'Language Mosaic' Festival: Dialogue of Cultures and Languages Held at HSE University
Every year, approximately 25 languages disappear from the world's linguistic mosaic, which contains more than 7,000 languages. HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod at the initiative of the HSE Library hosted the festival, “Language Mosaic”, dedicated to International Mother Language Day.
Opening the festival, the President of the HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod Gennady Ryabov noted that on the International Mother Tongue Day, all languages are recognized as equal, because each of them holds knowledge related to traditions and culture of a particular nationality. "It is known that language plays a leading role in the history of ethnic groups, helping to preserve the culture and traditions of entire peoples. It is no coincidence that the poet said: As the secrets of the ancestors live in temple, so the soul of people lives in the language," Gennady Ryabov quoted.
On the first day of the Festival, participants got acquainted with the linguistic and cultural diversity of the multinational environment of the HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod.
Wan Muhammad Ariff Bin Rahmat, 2nd year Master's student in Applied Linguistics and Text Analytics
I have attended many festivals in Singapore, Russia and other countries of the world, and realized that the term "festival" itself can be applied to various places and events, ranging from large-scale concerts to small official gatherings. The events of the “Language Mosaic” festival were not only interesting and diverse, but, most importantly, perfectly reflected the main theme of the festival.
For example, a quiz on guessing Pushkin's poem, read by students from different parts of the world in their native languages: Arabic, Armenian, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Twi and others, songs in English and Russian, fascinating traditional dances of Azerbaijan and Ecuador. Personally, I was very intrigued by the story about the Chinese language and its potential, and also found the results of two corpus studies presented by students of the program "Applied Linguistics and Text Analytics" interesting.
The second day of the Festival was remembered by the participants with a bright holiday organized by the Faculty of Humanities, "Musical and Linguistic Maslenitsa". Students and teachers of the Nizhny Novgorod State Glinka Conservatoire, the Confucius Institute at the Linguistic University of Nizhny Novgorod and Minin University attended this event.
Zhang Yu, student of the preparatory department of the Nizhny Novgorod State Glinka Conservatoire
It was a very interesting, "live" event, where we really immersed ourselves in Russian culture and communication with our Russian peers. We express our gratitude and look forward to meeting you again!
As a part of the second day of Festival, the HSE Library hosted the personal exhibition’s opening of paintings by artist Svetlana Gankina "Nomadic Notes", round table on the topic "Gender linguistics and feminitives" and a master class "I'm writing to you".
"We hope that the “Language Mosaic” festival will become an annual event and will contribute to the development and strengthening of cultural ties, cooperation between foreign and Russian students of the HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod" Anfisa Gorodnova, Head of the HSE Library, said. – As well as the awareness that languages play a crucial role in the development of society, providing cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue, and contribute to improving the quality of education for all."