Happy Mikael Agricola's Day!

[Thomas E. Payne]

Korea celebrates Hangul Day/Chosŏn'gŭl Day, national holidays in both South and North Korea. Also there have been numerous coins featuring King Sejong the Great who commissioned the creation of a distinctly Korean writing system. The Hangul writing system is very linguistically consistent, being based (at least partially) on articulatory features. Perhaps Korean would be an endangered language today if it weren’t for Sejong and his court linguists.

 

Tom

 

From: Endangered Languages List [mailto:ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Eduardo Ribeiro
Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:40 AM
To: ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Happy Mikael Agricola's Day!

 

Hi, Dave,

Padre José de Anchieta, who wrote the first grammar of a Brazilian language (his 'Arte' of Tupinambá or Old Tupí, published in 1595), received similar homages on both sides of the Atlantic.  Coins in his homage were coined both in Portugal and Brazil (http://www.etnolinguistica.org/anchieta); June 9th, the day of his death, is commemorated as "Anchieta Day" in Brazil (neither an official or widely popular holiday, though).

I wouldn't be surprised if similar homages have been paid to other colonial missionary linguists (mostly Jesuits, as Anchieta) in countries such as Paraguay, Mexico, Peru, etc.

Unlike Agricola's work, Anchieta's didn't result in widespread literacy among the native speakers.  The language, which played an important role in the initial colonization of Brazil, would gradually die out (although one of its descendents, Nheengatú, survives to this day: http://www.etnolinguistica.org/lingua:nheengatu).

 

Tudo de bom,

Eduardo

 

On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:41 AM, Dave Sayers <D.Sayers at swansea.ac.uk> wrote:

Gazing out of my window at Turku Cathedral has taken on a new meaning. I just learnt that today
Finland commemorates the founder of the written Finnish language (and Bishop of Turku), Mikael Agricola.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikael_Agricola
http://www.finnguide.fi/calendar/calendarevents.asp?month=4 <http://www.finnguide.fi/calendar/calendarevents.asp?month=4&p=25> &p=25

He also has his own commemorative €10 coin! http://goo.gl/3owiL

I'm only in Finland for a year, so I often feel like a bit of a tourist stumbling over this sort of
information. Do any other linguistic scholars around the world have their own day and/or coin??

Dave

--
Dr. Dave Sayers
Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University
Visiting Lecturer (2012-2013), Dept English, Åbo Akademi University
MA Dissertation Advisor, Laureate Online Education & University of Liverpool
dave.sayers at cantab.net
http://swansea.academia.edu/DaveSayers




-- 
Eduardo Rivail Ribeiro, lingüista
http://etnolinguistica.org/perfil:9 

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