Speakers

I will talk about being a second generation heritage speaker of one of Italy's most unique regional languages. My own dialect is spoken by no more than 10,000 people, and my sub-dialect by no more than 1000!  What is the Arberesh language? Is it really a dialect of Albanian or can we assert that it is its own independent non-standardised language?

Benny Lewis has been travelling the world for around 24 years, using the theme of language learning to allow him to travel much deeper than typical digital nomads. Rather than popping into tourist-filled cities and then leaving, he has spent years in individual countries, going as deep as to visit every single state of Brazil and spending months in the Amazon all through Portuguese, going way beyond Bali and appreciating Borneo, Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi of Indonesia through Indonesian, or by covering 2,000km by bus or train in both Mexico and China, also using the local languages.

In this talk, Benny will outline the practical ways he makes this work, from how he went about selling a house's worth of junk to allow him to be truly minimalist and have all his possessions in the world weigh 23kg, how he manages to live this lifestyle while making sure it costs *less* than settled life ever did, and most importantly, how his language learning strategy is tightly integrated into his unique travel style and how languages completely transform his travel experience compared to the many monolingual digital nomads he meets.

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In this 20-minute presentation, I will share a personal and professional experiment: learning Modern Greek using only ChatGPT as my guide. As a language teacher, I am deeply familiar with how students acquire a new language—step by step, with structured input, guided practice, and clear progression. This project was an attempt to recreate that process without a textbook, a classroom, or a teacher—starting from zero in a language I had never studied before.

Using my teaching experience as a foundation, I designed a learning path similar to the one I use with my own students. I prompted ChatGPT to generate materials, explanations, and exercises, focusing on essential grammar, core vocabulary, and meaningful practice. The challenge was not just to learn Greek, but to test whether a coherent and effective learning system could emerge purely through interaction—through asking precise questions and giving clear instructions.

In this talk, I will present the structure I followed, the types of prompts that worked best, and the results I achieved. Most importantly, I will reflect on the limitations and unexpected advantages of this method. Can artificial intelligence replace traditional language learning tools—or even the teacher? And what does this mean for the future of language education?

Quando si parla di Italia, l’immaginario collettivo si orienta quasi automaticamente verso luoghi iconici: borghi pittoreschi, centri storici, paesaggi da cartolina, musei e opere d’arte. Tuttavia, la lingua non vive soltanto in questi spazi celebrati, ma si costruisce e si trasforma soprattutto nei luoghi quotidiani, spesso marginali, dove le persone si incontrano davvero.

Questa proposta nasce da un luogo concreto: un bar aperto 24 ore su 24 in una via di Bologna, gestito da una famiglia cinese. Un ambiente apparentemente anonimo, che potrebbe trovarsi in qualsiasi città europea, ma che diventa un osservatorio privilegiato sulla lingua italiana contemporanea.

Attraverso questo esempio, esplorerò un approccio didattico che utilizza gli “spazi invisibili” come strumenti di apprendimento linguistico e culturale. In questi luoghi emergono varietà linguistiche, registri informali, influenze interculturali e forme di comunicazione spontanea che raramente trovano spazio nei manuali.

Il bar diventa così una “tana linguistica”: un ambiente accogliente e autentico, dove la lingua si manifesta come pratica sociale viva, fatta di interazioni, abitudini e micro-narrazioni quotidiane.

La presentazione mostrerà come integrare questi contesti nell’insegnamento dell’italiano a studenti stranieri, proponendo attività basate sull’osservazione, sull’ascolto e sulla rielaborazione personale.

Questa prospettiva invita a ripensare il rapporto tra lingua e luogo, spostando l’attenzione dai simboli ufficiali agli spazi reali in cui la lingua prende forma, si mescola e si trasforma.

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Ethnologue recently reclassified Chavacano from an educational to an endangered language on its Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), a shift that signals a dramatic decline in how the language is being passed down between generations in the Philippines. But what does this reclassification actually mean — and how did the world's most widely spoken Spanish-based creole get here?

This paper traces Chavacano's trajectory through the overlapping pressures of educational policy, globalization, and evolving language attitudes in a postcolonial setting. At the center of this story is the growing dominance of English as the primary medium of instruction, which has steadily pushed Chavacano out of the schools and institutions it once shared with Filipino and Spanish. Drawing on community voices and qualitative data, this study explores how these forces converge to put a uniquely hybrid language at risk.

Crucially, Chavacano's situation is not isolated — it unfolds against the long shadow of the Spanish Pacific and centuries of colonial language hierarchies that continue to shape how speakers value, use, and identify with their languages today. By situating this EGIDS downgrade within that broader historical arc, this paper asks: what do endangerment, identity, and the possibility of revitalization look like when a language carries the weight of empire in every word?

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In a world polarized between "soulless" AI efficiency and the slow pace of traditional methods, Luca Lampariello and David Allen Martin II propose a powerful middle ground: The Hybrid Model. This strategy argues that the future of fluency belongs to those who use technology to amplify—not replace—human connection. The presentation outlines a high-efficiency framework built on three critical pillars: Acquisition (Input Mastery): Learn how to use AI to create your own high-interest content, transforming passive consumption into active, high-efficiency learning.

We are not one version of ourselves. We are many—shaped, shifted, and sometimes rewritten by the languages we use. This talk explores identity through the lens of multilingual expression, drawing from the experience of @radioziamaddi as a creative and polyglot artist navigating different linguistic worlds.

Each language carries a different rhythm of thought, a different emotional temperature, and even a different version of personality. Speaking becomes less about translation and more about transformation: who do we become when we switch codes, when we perform ourselves in another language?
What happens when you use languages as the core of your Artistic process, as the main ingredient for your Performance?

Through storytelling and examples, this talk will explore how languages do not simply describe reality—they multiply it. Examples, imitations, laughs and songs in several languages and Italian accents will create a powerful yet complete performance.

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- What are the scientific foundations behind the use of music to learn and teach languages?
- What research and evidence exists to support music as a tool for language education?
- How can we use this information to inform our language learning and teaching?

In this presentation, I cross-examine a wide range of scientific studies and sources which document the various ways in which music positively contributes to language learning and pedagogy. Based on a synthesis of these resources and my own personal experience learning and teaching various languages, I will suggest some approaches and implementations of musical language pedagogy for all kinds of language learners and educators.

The second part of this presentation will include a practical example for the audience to participate in, giving them the ability to actively put into practice the techniques discussed in the introduction. Together, we will listen to a song in a notoriously “difficult” language and hone our listening skills, using the musical medium and its benefits as a tool for personal linguistic growth.

With this presentation, I hope to convey to all participants the immense utility and power of using musical activities to enrich and bring joy to our language learning and teaching. I believe that with my experience researching and putting these techniques into practice, I can make a very compelling case for the expanded use of music in language pedagogy.

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Most language learners pick methods the way people pick diets: by anecdote, intuition, and whoever went viral on YouTube. Meanwhile, decades of research in linguistics and cognitive science have converged on a set of principles that reliably accelerate learning, while simultaneously demonstrating that much of what is popular is ineffective.

This talk distills that evidence into a practical framework built on three pillars. First, the linguistic pillar: how regular, principled patterns in phonology, morphology, and frequency distributions should shape what you study and how. Second, the memory pillar: why desirable difficulty, retrieval practice, and spaced repetition outperform casual reading and listening, highlighting, and “immersion without effort,” and how to structure your approach to study accordingly. Third, the technology pillar: how large language models, used intelligently, can be one more useful tool among many, that mines texts, extracts and organizes content, builds decks for spaced repetition calibrated to your level, and transforms passive input into active recall material at a speed completely unimaginable five years ago.

I'll share concrete workflows, sample prompts, common pitfalls (LLM hallucinations; SRS deck bloat), and honest evaluations of what has worked in my own learning and what has not. You'll leave with a defensible, practical, evidence-based system you can adapt to any language, at any level, starting tomorrow.

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This paper examines the Cornish community perspective on participation in the Horizon Europe Revive project, situating the revitalisation of the Cornish language (Kernewek) within broader discussions of indigenous endangered languages. Although Cornish is a revived Celtic language, its contemporary resurgence is closely tied to questions of cultural identity, indigeneity, and linguistic sovereignty in Cornwall.

Focusing on community experiences of engagement with Revive, the paper explores how speakers, learners, and activists interpret involvement in a large-scale, transnational research initiative. It considers the extent to which such frameworks recognise and support indigenous perspectives on language ownership, authority, and knowledge production. Particular attention is paid to tensions between institutional research agendas and community-led priorities, including concerns around representation, authenticity, and the long-term sustainability of revitalisation efforts.

Drawing on qualitative insights from community stakeholders, the paper argues that while Revive provides important opportunities for visibility, resource-sharing, and cross-cultural exchange among endangered language communities, its effectiveness depends on genuinely collaborative and ethically grounded partnerships. The Cornish case highlights the need to move beyond extractive research models towards approaches that centre indigenous agency and lived linguistic experience.

By positioning Cornish within the wider landscape of indigenous language revitalisation, the paper contributes to ongoing debates about decolonising research practices and ensuring that endangered language initiatives are shaped by, and accountable to, the communities they aim to serve.

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When learners first arrive in Italy, they often discover something their textbooks never warned them about: Italians don't all sound the same. Far from it. A Milanese, a Roman, a Neapolitan, and a Sicilian can all speak perfectly correct Italian and still sound utterly different. This presentation is a guided journey through the regional accents of Italy. We'll explore the key phonetic features that allow listeners to identify where a speaker comes from.

We'll also tackle a question that fascinates and divides Italians themselves: does a "neutral" Italian accent actually exist? Who speaks it? And why is it so rare in real life? Finally, we'll look at how Italy's regional languages — often called "dialetti," though they really are full-fledged languages — influence the way Italian is pronounced in each part of the country.

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As a multiple world record breaker in memory who advises learners and companies on memory technique, the number one question I'm asked is "how can I remember more words?" Memory palaces, image associations, mnemonics, spaced repetition — they all promise to supercharge vocabulary acquisition. But do they actually work in practice?

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In this talk I'll run a live demonstration of what is genuinely possible with memory techniques, including how I encode dozens of new words on stage in real time, the same techniques I've used to memorize 3000 words in 3 weeks. Then I'll show cases that complicate the picture: people who have memorized tens of thousands of words and still cannot order a cappuccino, alongside people who know only a few hundred words and move comfortably in conversation.

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From there I want to answer the questions language learners actually have. How important is memory for language acquisition? How far can basic memory techniques take you? Where do they fall short, and what works better past the memory plateau?

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Everyone in the room will leave with at least one memory technique they can use immediately, and a clearer sense of which parts of the language learning journey they can shrink.
The talk is designed to land cleanly as a focused 20 minutes on stage, and bite-sized, shareable (unforgettable!) moments for the online audience afterwards.

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When I started learning Spanish, I wasn't just battling with the grammar and vocab — I was battling my own mouth! One of my biggest breakthroughs came from an unexpected place, and it had nothing to do with any textbook, app, or anything my teacher had ever shown me. That one simple trick that I (unintentionally) picked up unlocked something that changed the way I think about pronunciation and accent work forever.

In this talk, I'll be sharing the practical tricks and tools that actually make a difference when it comes to sounding more natural in a foreign language. Using British English as my working example (as it's my area of speciality) I'll show how every technique can be applied to whichever language you're currently learning.

You don't need a "perfect ear", a linguistics degree, or years of study. You just need the right approach and techniques, which are exactly what I have up my sleeve after 16 years of pronunciation teaching.

Whether you're a complete beginner who's too nervous to open your mouth, or an advanced learner trying to iron out the last rough edges, this talk is for you. You'll leave with a clear, actionable toolkit of fun techniques that you can start using immediately.

In my proposed paper I examine the role of translation in language activism through the case of Griko, a minority language of Greek origins used in a few villages in the Southern Italian province of Lecce, Apulia. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, I highlight how translation practices have functioned as a key means of preserving and enriching this language. In particular, building on the RE.VIVE project and through the analysis of speakers and activists’ metalinguistic comments on their own translations into Griko, I show how translation is far from being a ‘simple’ act of interlingual communication and yet another site of ideological contestation. I argue that it crucially emerges as a generative practice in language activism and revitalisation, which facilitates a chronotopic shift, allowing for the re-imagining and re-shaping of Griko to express modern ideas and cultural experiences. This presupposes, conceptualising translation as “semiotic transduction” (Silverstein 2023) which reproduces communicative effects across semiotic systems, and in this case, temporal frames. The discussion offers insights into translation practices of both “heritage” and “new” speakers of Griko, pointing to the complex interplay of multilingualism, ideology, and community memory among speakers and activists in Italy.

In the polyglot community and among linguistics professionals, Paraguay is considered a paradigm of a successful bilingual society. Paraguayans are also deeply proud of their official bilingualism—a unique case in all of Latin America. In order to better understand Paraguay’s bilingualism, I conducted a 3-week intensive revitalization fieldwork in Paraguay in the spring of 2026.

Thanks to the support of the Taiwanese embassy and many Paraguayan friends, I was able to visit schools, government branches, and organizations like the Ateneo de Lengua y Cultura Guaraní and the Secretaría de Políticas Lingüísticas. In addition, I visited some rural villages around Asuncion to gain different perspectives. On top of that, I also traveled to Foz do Iguaçu to compare the linguistic situation in neighboring Brazil.

This talk will be the synthesis of the findings of my fieldwork. I will also elaborate on how Paraguay’s experience in bilingualism can help Taiwan revitalize its local languages to achieve true multilingualism.

Ladin is a Romance language spoken by some 30,000 people in the Dolomites of the Italian Alps. It is also my native language. To outsiders it sounds like German; under the microscope it is a remarkably conservative Romance language, preserving features the rest of Romance in that region abandoned centuries ago: second-person -s, distinct imperatives, even verb-second word order last seen elsewhere in medieval French.

In this talk I'll introduce the language as it looks, sounds, and lives today. I’ll untangle what "Rhaeto-Romance" actually means and why the classification has been fought over for 150 years, and show how a millennium under a German-speaking roof shaped Ladin and shielded it. I'll close with a look at its status today: its legal recognition, its schools and media, and its place in daily life.

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Duolingo is arguably the most popular language learning app available today, as measured by its over 30 million active monthly userbase (Duolingo, n.d.), yet remarkably little research has been conducted regarding its implementation or efficacy. The handful of studies that do exist (e.g., Bahjet Essa Ahmed, 2016; Baldauf et al., 2017; Loewen et al., 2019; Munday, 2016; Rachels & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2017; Vesselinov & Grego, 2012) have found positive outcomes, although methodologies vary so widely as to make comparisons or generalizations impossible. Researchers have noted, though, that Duolingo may be most beneficial as a supplemental tool rather than a stand-alone program (Loewen et al., 2019).  Given that many classroom learners are already familiar with and even use Duolingo, research into this kind of usage warrants further investigation.

Therefore, the present study explores the possible effects of using Duolingo as a supplemental tool and investigates outcomes related to learners’ fluency during a semester of beginning Spanish at the university level. In addition to linguistic outcomes, the students’ attitudes and motivation during the semester are also examined.  Data from these learners’ use of Duolingo are compared to those of a control group using an adaptive learning app, LearnSmart provided by the textbook company McGraw-Hill. In this presentation, we present usage data and affective results (attitude, motivation), in addition to fluency data. These findings have implications for future research and implementation of apps in college language classrooms, as well as a discussion of their potential usefulness as language learning tools (Sykes et al., 2010).

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Se ci chiediamo se l’euskera sia oggi una lingua viva e in buona salute, la risposta non è affatto semplice. Nella Comunità autonoma basca, l’euskera gode dello status di lingua ufficiale e dispone di un quadro istituzionale piuttosto solido. Eppure, continua a essere terreno di scontro: i requisiti linguistici per l’accesso al pubblico impiego, le prove di accesso all’università, il riconoscimento come lingua ufficiale dell’Unione europea e l’effettivo diritto dei cittadini a usare il basco nei rapporti con la pubblica amministrazione restano tuttora questioni controverse.

In Navarra, per esempio, l’euskera è ufficiale soltanto nella cosiddetta zona bascofona, mentre nella zona mista e in quella non bascofona i diritti linguistici sono più limitati, o addirittura inesistenti. Ne risulta una geografia disomogenea, in cui i diritti linguistici fondamentali variano da un comune all’altro. I dibattiti sulla zonizzazione linguistica, sui modelli educativi e sul valore attribuito all’euskera nel pubblico impiego mostrano come la Navarra continui a ridefinire i confini dell’ufficialità.

Nel Paese Basco settentrionale, sotto sovranità francese, il problema è ancora più profondo. L’euskera viene insegnato e sostenuto da scuole e istituzioni culturali, ma il francese rimane l’unica lingua ufficiale della Repubblica. Il recente conflitto sulla possibilità di sostenere le prove del baccalauréat in euskera mette in luce i limiti delle tutele linguistiche esistenti.

La situazione dell’euskera è quindi profondamente paradossale. La lingua viene parlata, trasmessa, insegnata e, almeno in parte, sostenuta dalle amministrazioni pubbliche. Tuttavia, ancora oggi, la sua condizione è segnata da linee immaginarie: non soltanto dai confini amministrativi, ma anche dal confine che separa il riconoscimento simbolico dai diritti effettivi.

Generative AI is trained predominantly on high-resource, global languages, creating a massive algorithmic bias that threatens digital linguistic diversity. This presentation addresses a critical question for the modern linguistic community: Will artificial intelligence save endangered languages or accelerate their extinction?

This session explores the dual reality of AI tools for vulnerable communities. On the one hand, we will analyze the threat of "digital colonialism," where minority languages risk being homogenized or ignored by major tech models. On the other hand, we will showcase practical initiatives: how open-source AI and the concept of the "AI-Augmented Polyglot" can be ethically used by activists for rapid grammatical documentation, speech-to-text preservation, and low-cost educational materials. Attendees will gain a sharp, realistic perspective on how technology can be steered to protect, rather than erase, the world’s linguistic heritage.

Struggling with where to put the verb in German? Or which Italian verbs take "avere" and which ones "essere" in the perfect tense? Or where to put the stress in an Italian word? Or how to get the hang of all the cases in Slavic (or Finno-Ugric, or Nakh-Daghestanian) languages? Then this talk is right for you! I'll provide you with insights from both theoretical (generative) and empirical linguistics that will make your life easier.
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Linguistics, and grammar theory in particular, is often perceived as something hard and boring that makes language learning more complicated, when actually it is meant to be the opposite: a collection of short cuts to language learning - because you only have to memorise a couple of rules instead of millions of words, sentences, and contexts. I will show you some rules and generalisations that I found particularly useful when learning languages.

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Is your phone your enemy or an unexpected ally in language learning?

Social media is an inescapable reality in modern language learning. Its influence on education is often described as negative, with critics pointing to distraction, distorted perceptions of reality, and isolation. But what if the very things we dislike about social media could be turned to our advantage?

In this presentation, I explore how smartphones, social media, and AI can become powerful tools for Chinese language learning. Rather than relying solely on traditional forms of immersion, I demonstrate how a properly curated Chinese-language content feed can help learners create a consistent and accessible immersion environment that fits naturally into their daily routines.

Learning a new skill is inherently challenging, so there is no need to make it harder than it already is. In fact, progress often comes faster when we lower unnecessary pressure and work with our brains, not against them.

As young founders, we are actively building and redefining how languages can be taught. We challenge traditional ideas of what makes a "good student" and show how online communities can become some of our greatest allies in the language-learning journey. After all, languages are tools, not trophies. They help us access experiences we care about, even if that experience is simply scrolling TikTok in bed.

Hungarian is often considered to be terribly difficult to learn, partly because it is said to have 18 cases. But what exactly are these cases, and why are they needed?

Some cases express grammatical relationships, while others reflect how we perceive the world. Each case signals a specific function in a sentence, such as the role of a direct object or the spatial position of people and objects. As multiple functions can appear within a single sentence, several cases may be used.

These functions are universal; they were not invented by Hungarians simply to frustrate learners. They exist in other languages as well, but are expressed in different ways. By examining English, German, Czech, and Spanish, we can see where these concepts overlap.

Does speaking more languages make it easier to adapt to new cultures? And if so, which aspects of language ability matter most?

This presentation explores the link between multilingualism and sociocultural adaptation through interviews with six polyglots from five countries. Using a qualitative, hermeneutic approach, it examines how language competence shapes cultural awareness, understanding and the ability to integrate into unfamiliar environments.

The findings suggest that language skills go far beyond communication. Participants consistently reported that using the local language, having a rich vocabulary, and understanding the cultural context behind grammar and expressions helped them build relationships, interpret social situations and adapt more quickly to different cultures.

The talk also highlights an area that has received surprisingly little attention in research: how the language learning experiences of polyglots may influence their ability to function across cultures. It concludes by considering what this might mean for future research into multilingualism, intercultural competence and language learning.

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Reading a full-length book in a foreign language is a milestone many learners dream of, yet many abandon the idea after struggling through the first page. This talk offers a practical, encouraging roadmap to make that goal achievable - starting as early as the A2 level.

We’ll look at how to choose the right first book: what to prioritize, how to avoid common pitfalls, and how to select stories that motivate rather than overwhelm. Participants will learn what to expect when reading with limited vocabulary, how to handle unfamiliar words without stopping every few sentences, and how to build confidence even when the text feels challenging.

The session will also tackle the realities of busy daily life. We’ll explore simple strategies for integrating short reading moments into your routine, creating sustainable habits, and maintaining motivation when progress feels slow. By shifting expectations and using smart techniques, learners can turn reading into an enjoyable, consistent part of their language journey.

Attendees will leave with a clear method and the confidence to begin and finish their first book in a new language.

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Sophia Smith Galer discusses her work How To Kill A Language, her book charting the phenomenon of linguicide. In this discussion Sophia will explore 10 different ways she found languages were disappearing today, who was disappearing them, and solutions that different communities around the world are presenting to revive and reclaim language. In this talk she’ll especially focus on Italian and “dialetti” as migrant languages in London, as well as her family’s variety of Emilian spoken in the mountains of Piacenza.

In recent years, proposals have emerged advocating for the removal of classical languages, notably Latin and Ancient Greek, from Flemish secondary education curricula. These proposals often argue that instructional time should instead be allocated to subjects perceived as more directly applicable, particularly within the domains of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Alternative perspectives, however, recommend either increasing the instructional emphasis on modern languages—especially English—or introducing additional languages such as Turkish, Arabic, Russian, or Chinese.

This presentation seeks to systematically examine the principal arguments underlying these differing positions, with particular attention to the proposal of incorporating entirely new languages into the curriculum. Proponents of classical language education frequently emphasize their purported “general formative” value, particularly with respect to their contribution to cognitive development and intellectual training. Accordingly, this study investigates whether the instruction of new, non-Western or non-Indo-European languages might offer comparable formative benefits, alongside their more immediate practical utility.

Drawing on illustrative examples from the languages under consideration, this analysis aims to evaluate the extent to which such educational outcomes can be achieved. The findings suggest that a nuanced and context-dependent conclusion is warranted.

Cos’è un dialetto? Dipende dalla lente con cui lo osserviamo. Ciò che è certo è che la risposta a questa domanda non è cosa da poco se consideriamo che dalla fine degli anni ’80 a oggi l’uso prevalente delle lingue locali in Italia è passato dal 32% al 9,6%.

Il filtro che più ci interessa, allora, non può che essere quello della sociolinguistica, secondo cui un dialetto non è altro che una lingua subordinata a un’altra per ragioni sociopolitiche. In altre parole, il siciliano non avrebbe nulla da invidiare all’italiano, il romagnolo niente che non abbia il norvegese. Eppure il condizionale è d’obbligo, perché le cose, di fatto, sono ben diverse.

In nome di questa crescente consapevolezza, i “dialetti” italiani si stanno ribellando, insorgendo contro l’unica designazione che li rende tali. I social media (ma non solo) sono il palcoscenico preferenziale sul quale creatrici e creatori di contenuti si impegnano per restituire al veneto, al napoletano, al ligure la dignità di cui sono stati privati.

Portiamo sul palco della Polyglot Conference la realtà scomoda dei (non) dialetti italiani, raccontando in particolare la seguitissima esperienza del faentino Fabrizio Caveja, divulgatore dietro la pagina Rumagnulesta: una tra le voci più forti che lottano a suon di parole per riportare le nostre lingue locali al loro antico splendore… o almeno per contribuire alla loro sopravvivenza.