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Euromosaic III Touches Upon Vital Interests of Individuals and Their Living Conditions

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Euromosaic III Touches Upon Vital Interests of Individuals and Their Living Conditions Research Centre on Multilingualism at the KU Brussel E U R O M O S A I C III Presence of Regional and Minority Language Groups in the New Member States * * * * * C O N T E N T S Preface INTRODUCTION 1. Methodology 1.1 Data sources 5 1.2 Structure 5 1.3 Inclusion of languages 6 1.4 Working languages and translation 7 2. Regional or Minority Languages in the New Member States 2.1 Linguistic overview 8 2.2 Statistic and language use 9 2.3 Historical and geographical aspects 11 2.4 Statehood and beyond 12 INDIVIDUAL REPORTS Cyprus Country profile and languages 16 Bibliography 28 The Czech Republic Country profile 30 German 37 Polish 44 Romani 51 Slovak 59 Other languages 65 Bibliography 73 Estonia Country profile 79 Russian 88 Other languages 99 Bibliography 108 Hungary Country profile 111 Croatian 127 German 132 Romani 138 Romanian 143 Serbian 148 Slovak 152 Slovenian 156 Other languages 160 Bibliography 164 i Latvia Country profile 167 Belorussian 176 Polish 180 Russian 184 Ukrainian 189 Other languages 193 Bibliography 198 Lithuania Country profile 200 Polish 207 Russian 212 Other languages 217 Bibliography 225 Malta Country profile and linguistic situation 227 Poland Country profile 237 Belorussian 244 German 248 Kashubian 255 Lithuanian 261 Ruthenian/Lemkish 264 Ukrainian 268 Other languages 273 Bibliography 277 Slovakia Country profile 278 German 285 Hungarian 290 Romani 298 Other languages 305 Bibliography 313 Slovenia Country profile 316 Hungarian 323 Italian 328 Romani 334 Other languages 337 Bibliography 339 ii PREFACE i The European Union has been called the “modern Babel”, a statement that bears witness to the multitude of languages and cultures whose number has remarkably increased after the enlargement of the Union in May of 2004. EU citizens are amazed at the linguistic diversity which surrounds them, and they are puzzled by the fact that the law of Babel also governs language use in administration. The documentation of languages and their speech communities in the new Member States as presented in this report is meant to facilitate decision-making in various language-related domains. Hopefully, it will serve purposes that reach beyond the mere practical. In an ideal sense, it may serve to emphasise, in the minds of those who are involved in decision-making, that linguistic diversity is an asset which enriches national societies in Europe. Furthermore, it may promote awareness of the historical ties of the newly acceded speech communities with Western Europe and thus contribute to the renaissance of regional languages and cultures in the Union. In the 1970s, little attention was paid to the situation of regional or minority languages in the EEC Member States, except in the circles of experts in the newly established field of sociolinguistics and among cultural activists. Then, it was widely believed that the dominant languages involved in the European integration movement would eventually erase the boundaries between them and the smaller speech communities, with the effect of widespread assimilation and integration of minorities into the communities of the big languages. This attitude was governed by the false assumption that the language question in the EEC would be solved by trends towards natural linguistic merging. In the 1980s, more and more results of scholarly research in the humanities became available, providing deeper insights into the complexity of language contacts and into the role of language for the construction of regional cultures. Particularly insightful was the finding that, in a worldwide comparison, the significance of the mother tongue as a symbol of cultural identity appears to be stronger among European peoples than among many communities outside Europe. Ever since those times of a growing awareness of the importance of language as an asset of regional cultural heritage, the issues of regional languages have been acknowledged as a relevant agenda, and this has gained in weight in debates about human rights and about a transition from the European integration movement to the establishment of a European Union. In the 1990s, a new horizon opened up for the language issue and its growing importance. While, in earlier years, the discussion among experts and politicians who bear the responsibility for the protection of regional languages centred on measures of language politics and their implementation, the most recent trend shows that the role of language for identity (individual and collective, that is group-oriented) is in focus. Practical considerations of language engineering are now overarched by concerns to guarantee EU citizens a conflict-free identification with their home culture. Euromosaic III touches upon vital interests of individuals and their living conditions. It is not surprising that the documentation provides insights that may highlight the vital need to preserve linguistic diversity, even of very small speech communities and their mother tongues, regardless of how proficient their members may be in other languages. This need to maintain the heritage of linguistic groups articulates itself in an elementary process: finding one’s identity through language. Every individual is involved in the process of identification, and language is a crucial factor for one’s orientation in a cultural environment. The ways in which people find their language-related identity are as manifold as their behavioural patterns. In an environment where several languages are in contact - which is typical of areas where a local language is spoken alongside a language of wider communication - a lesser used language may nevertheless have great importance for the initial stage of cultural i This preface on language and identity was written by Harald Haarmann following a specific request made at the Euromosaic III Workshop (26 June 2004). iii identification. Consequently, it is not only important to safeguard regional languages because they form part of the cultural heritage of a given country but also because they are an irreplaceable means for their speakers to identify with their living conditions. It is widely recognised that citizens living in the European Union have benefited greatly from standardisation. Almost everything has been standardised, from the regulations of the market economy to the size of cardboard boxes. The multitude of measures and weights, shapes and sizes has been reduced considerably. However, there is one domain where standardisation is a disturbing factor rather than a factor which facilitates daily life, and this is cultural identification. You can standardise commercial goods, but you cannot standardise people’s identity. Language- and culture-related issues have gained ever more attention in the past years, in the political arena as much as in public debate about human rights, of which the right to one’s mother tongue is one. The need of the individual’s identity to focus on language may always be there, regardless of the status of the mother tongue. The linguistic diversity in the EU countries is characterised by a variety of different statuses and communicative functions for individual languages. For example, Saami in Finland and Sweden is spoken by only a few thousand people, a dwarf language when compared with the titan English with its many millions of speakers who use it as a first, second or additional language in all of Europe. This enormous contrast notwithstanding, EU citizens find their identity in either of these languages, with identity rooted in Saami as an anchor dug into a local culture while English serves as a vehicle of identification on an international and global level. As a rule, bilingual EU citizens who speak regional languages as their mother tongues find in them the basis for their elementary identity. Even if the emphasis is not on practical communication functions, each of the regional languages has its unique value as a reservoir of knowledge about a given local culture and the associated living conditions, as an instrument to identify with the cultural environment and as a symbol of local traditions. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages highlights the importance to protect languages with this status and the pertinent roles they play. The second language which bilingual people speak usually functions as a medium of wider communication. This knowledge of a second language widens the horizon to a Union scale, ranging from the status of a language of a Member State to its use in EU administration. Bilingual EU citizens possess a multiple identity, with the language of elementary identity rooted in a local culture and with a second language supporting identity on a Union level. The self-confidence to be and to act as a citizen of the EU needs strong roots which grow from the regional languages as vehicles of the cultural traditions that are associated with them. Euromosaic III may ultimately contribute to the appreciation of linguistic diversity as a constructive element in the fabric of our “Europeanness”. Harald Haarmann iv INTRODUCTION Background Following the restricted Call for Tender DG EAC/57/03 of the European Commission for the extension of Euromosaic, the Research Centre on Multilingualism (RCM) in Brussels has been entrusted with a large-scale research project to describe the situation of regional or minority languages in Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, all countries that joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. The present individual reports are submitted to the Commission (DG EAC) in compliance with the service contract 2003-4102/001-001. The project ran from the end of November 2003 till mid-September 2004, with a total time of 9 months allotted for research and reporting. Contributors These reports have been prepared by Jeroen Darquennes, Stefano Salmasi, Marianne Tikka and Peter J. Weber, under the supervision of Peter H. Nelde and with the assistance of Anne Melis — all part of the RCM staff or “core team”.
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