Project Leads: Nicola McLelland, Natalie Braber

This project explores the important role that language plays in our history, culture, and sense of identity. It aims to promote local language(s), and to enrich and celebrate diverse language communities by engaging them with a tangible cultural asset. 

As American essayist and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, once said: "Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone". Language is an intrinsic part of our heritage, culture and identity but is frequently not thought of as such. But it’s something we use every day, people judge others by the way they speak and from our experience, people are interested in the way that language is used. 

The project takes its cue from the way in which monuments, buildings and places are often the target of preservation – and seeks to take a similar approach to the less tangible assets of language and the knowledge it carries. It is increasingly recognised by national bodies such as English Heritage that this “intangible heritage” is equally worthy of preservation. Indeed, the UK is, in 2024, about to sign up to the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. 

Using Nottinghamshire as a lab, our project developed a unique Nottingham Voices interactive exhibit to raise awareness of language as heritage; something to be valued, recognised, and safeguarded. Through our interactive map and app, visitors and users of a take-away fold-up map can explore local accents and varieties, and the city’s multilingual heritages. 

Based on this existing concept of language as a vehicle for heritage, we are building the case for future development of the UK’s first Languages Museum, offering exciting hands-on activities about language, increasing understanding of language, multilingualism, and linguistic diversity, all the while enhancing Nottingham’s social cohesion and raising educational aspirations. 

Professor Nicola McLelland, from the University’s Cultures, Languages and Area Studies, is the Principal Investigator for the project. She said: “This work builds on previous forays into the field of language. In 2019, Nottingham City Libraries hosted a highly successful initiative funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council – a Pop-Up World of Languages. This “temporary” museum was housed at Nottingham Central Library for a week, and included playful interactive displays, films, quizzes, listening challenges, word sorting games and more. The popularity of the museum showed there is strong demand for such things in the city and region, and was proof of concept for further engaging, digital interactive activities.” Collaborating with Nicola is Professor Natalie Baber (Nottingham Trent University), who commented “'Language is such an important aspect of our identity and heritage, but something that is often overlooked. It is really crucial to engage with local communities to work together to raise awareness and engagement with local languages and dialects”. 

Our next steps are continuing to work towards the creation of a permanent Nottingham, Watch Your Language site at Castle Meadow Campus or at Nottingham Central Library, and to make a selection of Watch Your Language mobile activities to be loaned to schools, libraries and councils to expand this work to a much wider audience.