Update June 16, 2020

Learning Objectives:

• Language and Identity: The language we speak helps define who we are.

• EU Language Policy: Multilingualism

• Principle of Subsidiarity

• European Union Language Policy: Controversy

1. Summary of "Multilingualism: a policy for uniting Europeans" ppt

2. The following reading material is taken from the book "Respecting linguistic diversity in the European Union", edited by Xabier Arzoz, 2008.

(pp.47-68)

chapter 2 Language diversity in the European Union: An overview

Patxi Juaristi, Timothy Reagan and Humphrey Tonkin

An examination of the extent and diversity of languages in Europe and specifically in the European Union reveals that there are over sixty indigenous languages currently spoken in, and historically established in, the territory of the EU, along with almost thirty sign languages. The authors identify and briefly examine the spoken languages, with due attention to the difficulty of working with language statistics. European languages within the EU can be divided into three categories, based on the number of native speakers of a given language in the EU itself. The authors also compare European linguistic diversity with linguistic diversity worldwide, and present a brief overview of language policies in the EU with respect to the designation of official languages in various member states.

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Language status and language policy in the EU

Different methods for dealing with language diversity are used by member states within their borders. We can distinguish five principal models with respect to the issue of official status:

• Member states with a single official language: Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

• Member states with a single official language, but in which other languages enjoy certain state support in some parts of the country or official recognition limited to particular municipalities: Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

• Member states which recognise co-official languages in certain geographical areas: Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Italy.

• Member states which are language federations: Belgium.

• Bilingual and multilingual member states: Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Malta.

1. Member states with a single official language: Bulgaria, France, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Greece, and Poland

There are seven states within the EU which have a single official language and encourage its exclusive use (the best known example of this language model is France). The language policy followed by these countries is based on the belief that the use of just one language facilitates the cohesion and progress of the state. In other words, these states have married the concepts of a common language, nation and state (Lastra 1992), and hold to the view that a modern state must have a single language common to all its citizens. The consequences of this policy have been to marginalise other languages, lower their prestige, endanger them and even cause their disappearance (Crystal 2000). Moreover, the states following this language model generally promote a monolingual school system, which poses enormous contradictions for minority language communities. Consider the evolution of Breton in France: as we have already noted, at the end of the nineteenth century Breton had almost one and a half million speakers. Nowadays, there are around 369,000.

But Breton is not alone. A similar situation confronts all minority languages in France, such as Basque, Catalan, Corsican, Franco-Provençal and Occitan. The same is true of Tatar in Estonia, Romani throughout Eastern Europe, and Kashubian in Poland. If language policy is not changed in these countries, all these languages are in danger of disappearing in the near future.

In addition, in several of these cases language policy is explicitly utilised for ideological and political ends. In Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, for example, such policies are clearly directed at the deliberate assimilation of speakers of Russian.

2. Member states with a single official language, but in which other languages enjoy certain state support in some parts of the country or official recognition limited to particular municipalities: Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom

Ten member states of the EU, apart from having one official language, recognise other languages in some geographic regions of the country, usually in specific municipalities or areas. In 2002, Sweden recognised Sami as its fifth minority language (the others, previously recognized, are Meänkieli, Standard Finnish, Romani and Yiddish), giving it formal standing in government agencies, courts, preschools and nursing homes in four municipalities (Arjeplog, Gällivare, Jokkmokk and Kiruna). As we have already noted, Sweden has also recognised Swedish Sign Language. Italian is co-official in some cities of Istria (Slovenia), as is Mirandese in some municipalities of northeastern Portugal, mainly in Miranda do Douro and surrounding areas, where it was granted official recognition by the Portuguese Parliament in 1998.

In the United Kingdom, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Manx and Irish do not enjoy official status in their respective territories (Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Northern Ireland). Consequently, English is slowly spreading in the traditional territories of these languages (Moreno Cabrera 2000). Certainly, the Welsh Language Act of 1993 purports to give “effect, so far as is both appropriate in the circumstances and reasonably practicable, to the principle that in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice in Wales the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality,” but it does not accord individual linguistic rights to Welsh speakers. However, it should be noted that while this is true in broad terms, Welsh speakers do in fact have an absolute right to use the language in courts of law, which is certainly, albeit in only one domain, an individual linguistic right. In the case of Welsh, a language board has been established to promote and facilitate the use of the language, and in particular to advise public bodies which provide services to the public in Wales, on the ways in which effect may be given to the principle of treatment “on a basis of equality.”

A further example of such a policy is found in Romania, where “there are two hours a week on Romanian television for the Roms. There are five magazines for the Roms with writing in Romany. There are also three radio programmes in Romany” (Martí et al. 2005: 206). Also focused on the domain of language use rather than on a particular geographic area, this case would appear to be similar to the others included here, although no official status is granted to Romani.

Because they do not enjoy official status, most of the languages in this group may have difficulty in surviving, in spite of having limited state support.

3. Member states which recognise co-official languages in certain geographical areas: Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Italy

Four EU member states, instead of having several official state languages, have chosen to have a single official language in the country as a whole, while granting official status to regional languages in the territory in which they are spoken, alongside the official language of the state as a whole. For example, Catalan, Galician, Basque, Faroese, Frisian, Sardinian, Friulian, Ladin and Occitan are all official only in some areas of the relevant countries (Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Italy). This is also the case, for instance, of Frisian in Germany, where Frisian is officially protected as a minority language, according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, in the province of Schleswig-Holstein and in the Saterland region of Lower Saxony. Although German politicians are currently passing laws to promote this language, there remain serious problems implementing these laws. As Hagège (2000) points out, an officially recognised language has a degree of legal protection, and this is the first step toward the preservation and promotion of a minority language – but having official status does not mean that the future of a language is secure: such recognition must be accompanied by decisive action in its favour. For instance, on the other side of the German border, in Friesland, a province of the northern Netherlands, Frisian enjoys a status equivalent to Dutch as the official language of the territory. For all these efforts on behalf of Frisian, it remains one of the most endangered minority languages in the EU (Fishman 1991).

The Basque language took a very important step forward when it was proclaimed an official language in the Basque Autonomous Community in 1979 and in the Autonomous Community of Navarre in 1982. This recognition was arguably a key step for the survival of the language, although there remain many problems in preserving this linguistic heritage, especially in Navarre, due to the fact that any action, law, movement or initiative taken in favour of preserving Basque is apt to be resisted by the current regional government.

The countries included in this group may, of course, grant official status to some languages while denying the same status to other languages spoken within their territory. For instance, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Occitan are official in Spain, while Asturian is not.

As we have noted, in some cases the same linguistic community extends to territories belonging to different states: sometimes a language is co-official in one state and not recognized at all in another. Examples of this phenomenon include Basque (Spain and France) and Occitan (France, Spain and Italy). As long as this situation does not change, such linguistic communities will have difficulties promoting the language and surviving.

4. Member states which are language federations: Belgium

Belgium is the only language federation in the EU at the present time. Three languages – Dutch, French and German– are official. The three are prestigious languages, and they are all promoted. Belgium is divided into three communities, the Dutch-speaking Flemish community, the French-speaking community and the German-speaking community. At the same time, it is also divided into three regions: Brussels, mainly consisting of a mixed Dutch- and French-speaking population of 980,000; the Flemish region, mainly Dutch-speaking, with 5.9 million inhabitants; and Wallonia, mainly French-speaking, with 3.36 million inhabitants. About 60 percent of the country is therefore Dutch-speaking; French is the second-most-spoken language (with about 40 percent) and finally German is spoken only by less than 1% of the population. Although each language has a completely different sociolinguistic situation, all three languages are official and treated as such. It is also important to note that Belgium is a federal country, and so Dutch and French, in particular, have relatively little standing outside their own regions.

5. Bilingual and multilingual member states: Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Malta

There are five bilingual and/or multilingual countries in the EU: Cyprus (Greek and Turkish), Finland (Finnish and Swedish), Ireland (Irish and English), Luxembourg (French, German and Luxembourgian), and Malta (Maltese and English). With the exception of Cyprus, where a special political situation exists, in all the other member states the constitution indicates that there is more than one official language in the country. Consequently, in theory, all constitutional languages are protected by the law.

According to its constitution, Finland is a bilingual country; that is to say, citizens of the Swedish-speaking minority, constituting about 5% of the Finnish population, have the right to communicate with the authorities in their mother tongue. Moreover, since the educational reform of the 1970s, both Swedish and Finnish are not only compulsory school subjects, but are also mandatory in final examinations. Nonetheless, even in Swedish-speaking towns and municipalities, Finnish is the dominant language. The Sami people living in Finland were also granted the right to use the Sami language for all government services by the Sami Language Act of 1991 (P. Aikio 1994). Finally, the Sami Language Act of 2003 granted the Sami language official status in five municipalities of Finland.

Ireland is also a bilingual country. The constitution recognizes two official languages, Irish being the “national language” of the Republic of Ireland and its main official language, and English the second official language. However, English is spoken by the majority of the population and Irish only by a small number. Thus, official bilingualism does not necessarily mean all languages mentioned in the constitution are equally secured.

Conclusion

To understand the sociolinguistic map of the EU, we must take into account that various member states use different criteria to deal with language diversity: a wide variety of legislation, policies and constitutional provisions deals with language issues. In this chapter we have provided a brief overview of explicit official language policies in EU member states, but this is only the tip of the iceberg for understanding the complexities and intricacies of language matters in the EU. Perhaps as important as the official language policies of member states are policies at the macro-level that address the EU as a multinational and multilingual community, and policies at the micro-level that define the individual’s language rights. These are both areas in which there has been extensive debate and both political and scholarly discussion in recent years. Furthermore, they are both areas in which no consensus has been reached in spite of the urgency to do so. And, of course, as the EU expands, the challenges at both levels will only increase.

The lack of decision in these areas may constitute, unfortunately, a decision in its own right. If the EU as a whole continues to avoid making difficult macrolevel decisions, and if individual member states continue to be reluctant to pass legislation on minority languages, this may well result in damage to currently endangered languages in the EU. We believe that public debate is essential in four broad areas:

• The role of languages which currently lack formal recognition within the EU;

• The situation of linguistic communities that speak official languages of the EU but whose linguistic rights are not protected in the areas where these communities are settled;

• Criteria for the linguistic operation of the institutions of the EU;

• Most importantly, the prospects for a global language policy for the EU.

What is intriguing to us is that none of these issues is new or novel. They are all issues about which there are extensive bodies of relevant literature, and about which thoughtful individuals have spent a great deal of time and effort (see, for instance, Extra & Gorter 2001, Fettes & Bolduc 1998, Maurais & Morris 2003, Phillipson 2003, Spolsky 2004, and Wright 2004). And yet, decisions continue to be avoided, perhaps for understandable political reasons. In any event, we would hope that this volume, and the chapters it contains, would help to advance this important on-going dialogue, and might perhaps even serve to elevate the discussion.

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