The University of Chicago, Chicago Illinois 60637 USA 

M.K. Ammosov North-eastern Federal University, Yakutsk 

Ilisimatusarfik, The University of Greenland 

Dr. Lenore A. Grenoble specializes in the study of language contact and shift in Indigenous settings, with particular attention to the Arctic. Her work is empirically driven, and her current interests focus on language usage in multilingual settings, with particular attention to Arctic Indigenous language communities. She is presently involved in several collaborative projects that investigate the linguistic, social and cognitive causes and outcomes of contact and shift, coupled with questions about the impact of urbanization and climate change, on Arctic Indigenous language vitality. Alongside these projects, she is involved in research into language revitalization and how to create long-term sustainable language practices. Her current field and documentation work is centered in the Russian Far North and Arctic, and in Greenland. Grenoble is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). In 2018 she held the Fulbright Arctic Distinguished Chair, Norway. She has received grants from the NSF Program in Linguistics and the Program in Documenting Endangered Languages.

Plenary talk:  

Vitality and Sustainability: The Case of Arctic Indigenous Languages 

Arctic Indigenous communities are currently experiencing unprecedented changes in their daily lives due to extensive demographic, social and environmental changes. In this talk I invoke ethnoscapes and mediascapes as useful theoretical frames to understand current changes coming from an influx of both short-term visitors and long-term immigrants to the Arctic, and the massive changes in the use of social media and online networks as entry paths for new cultural values and new linguistic patterns. Climate change cuts across the Arctic, amplifying other changes. Warming is proceeding faster in the Arctic than elsewhere in the world, with temperatures rising as much as three times greater. Given that these changes are occurring in the context of Indigenous communities who see culture, language and the natural world as inextricably connected and related, I posit a path forward that makes use of Indigenous knowledge systems couple with western science to offset these massive changes and create a sustainable future.  

The UN has identified 17 strategic goals for sustainable development. These goals were advanced as a road map for how to improve the lives and well-being of everyone. To that end, Goal 3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages) would seem to be central, but its actual realization is dependent upon attaining multiple other goals that have to do with long-term sustainable practices in society. These include fostering sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth (Goal 8), making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (Goal 11), ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns (Goal 12), conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and marine resources (Goal 14), protecting, restoring and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems (Goal 15), promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development (Goal 16), and strengthening the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development (Goal 17). The essence of this set of goals lies in the force of Goal 13, taking urgent action to combat climate change, and this goal is essential to the sustainability of the Arctic. 

A large number of these goals align closely with Indigenous values and priorities in the Arctic and, as I argue in this talk, working with them in a holistic manner that combines Indigenous practices and knowledge systems with Western science is key to establishing language and cultural vitality and sustainability. In the Arctic view, language and culture are an integral part of an overall ecology of sustainability—people cannot be separated from the environment they live in. Language is part of the land, land is part of language: Arctic Indigenous ontologies emphasize the relational nature of being, language and the environment, and this approach goes beyond languages as tools for communicating about the environment to a belief system that sees everything as interconnected. Coming from this ontological view that positions relations and connections as primary, building vitality and sustainability in one part of the system necessarily requires engaging with all parts. Language is a core element of Arctic Indigenous systems; language vitality is thus central to achieving sustainability of any kind.

Professor/Researcher of Excellence, Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, PUCE, Quito (Ecuador) 

Associate Researcher, Ruhr University, Bochum 

Associate Researcher, Communication Observatory: OdeCom, PUCE 

Dr. Marleen Haboud-Bumachar is a sociolinguist and anthropologist. Since 1976, she has worked with Indigenous languages, contact linguistics, and their effects in postcolonial contexts; as well as on bilingual education and literacy projects and research methodologies. In 2007, she founded the interdisciplinary research program Oralidad Modernidad. Based on collaborative methodologies grounded in strong ethical principles, she works on processes of active documentation, revitalization, and strengthening of Indigenous languages in Ecuador. From 2010 to 2017, she directed the National Georeferenced Sociolinguistic Survey of Ecuador’s 12 Indigenous languages, involving 6,300 families, 777 communities, and teams of Indigenous co-researchers. This pioneering study has been key to assessing language vitality, guiding educational programs, reconnecting with local arts and oral traditions, and the proposal of appropriate public policies. Since 2017, she has worked with rural and peri-urban Andean communities on the recovery of ancestral ethnobotanical knowledge, health practices, and integral sustainability. More recently, as a member of the International Research Networks (IRNs)–WERA, she has resumed educational initiatives in multilingual Indigenous contexts.  

She has received community-based, institutional, national, and international recognitions, including the Georg Forster Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She is the author of 85 publications in several languages. 

Plenary talk: 

Living languages … Seeds of resilience and sustainability 

Language is not only a tool of communication, but a reservoir of memories, knowledge, and practices that sustain community life and a harmonious relationship with nature. In this sense, the vitality of any one language, particularly ancestral and Indigenous ones, is tightly linked to cultural, social, and environmental sustainability. Every spoken word is a seed that keeps alive strategies to nurture the environment, healing both spirit and body, while strengthening collective well-being. When a language is silenced, entire worlds of knowledge are extinguished, reducing the possibilities to build a sustainable future. 

Drawing on action-research experiences developed in collaboration with community-based Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Highlands, I share situated processes of active documentation and revitalization in which narratives turn into a solid strategy to rediscover ancestral knowledge about the use of medicinal plants and health, while reinforcing the speakers’ languages, culture and identities. Each testimony demonstrates that revitalizing a language does not merely mean preserving the past; but sowing seeds of resilience, restoration, empowerment and sustainability for future generations.  

This conference invites us to rethink the profound ways in which linguistic vitality and cultural, social, environmental, and ecological sustainability intertwine, creating a dialogue with current approaches to integral health (One Health). While these processes align with the global framework of the Sustainable Development Goals, they also underscore the central role of language in achieving sustainability, and the urgent need of it to be recognized as a goal in its own right. 

Vice-Minister for Language Policy

An electronic engineer by profession, he has accumulated experience working in various private sector companies. His political career includes serving as Mayor of Beasain City Council from 2015 to 2020, and as a Councillor and Head of Language Policy in the same municipality since 2003. He was a Member of the Basque Parliament from September 2020 to August 2021. 

Between 2021 and 2023, he held the position of Adviser within the Department of Economic Development, Sustainability, and the Environment of the Basque Government. Subsequently, he served as Vice-Minister for the Environment and Sustainability from July 2023 to August 2024. Since September 2024, he has been serving as the Vice-Minister for Language Policy.

Director of Social Transition and Agenda 2030

A lawyer by profession, he served as Mayor of Azkoitia and spokesperson for the EAJ-PNV in the Gipuzkoa General Assemblies from 2003 to 2011, during a notably active period in his political career. Following this, he pursued advanced studies, completing a Master’s degree in Political Integration and Economic Union in the European Union at the University of the Basque Country (EHU-UPV), and subsequently began a PhD in Law. 

He currently holds the position of Director of Social Innovation and Agenda 2030 within the Presidency of the Basque Government, under the General Secretariat of Communication and Social Innovation. In addition, he serves as a Professor of International Relations at the University of Deusto, where he teaches the course Government, Business and Diplomacy.

Guest talk:

Basque in the new era of diversity 

For culture is not only the heritage of the past, but the living substrate of those of us who are. Languages do not only communicate, but they also hold rights, they transmit knowledge, they build community, and they allow each person to find their place in the world. In this communication, the presenters will use the language and cultural diversity advocated by the 18th Sustainable Development Goal as a starting point. 

On the one hand, the importance of revitalizing a minority language like Basque will be emphasized.  Such a process requires a great effort and the involvement of many stakeholders. As our society is increasingly diverse, we can find a wide variety of cultural and linguistic expressions around us, and faced this great change, it is essential to look to the future in terms of sustainability. 

For this reason, in the recently accepted by the Basque Government "The Age. In the Plan for the Revitalization and Empowerment of the Basque Country" plan, a special effort has been made to align the objectives of the revitalization of the Basque Country with the sustainable development of the 2030 Agenda, which will be reported by Mr Aldasoro. 

On the other hand, the “United Voices” iniciative is also called upon to bring diverse voices and rythyms; it is much more than a project related to Goal 18, it aims to make the proposal an international contribution and a fundamental player in the transformation of society. Mr. Aranbarri will explain what this project consists of.