Ghent hosts first Language Industry Awards ceremony
Ceremony in former factory rewards students and language professionals from Flanders and the Netherlands
UGent students win
The awards were given to students and organisations in Belgium and the Netherlands. Three Flemish students (pictured) won for their articles on language work. Tomas De Cock won the Grand Prize of the Jury, the main prize, with an article on the infiltration of spoken tussentaal (in-between language) in written language.
Nico De Vriendt won two special jury prizes for an article on recent spelling reforms in Dutch and German. The prize for relevance for the language sector went to Sanne Van Biesen, with an article that demonstrated how language users from 200 years ago did not care about rules imposed by manuals and education. De Cock (pictured left) and De Vriendt (right) study at the University of Ghent (UGent); Van Biesen is a former UGent student and is now at the University of Leuven.
There were also awards for people from the language sector. Flemish winners were professor Rudi Janssens of the Free University of Brussels (VUB), website Be.brusseleir, non-profit Fevlado, network GentVertaalt, the Taal-IQ-test (Language IQ test) and theatre company Fast-Forward. The Dutch initiatives of website Brievenalsbuit.inl.nl and the mobile application De Grondwet in eenvoudig Nederlands (The Constitution in Simple Dutch) were also rewarded.
www.languageindustryawards.eu
Photo courtesy Language Industry Awards
