scholarly journals If Yes, Why Not? Minority Language Use and Accommodation of Minority Language Rights in Slovakia

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ágnes Vass
Keyword(s):  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Rights ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Civil Sphere ◽  
Minority Language Rights ◽  
The Status ◽  
Regional Languages ◽  
State Language

Abstract This article gives an overview of the actual situation of language rights in Slovakia, focusing mainly on the minority language usage. The status of minority languages in Slovakia is still a politicized question and a series of conflicts arose especially between Slovak political elites and the representatives of ethnic Hungarians because of the controversial legislation of minority language rights. Slovakia was subjected in the field of minority protection and heavily criticized during the adoption of the State Language Law. Strict regulations on the use of state language have negative effects on the use of minority languages as well. In spite of the fact that in 1999 the Law on Use of Minority Languages was adopted and Slovakia ratified all of the international agreements in this field, the problem of minority language usage was not solved. This legal vacuum motivated the Hungarian civil sphere to take alternative actions in order to ensure bilingualism and promote the use of minority languages in official communication. Summarizing the legal accommodation of minority language rights, this paper is devoted to examine a recently less-observed civil activism supporting the use of regional languages in Slovakia.

Territoriality and Minority Language Rights

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Balázs Vizi
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Political Control ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Rights ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Technical Approach ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Minority Language Rights

Territorial principle emerges not only in domestic legislations on language rights, but also in international documents. The article aims at offering an overview of the interpretations of territoriality in international documents relevant for minority language rights, with a special focus on the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. While states often use territorial requirements as a tool of political control over minority language use, the interpretation of their obligations under the two Council of Europe treaties would require a more practical and technical approach to territorial limitations.

Minority Language Rights in International Law

2001 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Language Rights ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Minority Language Rights ◽  
Regional Or Minority Languages

The provision of legislative or other legal protection for linguistic minorities is widespread in domestic legal systems.1 In international law, and in international human rights law in particular, the question of minority language rights has until recently received much less attention. The entry into force on 1 March 1998 of the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (the “Minority Languages Charter”), the first international instrument directed solely at the question of language, suggests that the situation may be changing.

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).

Equal Recognition and Language Rights

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Patten
Keyword(s):  
Minority Language ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Language Rights ◽  
Language Preservation ◽  
Minority Language Rights ◽  
Equal Recognition

This chapter explores the justification of minority language rights. It argues that equal recognition ought to play a key role in thinking about the justification of minority language rights, and that disputes about language rights ought to be examined from the perspective of what was called “full liberal proceduralism.” From this perspective, the mere fact that some minority language is doing poorly does not by itself ground a legitimate complaint of injustice by speakers of that language. But minority speakers do have a complaint if their language fares poorly in a context in which it is disfavored by public institutions. There is no right to language preservation, but there is a strong, pro tanto claim for equal recognition, a claim that can be considered a right in the absence of defeating countervailing considerations.

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