Long Night of Research 2026
This year, at the Long Night of Research on 24 April 2026, the GEWI priority areas’ stand focused primarily on the priority area of multilingualism, migration and cultural transformation. In designing the stand, we focused on the element that unites us as human beings, regardless of our origin or cultural background: language.
At the stand, visitors could learn interesting facts about various languages and put their knowledge to the test straight away with a language quiz. Another popular activity was going on a language hunt. The task was to find ‘your’ pre-selected language on the world map simulation from around 7,000 options within two minutes.
However, our stand offered the chance to explore not only the world but also the local linguistic landscape. Here, too, map simulations were used to locate and listen to major national languages such as Ukrainian and Belarusian, as well as smaller, lesser-known languages and varieties such as Carinthian Slovenian, Burgenland Croatian, Judeo-Spanish, Romani and Pannonian Russian.
Many languages have regional variants. German is no exception. So, on our site, visitors could listen to various dialects spoken in Austria and try to pinpoint their geographical origin.
Many people today are multilingual, meaning they speak more than one language, in some cases from an early age. We also heard how authors sometimes deal with this diversity. The selection featured texts by Austrian authors who write not only in German, but also in their first language, in dialect, or in multiple languages altogether. In many discussions with visitors, we explored how we engage with such texts and how society perceives multilingualism.
We see multilingualism as a resource. The aim of the evening was therefore to paint a colourful picture of multilingualism. To this end, every visitor was invited to write a greeting in a language or dialect they were familiar with and pin it to our noticeboard. The result is just as colourful as the linguistic landscape of our world.
