Presentation of the Project

The project aims at presenting languages and cultures one encounters along the Road to Santiago and to illustrate their contribution to the cultural heritage of Europe - with specific attention to cultural minority groups. Thereby cultural manifestations are to be communicated beyond the respective national borders. At the same time it is a question of reactivating former connections and to encourage an intense exchange between languages and cultures alongside the Road to Santiago. It is scheduled

to communicate the linguistic and cultural diversity, the languages' origins and their mutual relations; and furthermore to spotlight essential elements of European identity;

to inform pilgrims and other interested parties about both the emergence and development of the European languages and their past and current relations;

to contribute to a better understanding of local and regional cultures along the Road to Santiago; and by doing so to emphasise the idea of a Europe beyond regional borders.

At a congress on European languages and cultures, specialists from several European countries will discuss the influence of the Road to Santiago on Europe's linguistic diversity, the languages' mutual impact and their present contact with each other - with a particular regard to languages of minority groups.

Travelling Exhibition "Europe in the Routes to Santiago"

The European project "Road of Languages and Cultures" prepares a travelling exhibition dealing with "Europe in the Routes to Santiago". The artistic heritage - in particular the iconography of Saint James -, the linguistic variety of the Road to Santiago and scientific research results in the fields of Linguistics and Sociolinguistics are to be presented; this will be achieved by means of interactive audio-visual displays, photographs, catalogues, information brochures and literary acts. This way the importance of both Saint James and the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela are to be highlighted as cultural points of contact.

In the exhibition an emphasis will be placed on the significance of languages and cultures along the Road to Santiago. It aims at exposing the integrative character it had in the past, and still has nowadays.
In addition to the exhibition, other activities are being planned; these include lectures, book presentations, concerts, the reading of literary texts dealing with the Road to Santiago and study days with thematically relevant topics.

Multilingual portal about the cultural history of the different European regions along the Road to Santiago (www.camino-eu.com)

This website provides the most important facts, documents, texts and pictures related to the respective languages and the topic 'pilgrimage'. Furthermore it presents all the results within the frame of the project "Road of Languages and Cultures". The portal is multilingual and has a didactic orientation. With the help of texts, pictures, maps and diagrams, the user is able to gain interactive access to milestones of Europe's linguistic and cultural history by acquainting him or herself with the cultural and linguistic situation of the different regions along the pilgrims' itineraries. The material provided is available in all languages that are involved in the project; one can download it and print it out.

Similarly, one can select on a euroboard the pilgrims' itineraries with the most relevant cultural or linguistic events. This map is also interactive and provides material related to showcase locations along the Road to Santiago.

The portal targets at
giving broad information about the phenomenon 'pilgrimage' and its impact on the development of cultures and languages in European countries;
digitally editing important documents and literary works concerning the pilgrimage and both the linguistic and cultural identity of Europe's people.