Popular languages festival returns to Leeds for celebration of city's linguistic and cultural diversity

From Korean hip-hop to Mongolian music and Spanish flamenco, Leeds City of Languages celebrates the world's languages and cultures.

A popular festival led by the University of Leeds returns to the city this November for a fortnight of activities including film screenings, live performances, competitions, workshops, talks and taster sessions designed to celebrate and promote language learning.

With over 100 events in almost 30 languages spread over two weeks (9-22 November), the Leeds City of Languages festival will showcase the incredible linguistic and cultural diversity of a city where more than 170 languages are spoken.

A dedicated schools programme will also inspire young people to explore the fascinating world of languages, cultures, linguistics and translation, while activities with Leeds Libraries for Story and Rhyme time will cater to the city's under-fives.

Bettina Hermoso-Gomez and Sofia Martinho

As part of the Leeds400 celebrations, the festival has also teamed up with Leeds City Council on a special project, Many Languages, One Leeds, inviting young people to create colourful tiles celebrating the languages they speak and what Leeds means to them. The tiles will come together to form the word ‘LEEDS’ in a collective artwork celebrating the city's rich linguistic and cultural diversity, which will be displayed after the festival.

The festival builds on the success of last year's events, which reached over 10,000 people across Yorkshire and beyond and won awards for community impact and innovation.

The programme has been put together by two academics at the University of Leeds' School of Languages, Cultures and Societies: Sofia Martinho, Associate Professor of Portuguese, and Bettina Hermoso Gomez, Associate Professor in Spanish.

Sofia Martinho, who is also Director of the Camões Centre for Portuguese Language, said: "Leeds is a city rich in languages, cultures and communities, and that diversity is one of our greatest strengths. Leeds City of Languages is about recognising and celebrating the incredible linguistic talent that already exists across our city, while inspiring more people to discover the opportunities that languages can bring. We want everyone in Leeds to feel proud of the languages they speak and to see multilingualism as something that connects us, enriches our communities and opens doors to the wider world.”

Cultural activities include a two-day celebration of Korean culture and language; a Flamenco performance; a talk on Christopher Nolan's 2026 blockbuster The Odyssey and the traumatised hero; a journey through Mongolian dance, music and living heritage; a screening of the award-winning 2025 Italian film Gioia Mia (Sweetheart) written and directed by Margherita Spampinato, and the launch of an anthology of poetry, Mother Tongue, Other Tongue, bringing together work submitted by young people living in Yorkshire.

Meanwhile, language taster sessions will cover: Arabic, Turkish, German, Mandarin Chinese, Persian, French, Portuguese, Mongolian, Japanese, Korean, Galician, Filipino, Tagalog, Russian, Thai, Italian, Czech, Cantonese, Slovene, Welsh and Catalan.

Visitors will be able to enjoy a variety of language taster sessions.

As well as its focus on enjoyment, the programme explores some of the most pressing questions about languages in a series of free public talks both online and on campus. These include: What can languages do for you? How can we protect endangered languages? And how can we embrace bilingualism?

Co-organiser Bettina Hermoso Gomez, Associate Professor in Spanish and Director of Routes into Languages Yorkshire and Humberside, said:

"Learning a language can be enjoyable, enriching and genuinely life changing. Through Leeds City of Languages, we want people to discover that languages are rewarding in their own right, while also highlighting the importance of how we teach, protect and support languages in our communities. By getting this right, we can inspire and nurture the next generation of language learners across the UK."

For teachers there are several webinars focusing on professional development on topics such as: building enjoyment and mastery in modern languages speaking for secondary school teachers, raising empowered multilingual readers, and knowing which bilingual children to refer using a parental questionnaire to screen language difficulties.

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead East European Curator at the British Library, said:

"My colleagues and I, curators of European Collections at the British Library, are excited to be working in partnership with Leeds City of Languages. Celebrating the rich diversity of cultures and languages give a clear purpose to our work and there is no better place to engage than in the vibrant atmosphere of this festival. We are delighted to share our knowledge and passion for our collections and we invite everyone to learn more in our reading rooms or online, as well as through events such as Leeds City of Languages. And in the future, we hope to bring more of the national collections to Leeds."

Leeds City of Languages has evolved from Leeds Language Week, which first started in 2023 as part of Leeds 2023 Year of Culture, and the festival is now funded by the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds.

The full programme is now available for booking on the Leeds City of Languages website.