Press releases

MINSK, 28 March (BelTA) – The Faculty of Philology of the Belarusian State University (BSU) hosted the Minsk Language Festival on 29 March, BelTA learned from the BSU press service.

The forum showcased 50 languages, including rare and popular, modern and extinct ones. The “debutants” of the festival included Tatar, Armenian, Estonian, Maltese, Afrikaans, Navajo, and the constructed Sindarin and Klingonese languages. The languages were presented by students, postgraduates, and professors of BSU’s Faculty of Philology and Faculty of International Relations, the Minsk State Linguistic University, the Russian State University for the Humanities, and language experts and philologists from Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The participants of the festival had a chance to talk to native speakers.

The program of the festival featured 40-minute lectures on the history of a particular language and its modern development trends. A large section was dedicated to the Belarusian language, history, literature, and culture.

The first edition of the Minsk Language Festival was held on 31 March 2013 and gathered 350 visitors. It presented 35 languages.

The first language festival was held by American Esperantist Dennis Keefe in Tours, France, in 1995. A similar festival way was held in Cheboksary, Russia, the following year. Since then, language festivals have been successfully held in various countries of the world.