Must Europe Be Swiss? On the Idea of a Voting Space and the Possibility of a Multilingual Demos

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Lacey
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Intentional Object ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Democratic Community

Contrary to the view that linguistic homogeneity is required to create a viable demos, this article argues that linguistic diversity can be a permanent feature of any democratic community, so long as there is a unified and robust voting space that provides a common intentional object, around which distinct public spheres can aesthetically organize their political discourse. An attempt to explain how such a voting space operates in Switzerland, the finest existing exemplar of a multilingual demos, is given. Following the Swiss example, the author proposes, would go a long way to constituting the European Union as a democratically legitimate trans-national demos, despite its formidable linguistic diversity.

Multilingualism and the Ideal of Unity in Diversity in the European Union. Key Concepts and Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-282
Author(s):  
Roxana-Maria Nistor-Gâz ◽  
Delia Pop-Flanja
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Cultural And Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Unity In Diversity ◽  
The Ideal

"In a world challenged by cultural diversity, this article aims to look at the great diversity of languages and cultures that coexist within the European Union. Building on the story of the Tower of Babel that explains, from a religious point of view, the cultural and linguistic diversity existing in the European Union, the authors tried to contextualize EU’s motto of “unity in diversity”, interpreted as an ideal involving a lot of effort and sometimes even many conflicts, but one that we should all fight for and strive to maintain. Keywords: linguistic diversity, ethnicity, nation, minority, majority, communication, unity in diversity"

scholarly journals Are traditional minority languages a bench marking for the rights of migrant languages in the European Union?

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 40-60
Author(s):  
Christopher Houtkamp ◽  
László Marácz
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Rights ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Linguistic Rights ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One

In this paper a normative position will be defended. We will argue that minimal territorial minority language rights formulated in terms of the personality principle referring to traditional minority languages granted in the framework of the European Union (EU) are a benchmark for non-territorial linguistic rights. Although territorial minority languages should be granted collective rights this is in large parts of Europe not the case. Especially in the Central and Eastern European Member States language rights granted to territorial languages are assigned on the basis of personal language rights. Our argumentation will be elaborated on the basis of a comparative approach discussing the status of a traditional territorial language in Romania, more in particular Hungarian spoken in the Szeklerland area with the one of migrant languages in the Netherlands, more in particular Turkish. In accordance with the language hierarchy implying that territorial languages have a higher status than non-territorial languages both in the EUs and Member States’ language regimes nonterritorial linguistic rights will be realized as personal rights in the first place. Hence, the use of non-territorial minority languages is conditioned much as the use of territorial minority languages in the national Member States. So, the best possible scenario for mobile minority languages is to be recognized as a personal right and receive full support from the states where they are spoken. It is true that learning the host language would make inclusion of migrant language speakers into the host society smoother and securing a better position on the labour market. This should however be done without striving for full assimilation of the speakers of migrant languages for this would violate the linguistic rights of migrants to speak and cultivate one’s own heritage language, violate the EUs linguistic diversity policy, and is against the advantages provided by linguistic capital in the sense of BOURDIEU (1991).

Language Rights as a General Principle of Community Law

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 479-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iñigo Urrutia ◽  
Iñaki Lasagabaster
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Principal Characteristic ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Current Form ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Great Heterogeneity ◽  
Official Recognition ◽  
The Eu

The territory of the European Union is made up of a rich and wide-ranging universe of languages. The European Union contains a wealth of languages. In its current form there are more than 60 autochthonous languages in the 27 Member States, with widely differing situations and legal statuses. The principal characteristic of the European linguistic diversity is the great heterogeneity of situations and internal legal statuses that the european languages display. Most of the languages of EU are spoken by very few people and few languages are enormously widespread. There are many languages in the EU, which, in spite of having an appreciable number of speakers, do not have official recognition. And there are languages that are co-official or have some sort of official recognition in some areas, but struggle to survive. Multilingualism is one of the defining characteristics of the EU, and it is worth examining how EU law deals with it.

In support of plurilingual people living in multilingual societies: Policies and frameworks of European language education

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waldemar Martyniuk
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Language Education ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Language Education Policy ◽  
European Language ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Multilingual Societies

This article focuses on current European language education policy. It reviews relevant policy documents of the European Union and the Council of Europe. It also refers to the range of tools offered by the two intergovernmental organisations in support of linguistic diversity in contemporary European societies and the development of plurilingual abilities of their citizens

Book Reviews

2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 1313-1314
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Operations Research ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Southern Methodist University

Jacques Melitz of Heriot-Watt University reviews “How Many Languages Do We Need? The Economics of Linguistic Diversity” by Victor Ginsburgh and Shlomo Weber. The EconLit abstract of the reviewed work begins, “Explores issues in multilingualism, focusing on the trade-off between the quest for efficiency that a small number of languages is thought to foster and a reduction in the disenfranchisement of noncore language speakers that calls for more languages. Discusses language as a homeland; linguistic policies, disenfranchisement, and standardization; linguistic, genetic, and cultural distances--how far is Nostratic; whether distances matter; individual communicative benefits; diversity and disenfranchisement indices; diversity and disenfranchisement--applications; and multilingualism in the European Union--a case study in linguistic policy. Ginsburgh is Professor of Economics Emeritus, a member of the European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics, and a member of the Center of Operations Research and Econometrics, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Weber is Robert H. and Nancy Dedman Trustee Professor of Economics at Southern Methodist University and Professor of Economics at the New Economic School, Moscow. Bibliography; index.”

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