Language Problems and Language Planning - Volume 26, Issue 1, 2002

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington, DC, have caused a significant review of US capacity to conduct intelligence analysis to predict such attacks. A key component of the ability to analyze intelligence is the matter of competence in languages appropriate to areas of current emphasis in national defense. Language capacity is not a new topic to national defense, but this article looks at the link between government needs for language capacity and the availability of languages in formal education. Despite previous links between education and defense and the availability of federal funding to subsidize languages in schools, the predominant pattern of language enrollment appears to be in response to domestic concerns rather than to international affairs.

Les quatre régimes linguistiques qu’il est actuellement possible d’observer dans la réalité à l’échelon international (ceux qu’appliquent l’ONU, les multinationales, l’Union européenne et les organisations espérantophones) ont été comparés pour toute une série de critèresþ: durée de l’apprentissage linguistique exigé des participants, investissement préalable de l’État, investissement préalable de l’institution où la communication doit avoir lieu, inégalité et discrimination, coût linguistique d’une séance, coût de la production d’un document, délai à prévoir pour qu’un document devienne disponible pour tous, déperditions et distorsions de l’information, fréquence et importance du handicap linguistique en séance, handicap linguistique à la lecture, limitations et inconvénients du système adopté, et augmentation probable des inconvénients au cours des 20 prochaines années. Il ressort de cette recherche que les systèmes unilingues (anglais employé seul, espéranto) sont ceux qui présentent le maximum d’avantages et le minimum d’inconvénients pour la majorité des critères. Cependant, si l’on tient compte de certains facteurs, comme l’égalité entre pays ou un temps d’apprentissage linguistique raisonnable, la formule la plus intéressante se révèle être l’espéranto.

Studies of the sociolinguistic situation of Catalan have generally concentrated on Catalonia and have disregarded other territories where Catalan is also native, namely the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands. Although the three territories share a common history of linguistic oppression, different approaches with respect to language planning on the part of the respective autonomous governments have produced different patterns of sociolinguistic evolution. In this article, the specifics of the island of Mallorca and in particular the sociolinguistic situation of its capital city, Palma, are reviewed. Research on attitudes in the Balearic Islands has made use of direct questionnaires as a tool of analysis. This paper explores the differences between the answers to direct questionnaires and the responses to a matched-guise experiment by way of the traditional distinction between the parameters of status-instrumentality and solidarity-integrativeness. It also proposes that a combination of methods is needed to obtain a clearer picture of the problems still to overcome.

Il vocabolario Etimologia vortaro de Esperanto di Ebbe Vilborg, di cui è appena uscito il quinto ed ultimo volume, tratta con grande ampiezza l’etimologia delle parole esperanto “ufficiali”, cioè figuranti nel Fundamento e nelle otto aggiunte fissate dall’Accademia di Esperanto, istituzione che controlla l’evoluzione della lingua. La limitatezza delle radici scelte (poche migliaia rispetto alle 15.000 che compaiono nel più grande dizionario esperanto, il Plena ilustrita vortaro) non infirma affatto la validità dell’opera, che supera ampiamente ogni opera precedente dello stesso tipo; in particolare viene data non solo l’etimologia della parola esperanto in quanto scelta da Zamenhof da una data lingua, ma anche l’etimologia delle parole in lingue etniche da cui Zamenhof ha derivato i termini esperanto. Come esempio sono esaminate le radici anonc- e ŝajn-. Quasi ad ogni voce sono esposti i motivi, già noti o ricostruiti, che hanno indotto Zamenhof a fare quella scelta piuttosto che un’altra. Un paragone con il più voluminoso dizionario etimologico italiano, il Cortelazzo-Zolli, è in più punti favorevole al Vilborg.