We are happy to invite you to the international scientific conference “The Karaim Language In Use”. Organised on the occasion of the Karaim Year 2022, it is taking place at Vilnius University (in a contact and remote mode) on 19 May.
The Karaim is a Turkic language still spoken exclusively in Lithuania by appr. 30 people. This year 625 years ago a few hundred Karaim families were settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Trakai brought from the shores of the Black Sea by Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas.
The objective of this conference is to overview the state-of-the-art of the Karaim and to reflect on it from its usage perspectives. Therefore, next to the general introduction to the Karaim, speakers will present both research on this language in the past, present and future plans, and activities for the language retention by dedicated Karaim people. Also a short discussion in spoken Karaim by native speakers will take place. The last session will cover the Karaim in Bible translations as language source and the tool of its preservation (presented by the European Research Council grantee Dr.Habil. Michał Németh from Jagiellonian University in Kraków and his research group).
The conference is dedicated to the memory of Simon Firkovič (1897–1982, senior priest, a poet, an outstanding personality contributing enormously to his native Karaim) and Aleksander Dubiński (1924–2002, a professor of turcology and orientalist, a devoted Karaim that dedicated a large part of his life to Karaim studies).
Organisers: The Cultural Association of the Lithuanian Karaims; The Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies of Vilnius University (Lithuania) in partnership with the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (Poland) and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Vilnius.
Where: 201 auditorium, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University, Universiteto str. 9, LT‐01513 Vilnius, Lithuania
When: 19 May 2022, from 9 AM till 6.30 PM
Registration required for the participation: https://forms.gle/AbGrY6enzxU9Us2D9
