A description and analysis of the problems facing the minority languages of Europe during the coming years of political and economic integration.

This is an analysis of the promises and contradictions surrounding contemporary minority language policy. It draws on theoretical and real-world perspectives and interviews with key players within European institutions together with field work undertaken principally in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Canada.

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.

This book examines the language policies relating to linguistic rights in European Union law and in the constitutions and legal statutes of some European Union member states. In recent years, the European Union has seen an increase in claims for language recognition by minority groups representing a considerable population (such as Catalan in Spain and Welsh in the UK). Additionally, there is a developing situation surrounding the official use of English within the European Union in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. In light of these two contexts, this book focuses on the degree of legal protection afforded to linguistic groups in the European Union. It will be of interest to students and scholars of language policy, EU law, minority languages and sociolinguistics.

This edited volume presents an analysis of the evolution of French language policies and their impact on French regional languages and their communities. It gathers studies on language revitalisation from several territorial minority languages (Breton, Alsatian, Catalan, Occitan, Basque, Corsican, Francoprovençal, Picard, Reunionese) and evaluates the challenges and opportunities that they face in the 21st century. The chapters tackle different aspects of language endangerment and language planning and adopt varied theoretical and methodological approaches. The first section of the book reconsiders the difficulties in establishing linguistic boundaries and classification for some regional languages. The second section examines the important theme of the new generation of speakers with issues of transmission and identity formation and the changes they can bring to traditional communities. The third section highlights new developments in the context of new technologies and the heightened visibility of regional languages. Finally, the last section presents an overview of the contemporary situation of minority language revitalisation in France and synthesises the key trends identified in this volume: from the educational domain to the European Charter for Minority and Regional languages. This book will appeal to students and scholars of the sociology of language, sociolinguistics, language policy, minority languages and language endangerment.

The author presents a new approach to the study of language policy, by focusing on language policy formation and implementation as a dynamic, conflict-laden process involving the interaction of various actors with different motivations and uneven bargaining powers, rather than as a product , examinable post hoc from existing language legislation.

This book offers a substantial and up-dated discussion and presentation of the new European “frontiers” related to complex and controversial social and spatial (re)integration issues in multicultural and border regions. It represents an inter-disciplinary endeavour from human geographers, social and political scientists, and linguists to understand and interpret the current developments of the European “unity in diversity” paradigm, based on simultaneous and continuous processes of social and spatial convergence and divergence, changing territorialities and identities, particularly in the wider EU’s “inner” and “outer” border regions. These studies convincingly display the prominence of context in understanding the regional and local geo-histories and in making sense of the meanings of borders for social communities and wider societies. They also show how (re)integration potentials of border and multicultural regions are strongly dependent on the creation of a viable multi-level social and spatial planning and cooperation system, within which both “conflict-to-harmony” processes and “common cause” behaviours and practices may become effective, and thus give a new role to local communities in the numerous borderlands across Europe. The book offers both a synthesis of current theoretical-methodological approaches and an analysis of selected case-studies provided by internationally-acknowledged scholars. It represents a valuable instrument for researchers and students of social and spatial integration, human and political geographers, social anthropologists, and social and political scientists, as well as language planners.

This book explores the dynamics of language and social change in central Europe in the context of the end of the Cold War and eastern expansion of the European Union. One outcome of the profound social transformations in central Europe since the Second World War has been the reshaping of the relationship between particular languages and linguistic varieties, especially between 'national' languages and regional or ethnic minority languages. Previous studies have investigated these transformed relationships from the macro perspective of language policies, while others have taken more fine-grained approaches to individual experiences with language. Combining these two perspectives for the first time--and focusing on the German language, which has a uniquely complex and problematic history in the region--the authors offer an understanding of the complex constellation of language politics in central Europe. Stevenson and Carl's analysis draws on a range of theoretical, conceptual and analytical approaches - language ideologies, language policy, positioning theory, discourse analysis, narrative analysis and life histories - and a wide range of data sources, from European and national language policies to individual language biographies. The authors demonstrate how the relationship between German and other languages has played a crucial role in the politics of language and processes of identity formation in the recent history of central Europe.

This volume provides an overview of EU actions seeking to manage diversity, introduces a conceptual framework to think about diversity in the European Union, and provides a tapestry of cases that illustrate minority politics and activism, contestations over identity and difference, and the construction of new meanings of European citizenship.

This book explores the Linguistic Landscapes of ten French and Italian Mediterranean coastal cities. The authors address the national languages, the regional languages and dialects, migrant languages, and the English language, as they collectively mark the public space.