Official Website : http://jakarta.shh.mpg.de/14ICAL/index.html
The 14th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (14 ICAL) will take place for the first time in Madagascar, and more precisely at the University of Antananarivo on 17-20 July 2018.
This Conference is jointly organised by the Malagasy Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the « Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales » (INALCO France), the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, the Malagasy Academy and the University of Antananarivo. Various specialists of Austronesian languages from all over the world will participate in it.
For the University of Antananarivo, beyond the scientific interest of this event, ICAL provides the opportunity of strengthening national unity through the common language – Malagasy. For indeed, this only national language is made up of different dialects which all belong to the family of Austronesian languages.
ABOUT ICAL 14
For decades, ICAL has organised events on the progress of research on the Austronesian world. The links between Madagascar and the Austronesian world have been established more particularly by linguists, but also be anthropologists and archeologists. Research on the close links between dialects of the Malagasy language (including kibushi in the French island of Mayotte) with the other Austronesian languages should be further studied, especially by speakers of these dialects.
ICAL takes place every three years. It aims to strengthen the links between researchers on Austronesian languages, which are considered as the native, original languages from Oceania to the Pacific and the southern lands of the Indian Ocean, off the East African coast.
MAIN OBJECTIVES
The ICAL Conference offers the opportunity to develop cooperation between Madagascar and Asia in the field of research. It is also an opportunity for international researchers to discover Madagascar, especially regarding its links with the Austronesian world. As for the national researchers, ICAL urges them to be more interested in the Malagasy dialects and to carry out research works on their links with the other Austronesian languages.
This international meeting aims more particularly to :
- Set up multinational research teams
- Broaden participants' opportunities to present and advertise their works on the international stage
- To urge them to design projects with socio-economic and environmental impact on their countries
- To raise the public's awareness on the importance of the research conducted by specialists of Austronesian languages.
FORMER ICALs
- 10th edition of ICAL held in the Philippines in 2006 : http://www.sil.org/asia/Philippines/ical/index.html
- 11 ICAL, France, 2009 : http://alex.francois.free.fr/11ical-archives/data/11ical_Programme_temporary.pdf
- 12 ICAL, Indonesia, 2012 : https://www.sil.org/about/news/12th-international-conference-austronesian-linguistics-hosted-indonesia
- 13 ICAL, Taiwan, 2015 : http://www.ling.sinica.edu.tw/en/activities/AcademicActivities.Content/f8898108-c9e3-4db4-ae2c-d38d3bbad44a