"Linguistics and Languages"
This seminar series is organised by U3A Manawatū. It is open to the public. After the presentations, audio recordings and PowerPoint presentations will be made available on the Manawatū U3A website. See: https://www.u3amanawatu.org.nz/seminars/

Verbal and visual communication both reflect and shape our perceptions in a continuously evolving way. Most of us pay little attention to these processes, except to be irritated by the way younger people fail to speak “properly”. However, some people have the luxury to research these matters. In this series we hear from four linguistics and language specialists from the School of Humanities, Media and Creative Communication, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University, providing insights into the dynamic area of verbal and visual language.

October 22nd: How Spanish came to be
Dr Celina Bortolotto and Mr Francisco González
When did a canoa arrive to the banks of Spanish? Why isn’t recordar to make an LP? This talk will take us back to the origins of Hispanic culture in the Iberian Peninsula and then its expansion to America, following the historical trajectory of conquests and civilisations and their impact on the Spanish language.

October 29th: Vanuatu languages
Dr Eleanor Ridge
With around 140 Indigenous languages spoken by a population of about 325,000 people, Vanuatu has more languages per person than any other country in the world. The maintenance of these languages is supported by traditional patterns of multilingualism that prize languages for their role in the relationship between people and places. This picture is further complicated by Vanuatu’s history as a shared colony of Britain and France, and the creation of a new national language. Bislama is a pidgin-creole language with English vocabulary but Melanesian grammar and phonology.

November 5th: The secret life of language
Dr Arianna Berardi-Wiltshire
What is language, and what does it tell us about ourselves? This talk will take you on a journey into the hidden life of language – its sounds, words, sentences, meanings and the ways it grows and changes. Drawing on examples from languages around the world, it will uncover surprising facts and quirky stories that reveal the extraordinary role language plays in shaping human thought, culture and connection.

November 12th: The power of visual language: a brief history of art in the Hispanic world
Mr Francisco González
"I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil . . . The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican." (Diego Rivera)
This talk will showcase art in Spain and Latin America to reflect on how the social and political realities of both regions have been represented through painting, since the time of the Conquest to present day.