De Schaarbeekse Taal / La Langue Schaerbeekoise
Seminar by Femke Snelting and Peter Westenberg from Constant vzw
The three year project 'De Schaarbeekse Taal' collects words that have a special relationship with the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek and its inhabitants. Berber, Brussels, Catalan, Greek, Polish, Spanish and many other immigrant languages are practiced alongside official languages French and Dutch.
Through artistic interventions, workshops, interviews and round table discussions this intercultural project maps words, phonetic spellings, text messaging abbreviations, acronyms, slam terms, rap language, anachronisms, jargon and slang in use on a particular territory. Verbal communication in this multicultural urban public space is enriched by the expressiveness of statements, accents, timbres, rhythms, accents, dialects and subtexts. 'De Schaarbeekse Taal' includes a database of audio recordings and regular radio broadcasts that are made to contextualize the collected words.
Peter Westenberg will present the project and discuss the working methods, based on documentation of past events and activities.
