Minority Languages in Europe This page intentionally left blank Minority Languages in Europe Frameworks, Status, Prospects

Edited by

Gabrielle Hogan-Brun and Stefan Wolff Introduction, Selection and Editorial Matter © Gabrielle Hogan-Brun & Stefan Wolff, 2003 Chapters 2–12 © Palgrave Macmillan 2003 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 978-1-4039-0396-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-230-21703-4 ISBN 978-0-230-50299-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230502994 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Minority languages in Europe: frameworks, status, prospects/edited by Gabrielle Hogan-Brun and Stefan Wolff. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Linguistic minorities – Europe. 2. Language policy – Europe. I. Hogan-Brun, Gabrielle, 1955– II. Wolff, Stefan, 1969– P119.315.M5624 2003 408Ј.6Ј93094—dc21 2003051976 10987654321 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 Contents

List of Tables and Figures vii Preface viii Acknowledgements x Notes on Contributors xi

Part I Introduction 1 Minority Languages in Europe: An Introduction to the Current Debate 3 Gabrielle Hogan-Brun and Stefan Wolff 2 When a Language is ‘Just Symbolic’: Reconsidering the Significance of Language to the Politics of Identity 16 Camille C. O’Reilly

Part II Legal and Policy Frameworks 3 Devising an Adequate System of Minority Protection in the Area of Language Rights 37 Kristin Henrard 4 Facilitating or Generating Linguistic Diversity: The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 56 M. Nic Craith 5 The Practitioner’s Perspective: Minority Languages and Linguistic Minorities in the Work of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities 73 John Packer

Part III Case Studies 6 Ethnic Germans as a Language Minority in Central and : Legislative and Policy Frameworks in Poland, Hungary and Romania 99 Stefan Wolff and Karl Cordell

v vi Contents

7 Baltic National Minorities in a Transitional Setting 120 Gabrielle Hogan-Brun 8 Politics and Language Rights: A Case Study of Language Politics in Croatia 138 Vanessa Pupavac 9 ‘Minor’ Needs or The Ambiguous Power of Translation 155 Carmen Millán-Varela 10 On Policies and Prospects for British Sign Language 173 Graham H. Turner 11 The Changing Status of Romani in Europe 192 Dieter W. Halwachs

Part IV Conclusion 12 Language, Nationalism and Democracy in Europe 211 Stephen May

Index 233 List of Tables and Figures

Tables 4.1 Member states of the CoE that have signed the ECRML 57 4.2 Member states of the CoE that have signed and ratified the ECRML 58 7.1 Changing ethnic composition in the Baltic States from 1923 to 2000 122 7.2 Proportion of ethnic groups in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with Russian as their first language in 1989 124 11.1 Romani-speakers in Europe 194

Figure 11.1 The origin of Romani 193

vii Preface

All over Europe, political, social, economic and cultural changes affecting the nature and position of new and old language minori- ties are occurring at an accelerating pace. In the face of the dynam- ics created by the parallel and interrelated processes of European integration and globalisation, the expression of cultural identity and the insistence on linguistic distinctiveness challenge the trend towards global harmonisation and have the potential to increase the momentum of already existing trends leading to greater frag- mentation. Hence the recognition and safeguarding of cultural and linguistic diversity have become crucial issues of social significance with linguistic, psychological, cultural, political, legal and economic implications. This collection explores the complex dynamics surrounding minority languages from an interdisciplinary perspective. It exam- ines the contribution to and effectiveness of existing legal frame- works with regard to policy formulation and implementation in various minority language settings. Case studies dealing with social, economic, political and cultural aspects of a selected range of minority language communities focus on disputed languages (Ulster-Scots, Serbian/Croatian), non-territorial languages (Romani, [British] sign language), minority languages in the contested terrains of post- communist nation- and state-building (Russian in the Baltic, German in Central and Eastern Europe) and native regional languages (Galician). Extending the dimensions of minority related issues, a wider con- text of social, political and educational theories is also provided that discusses the implications for language policy and practice, including the key aspect of maintaining public support for such policies. An analysis of 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 East and West rounds off the remit of this collection. In this way, a comprehensive picture emerges of the status of European minority languages against the background of existing

viii Preface ix political and legal frameworks to gauge future prospects of cultural and linguistic diversity within a unifying Europe.

GABRIELLE HOGAN-BRUN AND STEFAN WOLFF Bristol and Bath February 2003 Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the European Science Foundation for their funding of an Exploratory Research Workshop on Minority Lan- guages in Europe, held at the in June 2000, which provided the impetus to this collection. Our thanks also go to Peter Foulkes for reading and commenting on parts of the manuscript, and to Antony Alcock for his comprehensive and constructive feedback on the final version of our manuscript. We would also like to acknowledge the support and encouragement we received from our editor at Palgrave, Jill Lake.

x Notes on Contributors

Karl Cordell is Principal Lecturer in Politics at the University of Plymouth. His primary research interests centre on the German minor- ity in Poland in particular, and the politics of ethnicity in general. His main publications include Ethnicity and Democratisation in the New Europe (1998), The Politics of Ethnicity in (2000) and Poland and The European Union (2000).

Dieter W. Halwachs is Assistant Professor at the Institute for Linguistics at the University of Graz, where his research focuses mainly on Roma communities in Europe. His numerous publications include several reports on the codification of Romani, various collec- tions of Roma tales and a number of edited volumes on different aspects of Romani and Roma.

Kristin Henrard is Senior Lecturer at the University of Groningen where she teaches human rights, refugee law and constitutional law. Her main publications pertain to the areas of human rights and minority protection. She is managing editor of the Netherlands International Law Review, member of the international advisory board of the Global Review of Ethnopolitics and country specialist on South for Amnesty International – Dutch Section.

Gabrielle Hogan-Brun is Research Fellow in Language Studies at the University of Bristol. She works in the area of language diversity and possible changes under European harmonisation, with a current research focus on the changing language dynamics in the Baltic Republics. Her publications include edited books on National Varieties of German Outside . A European Perspective (2000) and Language Debates in Latvia (2004).

Máiréad Nic Craith is Professor at the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages, University of Ulster. An anthropologist, she has authored and edited several books including Plural Identities, Singular Narratives (2002) and Culture and Identity Politics in (2003). Her research interests include European integration and regional cultures and languages.

xi xii Notes on Contributors

Stephen May is Foundation Professor and Chair of Language and Literacy Education in the School of Education and Research Professor in the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research. He has writ- ten widely on language and education, with a particular focus on addressing and accommodating cultural and linguistic diversity. His most recent publications include Ethnonational Identities (2002), Language and Minority Rights (2001), Critical Multiculturalism: Rethinking Multicultural and Antiracist Education (1999) and Indigenous Community- based Education (1999).

Carmen Millán-Varela is a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Centre for English Language Studies, . Her main research interests and areas of publication include the role of translation in processes of identity construction, the discourse on translation, translation policy and planning and translation in lan- guage teaching.

Camille O’Reilly is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Richmond, the American International University in London. She is the author of The Irish Language in Northern Ireland: The Politics and Culture of Identity (1999) and editor of the two-volume collection Language, Ethnicity and the State (2001), as well as of many articles on nationalism, the Irish language and Northern Ireland.

John Packer served as Senior Legal Advisor to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) from September 1995 to February 2000, and as Director of the Office of the HCNM from March 2000 to November 2003. Mr. Packer is currently a Fellow at the Carr Center on Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Vanessa Pupavac is Lecturer in Politics at the . She has a background in law and area studies, and has previously worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia and for the OSCE in Bosnia. Recent research has been examining the politics of recognition and international minority rights approaches.

Graham H. Turner is Senior Lecturer in Deaf Studies at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, England. He has worked Notes on Contributors xiii with the Deaf community in the United Kingdom since the 1980s as a researcher and lecturer in applied sign linguistics, exploring language planning and policy-making, translation and interpreting, education and employment from a social perspective.

Stefan Wolff is Reader in Politics at the University of Bath. His main research interests are in the area of minority rights and ethnic con- flict. His publications include two monographs – Disputed Territories (2002) and The German Question since 1919 (2003) as well as several edited and co-edited volumes, including Managing and Settling Ethnic Conflicts (2003), Peace at Last: The Impact of the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland (2002) and German Minorities in Europe (2000).