EDITORIAL

Abstract

The 25th volume of “Sustainable Multilingualism” enters the world when Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) is celebrating the 35th anniversary of its reestablishment in 1989 – the reestablishment that brought the fresh air in the Lithuanian HE through the Liberal Arts model of US Universities. This makes it a worthy occasion to revisit how the historical pathways of VMU and its present-day life are intertwined with a rich multicultural and multilingual tradition and potential.

The spirit of VMU multilingualism can be traced back to the year 1922, when established as the University of Lithuania in Kaunas, then the temporary capital of the young Lithuanian state, it was the first university where studies started to be delivered through the medium of the Lithuanian language. It was the major hub where the seminal scholars of the Lithuanian language such as Kazimieras Būga, Jonas Jablonskis, Juozas Balčikonis, Balys Sruoga, etc., elaborated and entrenched the Lithuanian academic discourse, coined academic terminology and contributed to deep-rooting the modern Lithuanian identity. At the same time the plurilingual and pluricultural profile of the university community thrived through the contributions of numerous international polymaths such as the Swiss linguist Alfred Senn and philosopher Joseph Ehret who exemplified their true cosmopolitan disposition infused with Lithuanian identity until it all was disrupted by the soviet occupation.

Since its reestablishment after the soviet closure, the openness to the international community and plurilingual aspirations have been cherished at VMU model of Liberal arts. Starting with the strong focus on English as the indispensable lingua academica and the philology studies, the university has gradually developed an ecosystem for language learning and pluricultural awareness by offering over 30 languages to all university community and the general public.  

Since 2019 attention to multi- and plurilingualism in Europe has gained additional momentum with the introduction of the European University Alliances. This EU initiative and its focus on promoting multilingual campuses has its roots in the President of France Emmanuel Macron’s speech of 2017 where the French President among other visionary ideas for the competitiveness of the European Universities reiterated the long-living aim of the European linguistic hygiene, the 2+1 language formula: “I believe we should create European Universities – a network of universities across Europe with programs that have all their students study abroad and take classes in at least two languages”[1].

This rapidly growing initiative currently counts 64 alliances, involving 560 European institutions, which has three times surpassed the French President’s initial projection. All of the alliances have to a greater or lesser extent languages in their foreground either as strategic policy goals, study offers or other initiatives. In 2020 VMU together with other 6 partners from Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain created Transform4Europe Alliance[2], which grew to embrace new partners from Slovenia, France, Portugal and an associated partner Mariupol University from Ukraine in 2023. Its Multilingual Campus Strategy has been agreed among the Alliance partners as a token of appreciation of its rich multilingual and multicultural potential and above all as a strong commitment to its fulfilment. As an example of its practical implementation and a motivational act, a trilingual slow reading essay Practicing Utopia by the Polish practitioner of ideas Krzysztof Czyzewski has been offered to the alliance community and can be of interest to the reader of Sustainable Multilingualism as well.

The 25th volume of Sustainable Multilingualism features three of our traditional sections, namely the issues in Society, Identity and Language Maintenance, the focus on the Multilingual Practices in Language Policy Implementation, and the issues in Language Use and Education in Multilingual and Multicultural Settings.

In the first section, the articles of Gribauskienė and Flih analyse the maintenance of the heritage languages among the children of the Lithuanian and the Arab diasporas vis-à-vis the major languages of their residence countries such as English, Norwegian or French. The article of Awal dwells into the preservation of endangered languages by examining the relevant risk factors, socio-cultural effects and complexities. The manifestations and functions of multilingualism in Lithuanian children’s folklore are analysed by Anglickienė and Macijauskaitė-Bonda, while the article by Lazer-Pankiv and Korolova brings the societal bilingualism through the use of Latin in the Renaissance period into our attention. The second section features two articles on linguistic landscapes with the one by Váradi, Hires-László, and Máté focusing on a schoolscape of Transcarpathian Hungarian College, and the other one by Mishra analysing the dynamics of shop signs in India. The third section presents the article by López-Medina and Pérez Agustín who look for the solutions in preprimary education in the context of the increasingly linguistically diverse students and students with special educational needs. The two final coauthored articles bring the reader to the Turkish context. Aksakallı et al. analyse doctoral students challenges in writing literature reviews, while Özçelik et al. carry out an investigation into the advantages and issues encountered by Turkish universities in the implementation of EMI studies.

[1] President Macron’s speech on new initiative for Europe, posted on 26 September 2017.

https://www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2017/09/26/president-macron-gives-speech-on-new-initiative-for-europe

[2] Saarland University, University of Alicante, Estonian Academy of Arts, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, University of Primorska, University of Trieste, Jean Monnet University, University of Silesia in Katowice, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Vytautas Magnus University, Mariupol State University . More on Transform4Europe Alliance: https://transform4europe.eu/