The history of the Kursk linguistic festival began in 2018, when the first linguistic festival in the region was organized by the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of the South-West University in Kursk. Previously, its future organizers had already been in the friendly and exciting atmosphere of the Language Festivals in Cheboksary, in Ulyanovsk, and this strengthened the natural desire to try to create the Kursk linguistic festival. It is pleasant to note that the idea of this linguistic movement was supported in every possible way by the leadership of the university. Of course, this is an additional source of joy and strength needed in the preparatory work.
The first international linguistic festival in Kursk took place on December 14-15, 2018 and was held in the format traditional for such events. 4 blocks of speeches combined presentations and informative lectures on 24 very diverse languages of the world. The festival brought together 76 participants from Oryol, Belgorod, Lipetsk, Lugansk, Kursk and its region. The number of foreign participants included representatives of Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Slovakia, Ecuador, Yemen, Cote d'Ivoire, Botswana, Cameroon, students at the universities of Kursk and Lipetsk. The main content of the festival was made up of 25-minute performances, during which one could hear the sound of the language, get acquainted with the curious facts of its structure, learn about the history of its development, learn a few phrases in the presented language and, of course, communicate with a person of a different culture. As usually happens at linguistic festivals, such presentations were held simultaneously in several auditoriums, which means that each guest or participant could choose his own unique route through the festival. The speeches of the participants were combined into 3 sections: "The Multicolor of the Languages of Europe", "The Commonwealth of Oriental and African Languages" and "Travel to the Country of Lingvoland". Both the most widespread and less familiar languages of the world were presented to the audience. Among the languages of international communication, the artificial language Esperanto, created back in the 19th century for free communication in the world community, has become a real highlight for the audience.
Traditional presentations were successfully combined with informative lectures on linguistics, which made it possible to expand the format of the event and - which, of course, was pleasant - attracted the positive attention of our guests. The topics of the lectures varied greatly. In an accessible form, they revealed to the audience the life path of the language, its dialects and the real need for international languages, talked about ways to increase motivation when learning a language, touched on the features of translating movie titles, and introduced entertaining facts about how the world is reflected in language culture. An exciting marathon of language presentations and lectures ended at the closing ceremony, where the presenters were awarded certificates of participation, as well as small mementos.
On the second day, the festival continued with a cultural program. For our participants, excursions to the Regional and Literary Museum of the city of Kursk took place, which was complemented by a short trip around the regional capital.
Thanks to the support of the administration and the wide geography of foreign participants, our festival has acquired international status. In its warm atmosphere, all those present were united by a common interest in the languages of the peoples of the world. As a result of the festival, we decided to make this linguistic meeting traditional for the Faculty of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, to the delight of all interested friends.
The program and photo report of the 1st International Linguistic Festival in Kursk can be found at the link: https://vk.com/lingvofest2018. Until next time!
