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Histories of the early modern artificial language movement have focused not unreasonably on a series of ambitious, seventeenth-century language planners who set out to design 'real characters' or 'universal languages'. However, there were also practitioners working in fields like music, mathematics, and chemistry who likewise aspired to develop new, more systematic nomenclatures or notations, often also in the hope that such tools would designate things instead of words. Because histories of the artificial language movement do not usually address such projects or do so only insofar as these projects pertain to arguments about the language planners, their nomenclatures and notations constitute early modern Europe's 'other' real characters. This article surveys three cases in which individuals who are not typically considered representatives of the artificial language movement sought to design newer, more systematic means of communication. It compares and contrasts their approaches with those of well-known language planners, both in terms of how they designed their symbols and what they understood their symbols' primary function to be. In so doing, this article also proposes to reframe the history of the early modern artificial language movement by situating the more famous language planners within a wider and more varied intellectual milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: The PACE Steps to Success programme is a complex educational and development intervention to improve palliative care in nursing homes. Little research has investigated processes in the cross-cultural adaptation and implementation of interventions in palliative care across countries, taking account of differences in health and social care systems, legal and regulatory policies, and cultural norms. This paper describes a framework for the cross-cultural development and support necessary to implement such an intervention, taking the PACE Steps to Success programme as an exemplar.Methods: The PACE Steps to Success programme was implemented as part of the PACE cluster randomised control trial in seven European countries. A three stage approach was used, a) preparation of resources; b) training in the intervention using a train-the-trainers model; and c) cascading support throughout the implementation. All stages were underpinned by cross-cultural adaptation, including recognising legal and cultural norms, sensitivities and languages. This paper draws upon collated evidence from minutes of international meetings, evaluations of training delivered, interviews with those delivering the intervention in nursing homes and providing and/or receiving support.Results: Seventy eight nursing homes participated in the trial, with half randomized to receive the intervention, 3638 nurses/care assistants were identified at baseline. In each country, 1-3 trainers were selected (total n = 16) to deliver the intervention. A framework was used to guide the cross-cultural adaptation and implementation. Adaptation of three English training resources for different groups of staff consisted of simplification of content, identification of validated implementation tools, a review in 2 nursing homes in each country, and translation into local languages. The same training was provided to all country trainers who cascaded it into intervention nursing homes in local languages, and facilitated it via in-house PACE coordinators. Support was cascaded from country trainers to staff implementing the intervention.Conclusions: There is little guidance on how to adapt complex interventions developed in one country and language to international contexts. This framework for cross-cultural adaptation and implementation of a complex educational and development intervention may be useful to others seeking to transfer quality improvement initiatives in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Form@re is the property of Firenze University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores Jan Amos Comenius’s vision of a Christian united Europe and its connection to his theological programme of reform. This is manifest first of all in his linguistic projects, in which he sought to break down the language barriers separating Christians both from each other and from the mission field of the New World, but it came to fruition especially in his comprehensive reform project of pansophia, especially as this was represented in his massiveConsultatio catholica. For it is here that Comenius expands on his dream of a union of nations under one Christian religion. In this, Christ who transcends time and space, uniting in himself all the diverse aspirations of the nations, is revealed as the global ‘centre of security.’ Importantly, Comenius’s expression of this is profoundly indebted to Nicholas of Cusa and the article concludes by highlighting Comenius’s own Trinitarian and conciliar vision of Christian Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, regional minority languages in Europe have regained increased recognition and support. Their revitalisation is partly due to their being taught in schools. Multilingualism has special characteristics for speakers of minority languages and it poses unique challenges for learning minority languages. This article looks at the cases of Basque and Frisian, comparing and contrasting their similarities and differences. The educational system in the Basque Autonomous Community underwent an important transformation, starting in 1979 from a situation where less than 5 per cent of all teachers were capable of teaching through Basque. Today this figure has changed to more than 80 per cent. An innovative approach was chosen for teaching the minority language, Basque, alongside the dominant language, Spanish, and the international language, English. The outcome is a substantial increase in the proficiency in the minority language among the younger age groups. The decline of the minority language has thus been successfully reversed and one of the major challenges now is to uphold a sustainable educational system. By contrast, the Frisian language has fared less well in the Netherlands, where developments over the last 30 years have been much slower and the results more modest. Here policy-making for education and for language is caught in a continuous debate between a weak provincial level and a powerful central state level. Overall, multilingualism as a resource for individuals is valued for 'bigger' languages such as English, French and German, but not for a 'small' language such as Frisian. Nevertheless, a few trilingual experiments have been carried out in some schools in Friesland in teaching Frisian, Dutch and English. These experiments may also be instructive for other cases of minority languages of a 'moderate strength'. In the cases of both Basque and Frisian multilingualism is generally perceived as an important resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination into the early history of the computer programing language Algol. Introductory details are given noting the language's original purpose and potential to act as a universal computing language for scientific computations. Discussion is offered outlining how the initial development of the language in the 1950s was shared between European nations and the United States but then declined in the U.S. due to a lack of interest in uniform programming languages on the conceptual level.

English has spread and is used around the world, often as a rational choice made by professional groups and bilingual speech communities. In Europe, it is used as a language of wider communication or a lingua franca. This study argues that although English can be the means of expression of local or national or European identities, and even though 'Euro-English' has some identifiable features, it is unlikely to develop into a distinct, stable, codifiable and teachable variety, wholly independent of native English norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role which English maintains as a lingua franca is currently being conceptualized in differing ways. English as an international language, Euro-English, and English as a lingua franca are analyzed from two main perspectives; first, the relevance that such descriptions of English-language usage have for variety building (for mainland Europe); and second, the development of ELT ideologies, methodologies, and course materials which support efforts to incorporate intercultural communicative competence and identity into the instruction. It is maintained not only that the manner in which English is defined and appropriated in mainland Europe should facilitate the development of an endonormative variety, but also that the L2 English of the peoples of Europe should accommodate other Englishes across the Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circles. The English of mainland Europe, as it is conceptualized for ELT, can facilitate both Europeanization and globalization. A postcolonial theoretical argument is made for importing the world Englishes paradigm to Europe. For this to take place, traditional prescriptivist approaches, which perpetuate Inner Circle sociocultural hegemony and native-speakerism, need to be replaced with a foundation for ELT better geared to further the aims of mainland European L2 users of the English language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article notes the paucity of studies of university language policies. It identifies a range of factors that influence university language policy, including historically formative influences, and refers to UNESCO's guidelines. It highlights why the use of English is not unproblematical, and the forces behind an increasing use of English. In Europe, internationalisation and Englishisation are integral to the Bologna process that is integrating higher education systems. Many symptoms of crisis in Western European countries and in postcolonial higher education are summarized. The evidence can be seen as demonstrating that expansionist English represents a pandemic as opposed to the panacea that the language is usually marketed as. Global commodification pressures, Western influence, and monolingual 'English-medium universities' may be part of the problem rather than the solution to the needs of citizens and economies. They can undermine the use of other languages. The rationale behind efforts in the Nordic countries to ensure a balance between the national language and 'international' languages, mainly English, is presented. Loose terminology, such as 'global' and 'international' English and 'lingua franca', is also scrutinised. A strong case for the maintenance of multilingual universities, with English in reciprocally supportive harmony with other languages, is made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Otto Neurath (1882-1945) and his team, through ISOTYPE (International System of TYpographic Picture Education) deeply influenced information design. In this article I attempt do describe the course of events that led Neurath to create ISOTYPE, and then analyze the legacy of ISOTYPE in pictograms and infographics in journalism. This legacy was not limited to Europe and USA and this is shown through examples of the influence of ISOTYPE in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like so many other innovations, the idea of one common language for all mankind appeared for the first time, in European thought, during the Renaissance. It has been estimated that since then nearly ‘seven hundred such artificial languages’ have been tried. Undoubtedly, this had to do with the collapse of Latin as the common language of education, soon to be replaced by the various, rising national languages. Europe's great expansion overseas, in this epoch, also created the need for a unified vehicle of communication.In many ways, the world, and not just Europe, is now facing a similar challenge. While English has become the Latin of the contemporary world, such a position, one can say in the light of historical experience, has always been precarious. Whether English will be unanimously accepted as the one unifying, international language of the globe, whether it will share this role with one or more other languages, or whether an artificial language will be adopted for that purpose is the question that sooner or later we will all be facing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on how "talkies," or talking films produced in the U.S., are carrying English speech and language to countries in Europe in 1929. The increasing integration of the world has created a need for a common language, and the English language apparently is destined to emerge as such. He also comments on the need for American schools to acquire the art of teaching modern tongues.