Fwd: Conference Report: Minority Languages in Europe: Frameworks - Status - Prospects
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Subject: Fwd: Conference Report: Minority Languages in Europe: Frameworks - Status - Prospects
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Fwd: Conference Report: Minority Languages in Europe: Frameworks -
Status - Prospects
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Conference report
An international conference on Minority Languages in Europe:
Frameworks Status Prospects. A Pan-European comparative,
multi-disciplinary approach, sponsored by the European Science
Foundation, was held at the University of Bath on 8-10 June 2001. The
aim of this event, which was organised by Gabrielle Hogan-Brun
(University of Bristol) and Stefan Wolff (University of Bath), was to
extend our existing knowledge and understanding of the importance of
minority languages within a democratic Europe and the need for their
adequate protection as part of our cultural heritage.
The keynote speakers were John Packer, (Director, Office of the High
Commissioner on National Minorities, Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe, The Hague, The Netherlands), Franois Grin
(Deputy Director, European Centre for Minority Issues, Flensburg,
Germany) and Bencie Woll, (Chair in Sign Language & Deaf Studies,
Department of Language & Communication Science, City University
London).
24 short papers were presented, under the following seven topics:
1. Pan-European perspectives on language and ethnicity
Minority language communities in the age of globalization: Rethinking
the organization of human language diversity was the focus of the
contribution by Albert Bastardas-Boada (University of Barcelona,
Spain). Considering the impact of worldwide globalization processes
and of European unification on minority language communities he
stressed the importance of continued cultural diversity and the need
to organize peaceful co-existence. He suggested an 'ecological'
principle as a way forward, according to which stable habitats would
be provided for sustainable language communities, whilst at the same
time assuring intercommunication in Europe through an interlingua. It
was his view that a global language, though important for
international communication, should have limited functions, because of
the application of the subsidiarity principle in language use. Thus
all communication functions that could be accomplished by the local
languages should not be allocated to the major or big language or
languages to preserve their functionality in all domains.
Camille OReilly, Richmond (The American University, London) spoke on
Minority languages, ethnicity and the state in the European union and
eastern Europe post 1989. Her paper entailed a comparative
perspective, comprising an overview of trends in both parts of Europe
regarding the politics of ethnicity and the position of minority
language groups. She explored the impact of EU policy and discourse on
individual movements within states, as well as on the overall
orientation towards linguistic heterogeneity and cultural diversity in
both the East and West. She argued that while the EU is moving away
from an ideal of ethnic homogeneity within states and towards a model
of cultural and linguistic diversity based on multiple and hybrid
identities, most states in Eastern Europe still take a largely
modernist and homogenising approach, relying on the ethnic nationalist
ideal of the state.
2. Legal dimensions in the protection of minority languages and
linguistic minorities
In his keynote speech John Packer clarified the role of the OSCE High
Commissioner on National Minorities in the protection of linguistic
minorities, whose mandate is to de-escalate at the earliest stage
conflicting tensions involving national minority issues. Human rights
standards serve as an analytical framework in their work to maximise
freedom through non-discrimination, and to provide opportunities
through democratic, inclusive means in areas where disintegration and
conflicts arise.
The focus of the keynote by Franois Grin was The effectiveness of
various measures for the protection of minority languages.
Distinguishing between the two poles of politics of language, where
law is seen as normative, and language policy, with its
problem-oriented stance, he called for the need to put appropriate
strategies in place that give substance to the linguistic rights of
minorities. Such steps ought to involve appropriate policy measures to
ensure positive outcomes. He argued that evaluation of language policy
processes should involve the following three pillars: capacity
(creation of) opportunities desire (attitudes to improvement) in
order to guarantee effectiveness.
Kristin Henrard's (University of Groningen, The Netherlands)
contribution was on Devising an adequate system of minority
protection: individual human rights, minority rights and the right to
self-determination. Her paper contained a critical assessment of the
acquisition of current minority right standards, whilst acknowledging
their additional protection as compared to individual human rights and
thus their potential to contribute to minority protection. She argued
that qualified recognition of internal self-determination for
minorities could be an option to further their integration without
assimilation.
In his paper Linguistic diversity pearl or stumbling bloc of EU-law?
Gabriel von Togggenburg (The European Academy, Bozen/Bolzano, South
Tyrol, Italy) discussed the legal attitude of the EU towards (its)
minorities and their languages. With reference to the Treaty of
Amsterdam he showed that minorities were not an issue in the economic
and legal process of the European integration, and that a lack of
legal competencies in Primary law at the European level was evident.
He called for a new political consciousness that should promote the
recognition of minority and language protection not only as a
political export product but also as an internal legal principle
within the framework of the (enlarged) EU in order to prevent minority
languages from being macdonaldised through the (market force driven)
destruction of Europes linguistic variety.
3. Language status and ethnic linguistic identity
Facilitating or generating linguistic diversity? was the title by
Mirad Nic Craith (University of Liverpool, UK), who discussed the role
of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (as a
catalyst or merely the facilitator of linguistic pluralism) in the
context of a multilingual Europe. Using a case study of Ulster-Scots
in Northern Ireland, she queried the emergence of new and disputed
languages, whose speakers then seek legitimacy under the terms of this
Charter, and explored their significance for the construction of
regional identities. With reference to the promotion of a Europe of
the Regions, her paper examined the reactions of speakers of more
established minority languages such as Irish to the emergence of such
new and disputed tongues and asked whether the promotion of a Europe
of the Languages has served to maintain, protect or to enhance the
cultural diversity of its regions.
James OConnells (University of Bradford, UK) contribution dealt with
The failure of the Irish language revival: a problem for national
identity. Based on a historical analysis of linguistic development in
Ireland, he examined the intimate relationship of nationalism and
language, paying particular attention to the role of the Anglo-Irish,
the nexus of language and identity, and the search for other
ingredients the distinctive use of English in Ireland and the
literary revival, from Yeats to Heaney, from O'Casey to Friei, from
Joyce to Toibin for the construction of a national identity.
National minority-models for linguistic diversity was the focus of the
talk by Karen Margrethe Pedersen (Danish Institute for Border Region
Studies, Aabenraa, Denmark). She introduced the language situation of
the Danish-German border region Schleswig as a model that can
contribute to a development from confrontation to peaceful
co-existence between majorities and national minorities in a
multilingual Europe. This national minority-model relates to a
functional regional bilingualism consisting of the state language and
two varieties of the minority language (the standard language of the
kin-state and a regional language containing transfer phenomena), and
to each language or variety having its own fields of function with a
high status. The system of variation of the regional language, which
is acquired as a minority second language, is like that of ethnic
minorities second language in the kin-state, the difference being
status. Linking linguistic diversity to transethnic identity, she
finally discussed whether status planning with the national
minority-model is possible in the kin-state and in a multicultural
Europe.
Judith Broadbridge (University of Staffordshire, UK) was concerned
with the possibility of a reversal of language shift in her paper on
Alsatian in Alsace: linguistic ability, language use, language
attitudes. Against the background of French linguistic policy since
the French Revolution and its devastating effect on regional varieties
she examined internal language legislation as well as reaction to
European-led initiatives. Finally she considered the desirability for
and effectiveness of attempts to reverse language shift in a
centralist state such as France where a chronic lack of support has
resulted in a drastic reduction of inter-generational transmission of
Alsatian.
4. The non-hearing community as a cultural and linguistic minority In
her keynote speech Bencie Woll (City University London) gave an
overview of the sign languages of Europe, introducing them as
long-established natural human languages that have their own lexicons
and grammars differing from those of the surrounding hearing
communities. Identifying similarities and differences with the
situation of spoken minority languages in Europe, she reviewed the
status of sign languages and commented on efforts which are being made
for one of these tongues, the British Sign Language (BSL), to achieve
official legislative recognition in the European Charter of Minority
Languages.
With the title British sign language and the push-me-pull-you effect
Graham Turner (University of Central Lancashire, UK) referred to a set
of incentives and disincentives alike that are being offered by policy
makers to linguistic campaigners within the Deaf community. He argued
that whilst on the one hand, social policy developments - led by the
introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act - have revitalised
the national debate about ensuring access to public life for disabled
people, on the other hand, many years of campaigning have been devoted
to raising public awareness of the Deaf community as a linguistic
minority group who - whilst they may as individuals have a physical
'impairment' - do not otherwise identify with the general
integrationist thrust of disability politics. In view of the fact that
the devolution debate, with its associated linguistic highlighting of
the 'other' languages of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, may
present a parallel and template for Deaf people he offered an
assessment of the prospects for a linguistic maintenance project
focusing on BSL within the current national social, educational and
cultural policy climate.
Pauline Darlings (University of Bath, UK) talk on Russian Sign
Language provided an overview of the history of RSL as an unrecognised
minority language, and sketched its current situation as an
'auxiliary' means of teaching the deaf. Taking into account
perceptions of the deaf community and deaf identity, it seeked to
establish attitudes towards RSL in Russia. In view of the fact that,
in the wake of glasnost and perestroika, there is felt to be a move
towards recognising sign as a minority language, she attempted to
assess how close the deaf community is to achieving official
recognition, and to raise questions about the future of RSL.
5. Minority languages and the media
The contribution by Lucia Grimaldi (Free University of Berlin,
Germany) and Eva-Maria Remberger (University of Cologne, Germany) was
on The promotion of the Sardinian language and culture via the
internet: fields of activity and perspectives. They introduced their
project Limba e curtura de sa Sardigna ("Sardinian language and
culture" http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/mensch/sardengl.htmln) which
was aimed initially at the collection of information on the Sardinian
language for native speakers. This was soon to develop into one of the
most extensive sites on the subject, the principal objectives being
the promotion, preservation, linguistic analysis and the development
of different kinds of language (processing) tools for sociolinguistic
data collection, as well as the networking of information on the
Sardinian language and culture. They presented evidence on the
relevance of the above tasks for the protection of endangered
languages, such as Sardinian.
Carmen Milln-Varela (University of Birmingham, UK) spoke on Minor
needs or the ambiguous power of translation. She argued that, whilst
translation is widely acknowledged as a crucial instrument for the
creation and development of national languages and literatures, in the
case of minor(itised) languages however, translation becomes a complex
and ambiguous activity: on the one hand, it contributes to processes
of linguistic and cultural normalisation and, on the other hand, it is
a painful reminder of the existence of asymmetrical relations of
power. The study of translation is thus revealed as a powerful
research tool to investigate issues related to language, power, and
identity.
'Minority languages and local media: lessons from the Basque magazine
movement was the focus of the talk by Jacqueline Urla (University of
Massachusetts, Amerherst, USA). She claimed that whilst language
planning policies have often placed emphasis on securing high prestige
functions as a key to minority language maintenance, policies need to
pay more attention to the promotion of more "low brow" language
functions if they are to attract young speakers. Drawing on
ethnographic research on community magazines in the Basque country,
her findings indicated that local media and other forms of popular
culture help to encourage literacy, localize standard varieties, and
promote community building that is essential for minority language
survival, as well as affording opportunities for creative
experimentation with language, including language mixing, that may not
be seen as appropriate for other registers. Her paper concluded with a
call for more descriptive research on the products and processes of
local media-making and their functions as tools for language
development and intergenerational communication.
6. Politics of language and identity in multicultural societies
In his talk on 'Balkan dialects, migrations, and ethnic violence: the
case of the Bosnian Serbs, Robert Greenberg (University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA) traced the population movements in
Bosnia-Herzegovina before hostilities broke out in 1992. He showed
that whilst the ethnic Slavic groups (the Muslim Slavs, the Catholic
Croats and the Orthodox Serbs) differed primarily in religion and
cultural heritage, the ethnic differences of the population who had
shifted from rural communities to urban centres had often became
neutralized, resulting in culturally diverse cities, such as Tuzla or
Sarajevo. In Bosnia's rural communities however, where Serbs had
settled for military and economic reasons, many of the cultural and
linguistic differences had remained strong. Due to these polarizations
it was not surprising that some of the fiercest fighting of the war
occurred it these rural areas, where some of the war's worst massacres
occurred. His research suggests that the preservation of distinctive
linguistic identity in the rural areas could well be a reflection of
each group's need to cling to their respective cultural heritages and
the their historical resistance to the pressures of assimilative
tendencies.
The focus of the contribution by Vanessa Pupavac (University of
Nottingham, UK) was on Education Reform and the Politicisation of
Language in the Post-Yugoslav States. Her paper was an analysis of the
Serbo-Croat language in the Post-Yugoslav states. It considered the
politicisation of the language through an examination of works by
local linguists and school grammars, and the response of international
officials to the language quest ion. She argued that international
responses over the last decade have helped legitimate the claim of
nationalists to separate languages as part of the nationalist projects
and that the divisive consequences of this approach can be seen in the
current problems being experienced by international administrators in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, attempting to reintegrate education in the
republic.
Tomasz Kamusella (University of Opole, Poland) spoke on Nationalism,
ethnicity and language: a case study of the Polish region of Upper
Silesia. In his paper he claimed that the development of standard
languages in Central Europe is closely connected to the parallel
unfolding of national movements that are in part made through these
languages and, in turn, make these languages their own as national. He
showed that whilst this standard coupling of language and nation
failed to take root in Upper Silesia it served the Kashubs around
Gdansk (Danzig) to refashion themselves as an ethnic group who is on
the road to become a new nation with their distinctive language. Using
these examples he presented and analysed different uses made of
minority languages in similar ecological contexts to draw attention to
choices made by group leaders and to their approach to language as an
instrument of doing identificational politics or not.
In his paper on Minority languages in Italy Paolo Coluzzi (University
of Exeter, UK) gave a brief introduction on the languages spoken in
Italy, both those that are protected and recognized as minority
languages by the Italian law, and those that are still termed dialects
in spite of being Romance languages, as different from each other as
Italian is from Spanish, and quite unintelligible to those who do not
speak them. Depicting the sociolinguistic situation of one of these
protected languages Friulian, (formerly called a dialect), spoken in
northeast Italy, he outlined what needed to be done in terms of
language planning and promotion..
7. Language policy for/against indigenous and immigrant minorities
Cidgem Balims (University of Manchester, UK) talk on Language as a
tool of group survival focused on language policy for/against
indigenous & immigrant minorities. Presenting cases from Turkic
languages (Meskhetians, Crimean Tatars and Bulgarian Muslims/Turks)
she illustrated how languages and/or dialects can act as a binding
force between ethnically different peoples in their determination to
form a (national) identity. She stressed the importance of keeping
facilities (such as schools etc.) for minorities to prevent resentment
in the face of resulting assimilation due to a lack of their
provision.
Marietta Caldern (University of Jerusalem, Israel) gave a paper on
Francophobic Francophones? Perspectives on the Isareli French-speaking
community. Findings from her work on discursive identity constructions
among immigrated Israelis who remain French citizens revealed the
emphasis being laid on the importance they attribute to French, one of
the most important minority languages in Israel, as a constitutive
element of their (new) identity/identities. She also presented an
analysis of the current situation of French in Israel from a
sociological point of view and the political attitudes toward the
Israeli French speaking community.
The talk by Gabrielle Hogan-Brun (University of Bristol, UK) and
Meilute Ramoniene (University of Vilnius, Lithuania) was entitled
Lithuanian, Russian and Polish languages in Lituania: traditions and
changes. They presented a sociolinguistic analysis of the changes
which had affected Lithuanians since the collapse of communist rule in
1990. Their findings highlighted the language-related challenges that
have arisen since independence and the diverging attitudes of the -
now legally protected - national minorities whose behavioural and
attitudinal patterns can be observed to range from segregation to
active integration.
Julia Sallabank (Reading University, UK) spoke on Guernsey French and
standard French: a symbiotic relationship. Her research showed how
Guernesiais, the indigenous language of Guernsey in the Channel
Islands, and once the language of government and of the ilite after
the Norman invasion of England in 1066, has declined over the years.
According to her findings most native speakers are past child-bearing
age and now constitute less than one in ten of the population. She
held the view that this language, which is now seen as a tongue of the
uneducated and being displaced by a former lower-status language,
English, would benefit from a revival programme at school through a
combination of the medium of French and Guernesiais.
The organisers are planning to publish a selection of papers in an
edited volume and to encourage future collaboration through the
creation of an ESF-Network.
For more information contact one of the organisers or consult:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mlssaw/min_lang_workshop
Bristol and Bath Gabrielle Hogan-Brun,
[email protected]
June 2001 Stefan Wolff, [email protected]
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