Join an insightful event in collaboration with Manchester City of Languages, where individuals from various backgrounds explore how language reflects our identities, cultures, and social class.

Bringing together people with lived experiences, our speakers will delve into how language both shapes and is shaped by systems of power, identity, and culture — and how respect, or the lack of it, plays a central role in these dynamics. They will also examine how dialects and ways of speaking are often tied to class and cultural belonging, and how language can serve as a tool of empowerment, control, or resistance.
Join us as we challenge language hierarchies and celebrate the rich tapestry of voices that make up our communities.

Professor Matras will introduce the main language communities, with a focus on the language of the city’s Muslim populations, and examine the power of dialect, the politics of “standard” language, and how linguistic diversity is often undervalued or stigmatized.

Our speakers:
Prof Akbar Salahuddin Ahmed, a Pakistani-American academic, author, poet, playwright, filmmaker, former diplomat, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at AU and a Global Fellow of the Wilson Center
Munira Alusa, Headteacher, Manchester Arabic School

Hosted by: Prof Yaron Matras, author and former Professor of Linguistics, University of Manchester