MINELRES: New publication: Nation-Building, Ethnicity and Language Politics in Transition Countries

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: William McKinney <mckinney@ecmi.de>


New ECMI Publication

ECMI is pleased to announce the publication of the second volume in the
ECMI/LGI Series on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues:

Nation-Building, Ethnicity and Language Politics in Transition Countries 
(eds. Farimah Daftary and Francois Grin) 
ECMI-LGI Series on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues,  Vol.II
Budapest, 2003
ISBN 963 9419 58 3

Ordering
To order this book please send an email to
LGIpublications@osi.hu or fill in the Order Form at:
http://lgi.osi.hu/publications/RequestPrintedCopy.asp



SUMMARY 

In the wake of the momentous geopolitical changes of 1989, countries in
Central and Eastern Europe, former Soviet republics and constituent
states of the Russian Federation have engaged in various forms of
nation-building or re-building. From the very beginning, language
diversity has played a crucial part in this process.

This volume aims to take stock of the experience of the countries
concerned in dealing with linguistic diversity. Its emphasis is on the
interplay between, on the one hand, the politics of language, namely,
the way in which internal power struggles and minority-majority
relations crystallize around language and, on the other hand, the
development of language legislation codifying the respective status of
the different languages, against the backdrop of complex historical,
ethnic and sociolinguistic realities.

The opening chapter, by Will Kymlicka and Francois Grin, discusses the
ways in which these issues are linked to the main discourses about state
intervention in language matters, namely, the discourse of rights and
the policy analysis approach. The nine case studies in the book, from
the high-visibility cases of the Baltic States and of Central and East
European States, to much less known language policy developments in
Armenia or Tatarstan, provide in-depth analyses illustrating the
remarkable range of language politics and language policy in times of
change. The book also includes the case of a stateless people, the Roma,
and the politicization of the debate on the standardization of Romanes. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction: Assessing The Politics of Diversity in Transition
Countries

PART I. ONE STATE - ONE LANGUAGE?

The 1999 Slovak Minority Language Law: Internal or External Politics? 
Language Battles in the Baltic States: From 1989 into 2002 
Identities and Language Politics in Ukraine: The Challenges of
Nation-State Building 

PART II. TITULAR LANGUAGE PROMOTION AND BILINGUALISM

Language Policy in the Republic of Armenia in the Transitional Period 
The Politics of Language Reform and Bilingualism in Tatarstan 
Kalmykia: Language Promotion against all Odds

PART III. IDENTITY; DIFFERENTIATION AND UNIFICATION

Language Issues in the Context of 'Slovenian Smallness'
Ethnicity, Language and Transition Politics in Romania: The Hungarian
Minority in Context 
Language Corpus and Language Politics: The Case of the Standardization
of Romani