World Portuguese Language Day is celebrated on May 5 and “to commemorate this very important date for Portuguese-speaking countries, the Portugal-Brazil Association, together with its partners, proposes a reflection on the subject,” José told Lusa Manuel Diego. .
“For this, he invited several prominent figures, who have the Portuguese language as a common denominator, to record a video in which they share their own vision of Linguistic Citizenship. In fact, the video should start with the phrase ‘For me, Language citizenship is…’”, she explained.
These short videos will begin to be shown on Friday at Flipoços as part of the official programming of the Poços de Caldas International Literary Festival, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, “as part of a permanent installation on language citizenship that will have the opportunity to its debut in Coimbra on June 23, at the city’s Book Fair, in the Cidadania da Língua cycle”.
Among the personalities that have already joined the project, José Manuel Diogo highlights Mia Couto, winner of the Camões Award in 2013, as well as diplomats, ministers, writers, actors and cultural producers.
For José Manuel Diogo, the Portuguese language “is a citizenship”.
“It’s probably the only language that, to this day, in this age of global connectivity, one of the countries has created a law that makes it possible for speakers of that language to live in another country,” he added, referring to the agreement. mobility of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP).
“The CPLP mobility agreement, by granting practically automatic residence permits in Portugal to citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries, is a revolutionary instrument because it is based on belonging to a common language and not to a geography. This dematerialization of citizenship is a civilizing innovation, ”he defended.
Therefore, he continued, “this shows that the language is more alive than ever, it is more important than ever.”
The Language Citizenship project continues on October 12 in a partnership under agreements signed in 2022 by the Federal Senate of Brazil and the Coimbra City Council with the inauguration of the Language Citizenship House, which will have the mission of “studying, thinking, investigating the new neighborhoods, the peripheries that reach the center, new cultural events, new ways of understanding the world”.
The project is coordinated by the Brazilian writer Samantha Buglione and co-curated by the also Brazilian writer André Augustus Dias and the Portuguese cultural producers Carlos Moura Carvalho and José Manuel Diogo.
Source: Observadora
