wikipedia about the content) and learned a lot colloquial Japanese, the other was Tokyo story (Wp), which is still partly difficult to understand, because of dialect and old language. The important trick is watching the movie several times and hiding the subtitles. In a German cullture studies class at the Chukyo University I try to show the students how to learn German, using (among others) the movie Labyrinth of lies (Wp). But there are problems:

• Only a few students watch the film in advance (as homework)
• It is not a language class, the aim of the class is (German) culture
• Some basic background knowledge is missing 

But the last problem is actually an chance, because it gives the opportunity to learn something about (German and Austrian) history (we did also "Mahler on the couch", Wp). The students were surprised that German mainstream ignored the (then not named) "Holocaust" (Wp) in the 1950 years and it were the (Frankfurt) Auschwitz trials (Wp) and an American Television drama (called "Hollocaust"), which were responsible for contemporary German "Erinnerungskultur" (Wp). In this context "Using" the German language means expanding ones terminological (vocabulary) basis, by watching Films and reading about historical backgrounds. This helps expanding the vocubulary base for difficult word or concepts and therefore expanding (selectively) ones communication abilities and cultural awareness.      
 

The Brexit Theatre and its linguistic relations

Brexit is about dominance in the public sphere and in this game “language” plays also an important role. For people in other countries, especially in the EU the reactions of the UK government and also of (parts of) the population has been met with puzzlement and total incomprehension: Boris Johnson a campaigner for Brexit is characterized as mad or as a gambler (Spiegel online, international) using (Trumpish) game tactis (Larry Elliot@Guardian, with special consideration to economics). But the tactics of Johnson is not without reasonable calculation, because (important) parts of the public sphere is supporting Johnson: blaming Jeremy Corbyn to be "a chicken" or "a coward" (The Sun) is of course supporting the Brexit stance of Johnson. This picture (Spiegel online) shows headlines of British press, after announcing the suspension of parliament (end of August), subtitling (in German): "The British Press is criticizing PM B. Johnson, which is indeed not entirely the case, reading carefully the (Guardian) comments on the same matter. Important parts of the British press are not hostile to political tactics of B. Johnson fueling Euroscepticism in the UK (Wikipedia) and using (partly) fake news about the EU (Polly Toynbee@Guardian) for his political agenda. How the UK and EU relations will develop in the end, is not the topic of this blog post rather the vital role for English (as lingua franca) for building "European Public Spheres" (book-link). The topic (English) language is not included in the book and plays (almost) no role in the discourse about the Brexit. One telling example about the issue language and Brexit can be found in Politico and shows how language is very often perceived as part of the culture of a nation and the allusion to "Waterloo" in post above isn't subtle at all. These nationalistic patterns leading in it unreflecting parts to stereotypes and in its more agressive parts (Boris Johnson on Youtube) to situations like the Brexit. And the real stunning aspects of the Video above is not the role B. Johnson is playing, his career shows (Wp) that (partly) agressive behaviour is part of his tactics, to orchestrate himself as a alpha-male (Wp).  Real stunning are the reactions to Video framing his behaviour as something laudable. Of course it could be said: Politics is about power. But in dangerous times Politics should be also about framing power and the language of power is playing a crucial in this.                              

Why learning German? (1) The Düsseldorf experience (overview)

There are a lot of reasons to learn German and because of my personal experience as a German teacher or better as a language teacher of German, these reasons will fill several blog posts. But let's start with Düsseldorf, also known as Dusseldorf or also as Duesseldorf. Why do I start with Düsseldorf? Not only because I am there right now, but also because I think I owe the city an article/post. The Chukyo, where I work as an Associate Professor has a study-abroad for four month and this program is carried out, yes, in Düsseldorf! For various reasons the Chukyo is sending the students to the IIK (Institut fuer Internationale Kommunikation):

• Homestay 
• experienced teaching stuff 
• reasonable course fees & a good standard.
• the location Dusseldorf 
• (potential further cooperation) 

  Other languages in our Department (for second language) had home stay (French and Spanish) and especially for a bit shy students the opportunity to have interactions in a familiar atmosphere proved to helpful for language acquisition. The IIK also provides teacher training courses for German as a foreign language. Because I did courses for using online tools at the IIK and after ending the study abroad program in Marburg, we were looking for a new place and decided to (2013) to do it in Dusseldorf at the IIK. While the IIK was more expansive than our Marburg language school, it is definitely cheaper than the Goethe-Institut. OK, the Goethe-Institut is famous, also for German-language education, but the IIK is much cheaper and provides the same standards. The follow the CEFR and have a sophisticated program using CEFR in place. How to describe the location Dusseldorf in brief? Dusseldorf is one of the most international oriented places in Germany, being a traditional trade hub in Germany. That is why Dusseldorf is about to face losses, because of the (possible no deal) brexit. Because I have established strong ties to the IIK in the last years, I always tried to expand our cooperation, one possible project in mind were internship programs for students in Dusseldorf. Until now this did not work out, but the IIK was not responsible for this and I still hope that in the future multilingual programs with the IIK could start.         

Sustainable Wikimania ?

and the role of languageS to it. 

It is obvious that Language Policy has a lot to do with Wikipedia (Wp). Together with the UN, Council of Europe (EC) and the EU, Wikipedia is the most multilingual Organization on this Planet. And the Potential of Participation is enormously. But the participation in the Wikipedia is foremost online. But if one wants to participate beyond article-writing or editing, 2 possibilities are open up: Going to a Wikimania or Working for the Wikimedia Foundation, the Organization, which is backing (not only) the Wikipedia. Because I have job (at the Chukyo-University), I can't just work for the Foundation, but finding time and the right place, going to the Wikimania was an option for me since several years, but since I work in Japan (Nagoya) and since I am also responsible for our study abroad program in Germany, it was until now not possible to go to a Wikimania.The Link to the article (on WpE) shows more about the former conferences. The conference this year had the topic: "Stronger Together: Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals" (= SDGs & Link to Wikemania 2019). The SDGs are maybe the best possibility to cope with severe situation this planet is in. Looking at the SDGs the relation of some goals are obvious: Especially "Quality Education" (No.4), but also "Partnerships for the Goals" (17) and in general ALL goals have a relation to language, because without language no goal could be reached. The relation to the Wikipedia-Movement is clear, especially the Wikipedia can reach out to the communities to help reaching the SDGs, in terms of:

• Information 
• Activation 
• Transformation (of World Society) 

Languages (especially English) playing a crucial role in this process. But the problem is here, that there is not only one language (not even English), which can reach this goal alone. And related to that THE Wikipedia Movement is not existing. There a lot of different national Wikipedias (in different languages) and there are other projects as well. And there are the (national Wikimedia) Foundations, organizing the Projects, like the Wikimania. And because of this variety of nations (languages) and projects conferences like the Wikimania are necessary. But this conferences are not sustainable, especially the Air-travel is problem for sustainability, among other factors (e.g. not all of the Servers of Wikimedia are using green energy). But on the long run, looking at sustainability from a more distant perspective, Wikipedia seems to be the best options to reach out for sustainability, because of the multilingual character of the Wikipedia and also because of the strong role of the English languages.