Over 100 participants gathered on 13 February 2025 to share their love for language. Those who walked in through the revolving doors of the Main Building could go straight to a Holobox, where VU students, lecturers and employees spoke enthusiastically about their language.
‘Wéi geet et dir?’
The day kicked off with language workshops. Participants could listen to native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, Jamaican Patois, Luxembourgish and Moroccan Tamazight. In four interactive lessons, each half an hour long, these languages came to life thanks to a pinch of history and plenty of phrases for the audience to learn.
‘VU Language Stories’
In the auditorium, the documentary VU Language Stories premiered. In this documentary, six members of the VU community talk about their lives and the role their mother language plays in it.
‘Your mother language is as familiar as the house you live in’
After the documentary, Diederik Oostdijk, professor of English literature, took the stage to open a festive event. He introduced René van Woudenberg, dean of the Faculty of Humanities. The latter spoke about the familiarity of your own mother language.
Petra Bos, VU lecturer and language researcher, explored the power of sound, on how accents and dialects shape our perceptions. She stressed that we need to be more aware of our own biases and assumptions.‘It is a fine line between feelings about language variations and assumptions about its speakers’.
Camille Welie, lecturer and coordinator of VU-NT2 Professional and Research, told the audience about multilingualism in classrooms. ‘Your mother language is close to your heart and helps you feel at home’. He then announced Orhan Agirdag, professor of pedagogical sciences at KU Leuven. In his pre-recorded presentation, he described how language diversity can be transformed into multilingualism.
Between presentations, the audience was treated to beautiful choreography by Dansgroep Griffioen. The event came to an end with the launch of the new MOOC ‘Dutch pronunciation in a diverse society’, introduced by lecturer Anne Broekhuis and Annemarie Nuwenhoud, department head of VU-NT2. The audience was challenged with a quiz, which gave them a taste of the course topics.
‘Language connects’
While enjoying a snack and drink, participants chatted about this richly filled day. Here, too, we heard all kinds of personal stories. During this day, it became clear once again; your mother tongue is more than just what you speak; it is a part of who you are and when we open up to language diversity, we come closer together.
text: Annelotte Adriaanse
photo: Yvonne Compier