Linguististic Policy in Europe
by Vittorio Dell'Aquila
(c)
OneEurope Magazine III/94
Europe may have just about two dozen countries, but in terms of
linguistics there is a lot more going on. Almost each nation has more
than one language, writes Vittorio Dell'Aquila.
Most of the countries of the world are composed with more than one
indigenous ethnic group, each one with its own language. In Europe, for
example, only Iceland, where the whole population has Icelandic as
mother tongue, and Portugal (1), where the official language and the
spoken languages are so similar to each other that they really can be
considered as being part of the same linguistic system (2), are
monolingual and monoethnic countries. Even the smallest countries of
Europe, like Andorra, Monaco, Malta, Liechtenstein and San Marino are
not monolingual (3). The linguistic complexity is for instance ruled by
the laws of the different countries in different ways.
There are two main tendencies of the linguistic policy of the states of
the world: the most common one, that does not respect pluralism and the
right of the people to their own languages and cultures, has as aim the
elimination, directly or indirectly, of the languages and the cultures
considered as different from the official one (minorities). The second
one recognises and protects the different cultures and languages in one
country.
The first policy has been adopted by several national states of Western
Europe and has as model the French linguistic policy. In fact, in
France, since the revolution each different language to French not only
has been forbidden in official life and education, but also has been
oppressed in private life. Only in 1951 the "regional languages" have
received a partial recognition: since that year it has been possible to
studyEurope may have just about two dozen countries, but in terms of
language there is a lot more going on. Vittorio Dell´Aquila knows that
almost each nation has more than one language as a secondary subject for
a few hours a week in the schools, Briton, Bask, Catalan, Alsacian and
Corsican. Of course, these languages are never used for official
purposes. But since 1993 a new law lays down again that the unique
language of France is French, which obliges all citizens to use it (4).
A policy based on the concept of the linguistic pluralism, instead,
tries to reduce the possible social conflicts produced by the ethnic
plurality in a country, recognising the same juridical right to more
than one language and/or ethnic group. The systems adopted by the states
for that policy are quite different, but they can be classified
following the personality principle or the territoriality principle.
The personality principle consists in giving to each citizen certain
services in his/her language independently from the place in which
he/she lives. The territoriality principle consists, instead, in using
in a certain territory one or more languages for all the citizens living
there whatever languages they use.
The most interesting example of the personality principle, is the
"corporative federalism" adopted by the Austro-Hungarian Empire: this
policy consisted in dividing the country not only in administrative
territorial units, but also in ethnic units on a voluntary basis, in
which each citizen could register wherever he or she was living.
Sweden
The personality principle is also adopted for education in Sweden:
everybody, citizen or foreigner, has the right to learn his/her mother
tongue at school, and, if there are enough students asking for that, it
is possible to have an entire course in a different language. In this
way the Swedish state protects, at least at school, not only the
autochthonous minorities (Lapps and Finns), but also the several groups
of foreigners living in the country.
Switzerland
The most ancient example of multilingual community based on
territoriality, is the Swiss Confederation. The schools are in general
monolingual in the official language of the municipality where they are
situated and it is not possible for the students to choose the language
of the school (5). It is only possible to choose the language of the
teaching in the German-French bilingual region of Biel/Bienne and in the
town of Fribourg/Freiburg. The French speaking federal and cantonal
Civil Servants living in the German speaking town of Bern, have their
French schools. The only bilingual schools are those of the Romantsch
speaking regions of Graubuenden/Grigioni, in which the lesson are taught
in Romantsch (5 different variants) and German. The same happens for the
official languages: the territory of the confederation is divided into
four linguistic regions based on historical reasons (a municipality
cannot change official language even if the original one is no longer
spoken by the inhabi ants) and the federal administration uses the
official language of the region independently from the mother tongue of
the citizens.
Belgium
Belgium also has a linguistic policy based on the principle of
territoriality: Vlaanderen have as only official language Flemish
(Dutch), Wallonie French (excluded a little territory on the border with
Germany in which German is the official language) and Bruxelles/Brussel
and its region is bilingual French-Flemish. The public schools are in
French or in Flemish in the bilingual region of Bruxelles/Brussel and in
very few municipalities along the linguistic border; French schools
exist in the whole German speaking area. In the rest of Vlaanderen the
public schols are only in Flemish, in Wallonie, only in French.
Norway
The two official written languages of Norway (Bokmal and Nynorsk) are
used in the local administration and in school respecting the
preferences of the population. The state uses for the 70% ca of the
texts Bokm and for the rest Nynorsk. Due to the very high similarity
of the two written languages, there aren't any bilingual areas. The
Lapps of the northern part of the country have primary schools in their
language.
Former Soviet Union
In the former Soviet Union and in Ex-Yugoslavia the constitutions stated
language policies based on both territorial and personality principles.
The former Soviet Union recognised about 130 nationalities each one with
its own language. Each citizen had the right to use his/her own language
for all kinds of communication with the state. Everybody had the
constitutional right to public schools in her/his language. But for the
administration, in fact, it was necessary to promote one or more
languages as official ones: they were Russian only, for the federal
government, Russian and one or more local languages for the republics
and the autonomous regions. In reality in the former Soviet Union only
Russians had the same right to their language and culture all over the
confederation, the other nationalities having only partial rights and
only in certain territories.
Ex-Jugoslavia
Ex-Yugoslavia had three official languages at federal level:
Serbo-croatian (with its two variants and alphabets, Latin (Croatian)
and Cyrillic (Serbian), Slovenian and Macedonian but Serbo-croatian
written in Latin alphabet was the most used language of the
confederation. Each republic had its language: Slovenian in Slovenia,
Croatian in Croatia, Serbo-croatian (both alphabets) in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbian in Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonian in
Macedonia. Other languages were used for official purposes together with
the language of the republic where they were spoken by a high number of
people, i.e. Albanian (the third language of the confederation as number
of speakers), mostly in the autonomous districts of Kosovo, Hungarian
and Romanian. Then Slovak, mostly in the separate districts of
Vojvodina, Czech, Italian, Turkish, Ukrainian and others in other
regions. Schools in all the languages of the different ethnic groups
existed where the languages were spoken, but the schools in S erbo
Croatia were more widespread than the others.
Finland
Finland applies the territoriality principle for the official languages
(Finnish and Swedish) at local level and the personality principle for
the education. Each municipality of Finland is monolingual when the
second language, based on the census of population, is spoken by less
than 8% of the inhabitants, bilingual when spoken by more than 8%. A
monolingual municipality becomes bilingual when the rate of speakers of
the second language exceeds 10% of the population; a bilingual
municipality becomes monolingual when the second language is spoken by
less than 6% of the population. The state and the towns of
Helsinki/Helsingfors, Turku/Abo and Vaasa/Vasa are considered bilingual
by the constitution for historical, social and geographical reasons. For
education, each municipality must provide schools in the other language
than the official one, when required by at least 12 students. The Lapps
of Lapland can have lessons taught in Lappish in the Finnish speaking
schools.
Some European countries apply the two principles of language policy to
integrate in apparently democratic ways the so called ethnic minorities.
The system comprises of using the personality principle in the regions
in which the national minority is the strongest group, giving both
populations of the area the same right to use their languages in public
and education, and using the principle of territoriality in the rest of
the country in order to use for official purposes and education only the
national language of the state.
Spain
The Spanish constitution of 1978, for example, recognises the right to
Catalans, Basks and Galicians to use their languages, together with
Spanish, as official and education languages in their regions, but
outside these autonomous regions only Spanish is official, and, as it is
possible for Spanish speaking people to study in Spanish in the Bask
Country, for example, it is not possible to study in Bask in Madrid.
The Spanish constitution lays down also that it is the duty for all
Spanish citizens to know and study Spanish, that is the national
language of the kingdom, but no duty is stated for the other recognised
languages. However, the Catalan autonomous government is now trying to
oblige all citizens living in Catalonia to study in Catalan.
Italy
If the situation in Spain is improving since the end of the Franco's
dictatorship another country of Europe has been obliged by international
pressure to slow down its
French oriented and fascist linguistic policy at least in 4 (1% of the
total population) of its more than 120 provinces. That is Italy, in
which the only national language (mother tongue of less of 50% of the
population) is Italian. However in Vallee d'Aoste/Valle d'Aosta, French
has been recognised as the official language, together with Italian.
After that the alpine valley had voted with a big majority, just after
World War II, to be annexed by France. There, all schools are bilingual
Italian-French (all other languages spoken in the valley are not
considered). Suedtirol/Alto Adige is Italian-German because of the
"terrorist" activities of certain extremist groups of the German
speaking populations and the pressures of Austria at the UN.
In Suedtirol/Alto Adige it is possible to choose schools in Italian or
in German. The 13.000 Ladins living there have the right to use their
language as official in the villages and can study it in the Italian or
German schools.
The other more than 10.000 Ladins living outside Suedtirol/Alto Adige
are considered as Italians and their language as an Italian "dialect".
In two more provinces of Italy it is possible to study in public schools
with a language different from Italian: they are Gorizia/Gorica and
Trieste/Trst in which it is possible to study in Slovenian and where
some municipalities use Slovenian and Italian as official languages. But
the majority of the Italian citizens belonging to the Slovenian ethnic
group live in the province of Udine that is strictly Italian (as decreed
by law).
Notes
(1) In only a few villages in the Spanish borders, the population used
to speak a language more related to Spanish than Portuguese.
(2) From a scientific linguistic point of view, there is no difference
between a so-called dialect and a language.
(3) Andorra: Catalan as official language and spoken language, French as
culture language. Monaco. French as official language, Monegasco
(strictly related with Genuan) as spoken language of the autochthonous
population which is half of the total population of the country.
Malta:
Maltese (related with Arabian) official since the independence of the
island in substitution of Italian, and spoken language of the
population, and English, official language and language of the culture.
Liechtenstein:
German as official language, local Alemannic (German)
varieties as only spoken language. San Marino: Italian as official and
spoken language, local variety of north Italian romance as spoken
language (considered as dialect).
(4) In 1994 the Constitutional Court has abrogated the part of this law
that obliged all citizens to use French in private life as opposed to
the concept of personal freedom (liberte) stated in the constitution.
(5) German speaking people, however, never use the official German
language when they speak, even at school, but the Schwyzerdytsch, a
group of so called southern German "dialects."
General References
Badia i Margarit, A., Lengua i poder, Barcelona, 1986
Breton, Roland, Geographie des langues, Paris, 1978
Breton, Roland, Les Ethnies, Paris, 1981
Fishman, Joshua, Bilingual Education: an International Sociological
Perspective, Rowley, Mass. 1976
Kloss, Heinz, Linguistic Composition of the Nations of the World,
Quebec, 1974-84
Laponce, Jean, Langue et territoire, Quebec, 1984
Ninyoles, Rafael., Estructura social y politica linguistica,
Valencia, 1975
Rothschild, Joseph, Ethnopolitics, New York, 1981
Salvi, Sergio, Le Lingue tagliate, Milano, 1975
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