Colloquium

Indigenous and Minoritized Languages in Urban Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes - Contrasting Edmonton and Yakutsk

Dr. Jenanne Ferguson, Anthropology, Economics and Political Science, MacEwan University

Date: Friday, March 28, 2025

Time: 3:00 - 4:15pm MDT

Place: SAB 3-36

Zoom link: https://ualberta-ca.zoom.us/j/93955321127?pwd=lLQsaIFmnrTPnKJwjL6mNR9TBJzZYh.1
Meeting ID: 939 5532 1127
Passcode: 734072

This presentation discusses two different ongoing projects regarding analysis of linguistic (LL) and semiotic (SL) landscapes in two different cities--Yakutsk i(Sakha Republic, Russia) and Edmonton, Alberta--focusing on the presence of Indigenous/minoritized languages (namely, Sakha and nêhiyawêwin, respectively) in each of these locations. Over the last several decades, linguistic landscape analyses have become popular tools for understanding the dynamics of language policy and planning actions in a given location, and the symbolic as well as practical functions of a given language in a place. While the official status as well as presence of the Sakha language (in Yakutsk) and nêhiyawêwin (in Edmonton) are quite different, the occurrence of each in their respective LLs/SLs contribute not only to language promotion but to acts of emplacement, or place-making, in each of these cities.