Join us on Zoom to celebrate and find out more about some of the many languages spoken, heard and seen in the ACT!

When: 16 October 2021, 10:30am - 3:30pm, online

After the opening session, six different panels featuring over 20 presenters will share their perspectives on our multilingual city. Free and open to all you can choose to attend one session or make a day of it! Each 30 minute session will have a different zoom link, so you can continue the discussion with panel members after the session formally wraps up.

Zoom links will be provided to all registrants just prior to the event. More details from https://actbilingual.weebly.com/events.html or email canberrabilingual@gmail.com

DRAFT PROGRAM (subject to change)

10.30am-11am Opening session

• Includes official opening by ACT Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Tara Cheyne

11am -11.30am Languages and scripts from East Asia

• Hear and see languages from East Asia all the time in Canberra? Attend this panel to learn more about some of these fascinating languages and their non-alphabet writing systems.

11.45am – 12.15pm Languages and scripts from the Indian subcontinent

• Why does South Asia have so many different scripts or alphabets? How does such a multi-lingual place develop and how do all these languages interact? Come and learn about historical trends and contemporary experiences of South Asian languages globally.

12.30pm- 1pm Aboriginal languages

• What do you know about the contemporary situations of speakers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages? We give you a snapshot of the national context, then zoom right in to local, personal experience.

1 pm – 1.30pm LUNCH BREAK

1.30pm -2pm Languages from Europe

• Encompassing many cultures, over 200 languages are spoken in Europe! Some languages are very popular, others endangered and spoken by few; some have lot in common, others not much at all. Which have you heard in the streets of Canberra? Join our session to learn more about languages from Europe.

2.15pm -2.45pm Interpreters and translators

• Find out about how bilinguals became translators and interpreters and hear some of their career highlights.

3pm – 3.30pm Mother Tongue Multilingual Poetry

• Tune into our Mother Tongue Multilingual Poetry panel and hear from three Canberra-based poets who reflect on how and why they write in their native languages.

Many thanks to Ngunnawal elder Caroline Hughes for her Welcome to Country, ACT Minister Tara Cheyne for officially opening the event, Aika Nichol and Jaya and Layla Ansura for allowing us to share their video entries for ACTBEA's recent Sharing Languages and Cultures competition, the ANU for its support, and to all the panel moderators, presenters and ACTBEA volunteers who helped make the day such a wonderful event. 

Edited recordings of the sessions are available upon request.

The event took place thanks to the efforts of the ACT Bilingual Education Alliance and the support provided by Canberra Multicultural Community Forum Inc.; ACT government Participation (Multicultural) Grant 2020-21; ANUCES Jean Monnet project Culture in International Relations supported by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union.