1. Suppression of Slovak Language. Here is a message forwarded from a Linguistics Prof at a Hungarian University.

Dear Fellow Linguists,

The National Council of the Slovak Republic passed an act on June 30th, 2009, modifying earlier regulations applying to the use of the Slovak language as the state language of the Slovak Republic. The new regulations restrict the use not only of other languages but also variants of the Slovak language, threatening violations of the law by imposing fines of EUR 100 to 5000 on individuals and businesses, running to EUR 165,000 in case of media organisations.

We find these restrictions untenable both linguistically and from the point of view of human rights. By determining the language, and the language variant to be used, the Act wishes to control communication in all public situations, also those outside the competence of the state, such as consultations among patients and doctors, scientific conferences, business meetings, communication in the offices of local governments.

Therefore we ask everybody who disagrees with the amendments of the Slovakian language law to sign the petition issued officially by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
To read about the details and sign the petition, go to http://peticio.nytud.hu/

Katalin Balogne Berces, PhD
Lecturer, Dept. of English Language
and Literature, Pazmany Peter
Catholic University,
Piliscsaba, H-2087, Hungary

2. Deadline for proposals for the 8th annual hawaii conference on arts and humanities
Submission Deadline: August 21, 2009

Sponsored by:
University of Louisville - Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods

Web address: http://www.hichumanities.org
Email address: humanities@hichumanities.org

The 8th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities
will be held from January 13 (Wednesday) to January 16 (Saturday),
2010 at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa and the Hilton Waikiki
Prince Kuhio Hotel in Honolulu,

Hawaii. The conference will provide many opportunities for
academicians and professionals from arts and humanities related fields
to interact with members inside and outside their own particular
disciplines. Cross-disciplinary

submissions with other fields are welcome.

Topic Areas (All Areas of Arts & Humanities are Invited):
*Anthropology
*American Studies
*Archeology
*Architecture
*Art
*Art History
*Dance
*English
*Ethnic Studies
*Film
*Folklore
*Geography
*Graphic Design
*History
*Landscape Architecture
*Languages
*Literature
*Linguistics
*Music
*Performing Arts
*Philosophy
*Postcolonial Identities
*Product Design
*Religion
*Second Language Studies
*Speech/Communication
*Theatre
*Visual Arts
*Other Areas of Arts and Humanities
*Cross-disciplinary areas of the above related to each other or other areas.

Submitting a Proposal:

You may submit your paper/proposal by using our online submission
system! To use the system, and for detailed information about
submitting see: http://www.hichumanities.org/cfp_artshumanities.htm

Thats all for now! Check back in the next couple of weeks, im going to try to update the website and blog when I get some time.See y’all in September!