This text aims to provide an introductory study of linguistic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe taking into account historical development, present situation, language maintenance and shift as well as language and educational policies of each country included in this study.

The present volume aims at exploring the overall patterns of linguistic regionalism throughout Eastern Europe and beyond. A wide array of aspects related to regional language designs are addressed. The volume aims also at a critical reassessment of Aleksandr Dulichenko's microlanguage paradigm.

Open publicationThe Languages and Linguistics of Europe: A Comprehensive Guide is part of the multi-volume reference work on the languages and linguistics of the continents of the world. The book supplies profiles of the language families of Europe, including the sign languages. It also discusses the areal typology, paying attention to the Standard Average European, Balkan, Baltic and Mediterranean convergence areas. Separate chapters deal with the old and new minority languages and with non-standard varieties. A major focus is language politics and policies, including discussions of the special status of English, the relation between language and the church, language and the school, and standardization. The history of European linguistics is another focus as is the history of multilingual European 'empires' and their dissolution. The volume is especially geared towards a graduate and advanced undergraduate readership. It has been designed such that it can be used, as a whole or in parts, as a textbook, the first of its kind, for graduate programmes with a focus on the linguistic (and linguistics) landscape of Europe.

The political and social upheavals following 1989 have had a significant impact on the minority languages of Eastern Europe. There have been attempts at enlightened treatment of minority linguistic groups in some of the new states but in others such groups have been openly oppressed. This volume draws on sociologically and ethnographically oriented work from a number of disciplines to allow the reader to compare developments in the different states, and to examine the interplay of language issues, ethnic nationalism, and processes of state formation and restructuring in the various political and historical contexts of Central and Eastern Europe. A companion volume (0-333-92925-X) examines the status of minority languages in the European Union.

Populism, Memory and Minority Rights is the flagship publication of the Tom Lantos Institute (TLI), a highly-regarded international human rights institute based in Budapest, Hungary. The publication provides a forum for discussion on crucial themes of global and regional importance on the accommodation of ethno-cultural diversity and related normative developments. It introduces TLI’s work in terms of its mandated issue areas, including Roma rights and citizenship, Jewish life and antisemitism, and Hungarian and other national minorities. The theoretical and empirical studies, commentaries, interviews, reports and other documents offer a unique source of information for libraries, research institutes, civil society actors, governments, intergovernmental organizations and all those interested in contemporary normative trends and debates in international minority protection.

This Handbook is an in-depth appraisal of the field of minority languages and communities today. It presents a wide-ranging, coherent picture of the main topics, with key contributions from international specialists in sociolinguistics, policy studies, sociology, anthropology and law. Individual chapters are grouped together in themes, covering regional, non-territorial and migratory language settings across the world. It is the essential reference work for specialist researchers, scholars in ancillary disciplines, research and coursework students, public agencies and anyone interested in language diversity, multilingualism and migration.

Language policy can promote stability. For many individuals and groups, language is a key component of identity, and threats to it can raise tensions. Respect for linguistic rights, whilst also considering a state’s need to maintain cohesion, reduces conflict potential. The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities promotes functional solutions to such contentious issues, and the Oslo Recommendations regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities address these challenges. This book analyses the components of a balanced legal and policy framework on language use, with a view to preventing conflict. In addition to reviewing the work of the OSCE HCNM in this area, it also draws upon the expertise of other international organisations and leading academics working in this field. See inside the book.

The contributors to Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices investigate the workings of language ideologies in relation to other social processes in a globalizing world. They explore in detail the specific ways in which language ideologies underpin language policy and the relationship between public policies and individual practices. Particular attention is given to Europe, where the impetus to social transformation within and across national boundaries is in renewed tension with conflicting national and supra-national interests, with these tensions reflected in the complex issues of language choice and language policy.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

Central Europe has always been a highly multilingual region but how has this been affected by the social and political transformations of the last 20 years? The German language in particular has long played a key role in processes of identification here: but what role is the relationship between German and other languages playing today in the reshaping of societies and communities in this rapidly changing region? How is this relationship articulated in discourses on language and language ideologies? How is it manifested in individual repertoires and social practices? How is it determined by social and cultural policies? How is it exploited in the construction of European identities? These are just some of the questions addressed in this book, in which individual studies explore language practices in the multilingual contact zones of central Europe and the impact of both past and present migrations. Analysing a wide range of sources from media texts to language biographies and from business meetings to salsa classes, the authors demonstrate the local effects of global processes and some of the many ways in which language figures in contemporary social change.