Language Problems and Language Planning - Volume 47, Issue 2, 2023

Many small languages are in danger of extinction. How to stop and reverse this process is an important topic in the sociolinguistic literature. In addition to the revitalization of languages, there are also some examples of vitalizing (bringing to use) “new” languages, for example the introduction of Ivrit (modern Hebrew) in Palestine/Israel. Generally speaking, for a language to be used, no matter which language, the users must find it attractive and useful. At least two factors are important here: the value attributed to the language by its users as a means of communication and as a carrier of culture and identity. It is assumed that these factors can be influenced by language-policy measures.

The impact of various measures on the vitality of the language is an empirical matter. However, one can draw some general conclusions regarding which measures are sensible in order to vitalize or revitalize which languages when the financial resources of the policy-maker are limited. In this introductory text to the theme issue, we apply the methodology of cost-effectiveness analysis to discuss the connection between the types of the policy measures employed and characteristics of the language communities addressed, such as size, social status, and residential patterns. The cost-effectiveness ratio of street signs in a minority language might, for instance, be higher for a community spread over a whole country than for a community of the same size concentrated in one geographically limited jurisdiction. On the other hand, a decision to publish the texts of laws and decrees of a country in a minority language will have approximately the same effect for both types of minorities. The articles in this special issue of LPLP address and evaluate different types of policy measures for different linguistic minorities and illustrate important aspects of the main questions in this paper.

This paper demonstrates how European institutions bend to the idea of the mono-ethnic and monolingual nation-state. Instead of encouraging the use of minority languages and accepting them as a value, minority languages are treated as a tolerated but voluntarily assumed handicap. This is in stark contrast to the treatment of other types of protected identities, such as religion, gender and sexual orientation. Against this background, there is a desperate need for clear value-setting by the European institutions and for a clear message that language shaming is not a venial sin of the monolingual nation-state but a no-go zone even for populists. For this, however, language chauvinism should not be condoned but condemned.

This article sets out to explore what effects administrative and jurisdictional decentralisation might have on minority languages and the communities that use them, with special regard to those fragile language groups that are in a status which can be best described as a minority within a minority. Decentralisation often takes the form of regionalisation, which entails the division of a state’s territory into regions, not only in geographical and economic sense, but also by attributing certain administrative and jurisdictional powers to these newly formed units. Most of the time regional boundaries are drawn in such a way that the new intra-state borders respect the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural specificities of the population living there. If this is the case, it is possible for certain decision-making mechanisms and governance models to place jurisdiction over minority language issues among the competences granted to sub-national entities. The article sets out to explore the effects of jurisdictional decentralisation on three regional languages: the Aranese in Spain, the Ladin in Italy, and the Catalan in France. These communities are examined in detail in this paper, which proposes to shed light on some good practices available in Europe, but at the same time also draws attention to areas where there is still room for improvement along the lines discussed above.

This paper examines the relation between linguistic purism, standardization, and vitality, arguing that linguistic purism warrants renewed emphasis as a necessary heuristic for preventing language endangerment and extinction. Linguistic purism has developed an unfavourable reputation in contemporary linguistics and is frequently portrayed as irrational and reactionary. This is partly due to its historical association with nationalism, and partly due to the descriptive rather than prescriptive nature of contemporary linguistics. This paper argues that linguistic purism is actually rooted in progressive rather than reactionary political thought and activity, and is a constitutive feature of Western Modernity. Moreover, its historical association with nationalism is more accurately understood as anti-colonial resistance, a grassroots version of which can be observed across numerous non-Han ethnic groups in the People’s Republic of China today. Using the explanatory framework of linguistic relativity, the paper further argues that purism is a rational rather than reactionary response to excessive translingual borrowing.

Recent sociolinguistic research has shown the impact of public use of language expressions on people’s attitudes towards their language and how language can be susceptible to its environments. In this regard, the linguistic landscape (henceforth, LL) of a community helps sociolinguists to examine and decipher the power relationships of languages used in any bi/multilingual community. The presence or absence of a language in the public space carries a message that directly and indirectly reveals its centrality versus its marginality in the community.

The present study analyzes language (in)visibility in the LL of three major cities (Oviedo/Uviéu, Gijón/Xixón and Avilés) of Asturias, Spain, where Spanish is the majority language and Asturian is the regional language. The empirical data provided in this article are based on an exemplary selection of publicly visible language policies and a survey conducted by the authors on language attitudes. The results of the analysis suggest a mismatch between language policy and language use in the region and a lack of prestige bestowed upon the Asturian language.