Language Problems and Language Planning - Volume 32, Issue 3, 2008

In addition to twelve recognized minority languages (Law no. 482/1999), Italy features a number of non-recognized so-called “dialects” that is difficult to state, but which renowned linguists like Tullio De Mauro and Giulio Lepschy calculate as ranging between 12 and 15. These languages are still spoken (and sometimes written) by slightly less than half of the Italian population and are the first languages of a significant part of it. Some of them even have a history of (semi)official usage and feature large and interesting literary traditions. An introduction on the linguistic situation in Italy, the classification of its “dialects” and their state of endangerment, is followed by discussion of the present (scant) legislation and action being taken to protect the seven language varieties chosen as case studies: Piedmontese, Western Lombard/Milanese, Venetan, Ligurian/Genoese, Roman, Neapolitan and Sicilian. These language planning strategies are discussed particularly in terms of graphization (corpus planning), status and acquisition planning, even when, as in most cases, this “planning” may be uncoordinated and even unconscious. The article closes with a few general considerations and with some suggestions on how these initiatives could be improved.

This is the second of two articles dealing with the epistemology of the analysis of Spanish in the Southwest of the United States of America. The content of this part is basically linguistic, with social implications, and mostly synchronic. The historical references, however, are never set aside. In the first place, it is important to make a distinction between the real melting languages and theoretical misinterpretations. English and Spanish are combined with social and literary implications in the diverse slang forms of the area: pachuco, caló, among others. Spurious interests, however, have given force to fantastic hypotheses brought to a climax by the invention of an allegedly “new” language, called Spanglish. This lexical choice is unfortunate, because it takes advantage of the existence of a more innocuous use of the word, simply referring to all forms of contact between the two languages. Four aspects are therefore mixed up and mistaken: the invention of an allegedly “new” language, in spite of a total lack of unification; the constant code-switching with different modalities and extent; the bad quality of certain translations; and the cultural relegation of Hispanics to speakers of a ghetto language. The set of two articles ends with a graphical presentation of a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). The conclusion refers to Judeo-Spanish and the dangers of ghetto languages, as well as to the role of education.

The present study attempts to examine what presumably guided Zamenhof in choosing “international” forms for Biblical Hebrew personal names when he translated the whole Hebrew Bible into Esperanto. A comparison of these names graphically and phonetically with their equivalents in eight possible source languages, i.e., Hebrew, Latin, Italian, French, English, German, Polish and Russian, reveals a preference for Hebrew, German and Polish forms in descending order as possible etymons ascribable to Zamenhof’s own linguistic background. The morphological adaptation of these names is conditioned by the phonetic characteristics of their etymons.

The Bologna process aims to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010, in which university studies are comparable and compatible and degrees more transparent. Its priority is the introduction of the three-cycle system Bachelor — Master — Doctorate. At the University of Leipzig a project was launched to connect the implementation of the new structures with the establishment of a programme in interlinguistics and Esperanto studies. In the winter semester 2007/2008 a compulsory-optional module with the title Universal Languages was taught, consisting of a weekly lecture, seminar and a language course Esperanto. It was an initiative of the Gesellschaft für Interlinguistik e.V. and financially supported by the Esperantic Studies Foundation. The paper reports on the structure, contents and results of the module and draws conclusions for similar initiatives at other European universities.