EUTOPIA Connected Research Community History, Identity and Linguistic Diversity

The History, Identity and Linguistic Diversity Connected Research Community will build upon the strengths of EUTOPIA’s founding universities in historical sociolinguistics in order to solve modern-day problems at the intersections of language and society.

HILD will leverage partners’ expertise in language history, language contact, language policy, multilingualism, language education, language variation and change, language conflict, minoritized languages and dialects, and language standardization for the shared purpose of improving present-day society through understanding of linguistic pasts. Activities will seek to inspire research into the connections between historical and contemporary sociolinguistic realities, to generate impact that shapes language policy and reduces linguistic injustice, and to create resources that foster linguistic diversity and mutual understanding.

Minoring the inter- and cross-disciplinary nature of historical sociolinguistics, HILD’s activities will span four Sustainable Development Goals:

Goal 4: Quality Education
Goal 10: Reduced inequalities
Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities
Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

The research, impact, engagement, end educational resources that HILD members collaborate toward will therefore offer wide-ranging societal benefits, while also helping shape the role of linguistic disciplines as agents of change and advancing EUTOPIA’s position as the European University.

HILD will initially bring together members with a challenge to answer the question ‘How can we reduce present-day European conflict through knowledge of historical multilingualism, language conflict, and language policy?’ Research-based responses to this challenge will provide an initial set of academic and engagement outputs and form the foundation for long-term collaboration among HILD partners.