Language Museums Across the World

International Flag
of Language 

Language Museums Across the World

Linguisticator: 3.25.2019

Earlier this year in March it was announced that there would be a new language museum opening in Washington DC. As reported in Quartz, Planet Word is set to open in the U.S. capital in the winter of 2019 and was conceived by Anna Friedman, a literacy and education advocate. Conscious of falling literacy levels and the fact that fewer and fewer people are subscribing to newspapers, Friedman perceived a threat to democracy and set about creating this interactive museum to change this.

The introductory blurb on the museum's website highlights that the overarching ethos of the space is defined by the fact that the strength of democracy depends ‘upon having a literate population that can understand and address today’s complex issues’. The site of the museum will also host a working language research lab where visitors will be able to take part in a range of studies, details of which can be found in the Quartz article here.

In her conversation with Lila McLellan for Quartz Friedman reveals how she considers Planet Word to be long overdue and while its specific configuration may be unique, there have been several language museums scattered across the world in the past and there are also ongoing projects that disseminate and promote language in this way, some of which you can read about below.

National Museum of Language, Maryland

Established in 2008, this museum is currently in a developmental phase and not open to the public. On their website they state that their mission is ‘to inspire an appreciation for the magic and beauty of language’ and it was in 2008 that they launched a competition for the very first International Flag of Language which you can see in the header for this post – you can read more about the contest and the meaning behind this flag here.

Canadian Language Museum, Toronto

Six years old, the Canadian Language Museum was established ‘to promote an appreciation of all of the languages spoken in Canada and of their role in the development of this nation’.

Wortreich, Germany

Opened in 2011, Wortreich was Germany’s first interactive language and communications museum.

Museum of Languages, UK (see MEITS below)

An Arts and Humanities Research Council project, Multilingualism – Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies, announced in September 2016 that they would be creating the UK’s first ever National Museum of Languages. Initially designed as a pop-up that will appear in Belfast, Edinburgh, Cambridge and Nottingham.

Yugambeh Language and Heritage, Australia

Located in Beenleigh, this museum aims to record and promote the knowledge of South East Queensland, particularly the Yugambeh language.  READ MORE >>

Language Museums Around the World

Arts & Culture Translated: 11.15.2018

═════════►

There’s also the Dutch Museum of Languages in Leiden, a city made famous by its preponderance of ‘wall poems’. The museum is intentionally small, espousing the model of the small-scale museum as a more sustainable way of developing and maintaining a public institution.

Brazil also represents well in this area with their Museu da Língua Portuguesa in Sao Paolo. Theirs is partly a global mission, to promote exchanges between Portuguese speakers spread across the world. There’s a bit of irony here since unless you read Portuguese, the museum’s website is sadly deficient. If it weren’t for Google Translate, the interior pages, including the blog, would not be accessible to anyone but a Portuguese speaker. I guess that’s one way to promote a language!

*Finally, here at home, the MEITS project will run a pop-up Museum of Languages. Designed to promote multilingualism, it will first be appearing in Cambridge, Nottingham, Edinburgh, and Belfast in 2019. READ MORE >>

Language museums of the world

Institutions, websites, memorials

Edited by Ottar Grepsta (pdf)

Centre for Norwegian Language and Literature

Ørsta 2018

This second edition includes 80 museums of language and written culture in 31countries. There might be more, and in some cases, updated information has been hard to find.

The museums have been divided into five groups:

• 6 museums of language and languages of the world

• 33 museums of a single language or group of languages

• 15 museums of writing and written culture

• 11 museums in memory of persons

• 15 digital museums

By 2017, there were ideas, plans and initiatives for at least 18 more language museums, some of them even under construction, but six museums had been closed.

The book presents 39 websites about language systems, language in use and language rights.

Documentation is also included about 35 monuments, 23 festivals and 69 days and weeks for memory or celebration of languages.  READ MORE >>