Language, Ethnicity, and the

State: Minority Languages

in the EU

Ch2: Many Tongues but One Voice

By Donall O Riagain

Post WWII: how did minorities fare?

• Post-War Europe was not friendly to minorities (it was claimed they did not contribute to stability, were collaborators)

• 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights censured discrimination based on language

• International Labor Organization (under UN) promoted education in mother tongue for indigenous peoples

• UNESCO supported minorities’ rights to maintain schools for their languages

Expansion of official EU languages

• EU precursor organization initially chose French, but had to add more and more due to protests & requests

• 1979 Gaetano Arfe (member of European Parliament) called for a Charter of Ethnic Minorities, and similar efforts soon followed, leading to 1982 establishment of European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages

• 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

“Minority”, “lesser used”, etc. – how are these terms defined?

• It is hard to define a minority language, since it might be an official language (Irish) or a majority language elsewhere (German in Belgium)

• What is a language & what is a dialect?– Yes, the most important criteria is self-

identification of the speakers

European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages

• Coordinates joint efforts among minorities across Europe

• Lobbies governments to sign the Charter and enact policies that promote minority languages

• Reports, publications, conferences• Funds visits to other minority groups to see

what measures do and don’t work

More Detail on the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

• Minority language is– 1) used by a numerically smaller # of citizens in a given

territory of the state– 2) distinct from state language

• Minority language is not– 1) language of immigrants– 2) dialect of majority language– 3) non-territorial (Romany, Yiddish) -- but these are

included in part II of Charter

Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

• Has been signed by most EU countries (plus Norway, Switzerland & others), and is under consideration by Russia

• Has achieved widespread recognition of importance of linguistic human rights and linguistic diversity as a resource