scholarly journals UNESCO’s Atlas on Endangered Languages and the Local Context

SEEU Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-86
Author(s):  
Agim Poshka
Keyword(s):  
Southern Italy ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
The Status ◽  
Global Language

Abstract This article analyses the overall development of the endangered language around the world in reference to UNESCO’s Atlas of World Endangered Languages and reflects on the local context. The focus to local context refers to the current territory of North Macedonia in which it is believed there are 7 endangered languages such as: Adyge, Aromanian, Gagauz (South Balkans), Megleno-Romanian, Judezmo, Romani and Torlak. These languages are classified as endangered but are still spoken in the country. The article also reflects on the status of the Albanian language in North Macedonia by drawing comparisons with two other language varieties such as Arberesh which spoken in Southern Italy and Arvanitika spoken in Greece. The challenges that these minority languages have faced in particular countries should serve as a guide in designing effective language policies in North Macedonia in order for the language not be endangered. In the last section the article report on the phenomena of Globalization in which English has become the global language and at the same time has accelerated the loss of many native languages around the globe.

scholarly journals Cultures in Dialogue. Institutional and Individual Challenges for EU Institutions and EU Citizens from the Perspective of Legal Linguistics

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (46) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Karin Luttermann
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Language Model ◽  
Language Models ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Legal Certainty ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
The Status ◽  
Rules Of Procedure ◽  
Global Language ◽  
The Eu

In the European Union, numerous cultures have entered into dialogue. Currently, there are 23 official languages (EU languages) and therefore 506 possible language combinations for translation. This makes demands on the EU institutions and on EU citizens as well. Linguistic divergence makes legal certainty a rather shaky matter. There are also divergences from the EU linguistic regime regarding the official and the working languages. For reasons of efficiency, the institutions of the Union communicate internally in merely a small number of working languages, for the most part without any basis for this in the Rules of Procedure. The Court of Justice of the European Union traditionally uses French. All documents are translated from the language of the case into the working language. Although the decision, formulated in French, is re-translated into the language of the case, this translated version is classified as the original version and not as a translation. This is of importance for the status of authenticity because the decision only has full legal effect in the language of the case.Traditional language models favour a reduction of the EU languages. Their representatives argue either with regard to the practice of the use of three languages in the EU institutions, or they advocate English as a global language, or they call for neutral languages. In contrast, the European Reference Language Model, which is developed along the lines of legal linguistics, suggests a concept of reference and native languages. It would lead to a reduction in the translation load in Brussels and Luxembourg. But first and foremost, it would be able to improve the linguistic quality of legal documents (e.g., directives, regulations) and therefore also their application to legal practice (e.g. legal certainty, comprehensibility of legal texts). At the same time, the model respects the dignity of each EU Member State in the form of its language.

Endangered Languages

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
National Languages

Over the few past centuries, and the last 65 years in particular, there has been a remarkable reduction in global linguistic diversity, as people abandon minority language varieties and switch to larger, and what they perceive to be more economically, socially and politically powerful, regional or national languages. In addition, governments have been promoting standardised official languages for use in schooling, media, and bureaucracy, often under a rubric of linguistic unity supporting national unity. The last two decades have seen a significant increase in interest in minority languages and language shift, endangerment, and loss, in academia and among language speakers and the wider public. There has also been growing interest from anthropological linguists and sociolinguists in the study of language ideologies and beliefs about languages. This volume brings together chapters on theoretical and practical issues in these two areas, especially the views of linguists and communities about support for and revitalization of endangered languages. The chapters thus go straight to the heart of ideological bases of reactions to language endangerment among those most closely involved, drawing their discussions from case studies of how language ideologies and beliefs affect language practices (and vice versa). Most of the authors conduct collaborative community-based research and take a reflective engagement stance to investigate (potential) clashes in ideological perspectives. This is one of the key theoretical and practical issues in research on endangered languages, and so has important implications for language documentation, support and revitalization, as well as language policy at local, national and international levels.

scholarly journals Alcune considerazioni sulla situazione attuale della lingua svana

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessio Giordano
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Bear Witness ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Linguistic Communities

This paper features the current situation of the Svan-speaking linguistic communities in Georgia, the Georgian language policies and the attempts made to make Svan a literary language. In 2013, Richard Bærug published Svan Youth Literature, a book containing short stories written by young Svans; this and other recent publications seem to bear witness to the vitality of this endangered language. Anyway, language policy in Georgia still looks far from accepting the Kartvelian languages different from Georgian as separate languages, although other minority languages are earning evident privileges. Recent studies have shed light on some of these problems, which however take on greater meaning when viewed from the diachronic perspective hereby presented.

scholarly journals The voice of a “tongueless” periphery

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-205
Author(s):  
Enikő Molnár Bodrogi
Keyword(s):  
Identity Development ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Film Scripts ◽  
Assimilation Policy ◽  
The Relationship

In my study, I am going to examine the relationship between language, politics and poetry in the context of identity development concerning the Meänkieli speaking community living in the Torne/ Tornio Valley. The Torne River Valley (or Tornedalian) Finns were cut off from Finland in 1809, when Sweden lost the territory of Finland in favour of Russia. Ever since, the Tornedalian Finns have become the victims of a definite assimilation policy. Their linguistic emancipation started in the 1980s. Their language, Meänkieli, has been a minority language officially acknowledged in Sweden since 2000. Still, it is a seriously stigmatized and endangered language nowadays, as well. Many people in the world think that “language” should be understood as the language spoken by the majority of a national state. Still, most of the world’s endangered languages are the languages of indigenous and ethnic groups that only exist as minority languages. It is paradoxical that minority languages constitute, in fact, the large majority, although they have been considered peripherical or marginalized. The notion of “periphery versus centre” has a long tradition in being applied in different fields of human sciences, mainly in social and political analysis. The aim of my research on the identity of ethnic and linguistic minorities is to rethink these notions in terms of the dynamics of multilingual ethnic minority versus unilingual national majority. I disapprove of the idea that what belongs to the centre is to be considered a standard and of greater value than what is associated with the periphery. In fact “periphery” and “centre” are related and dynamic terms, depending on the perspective from which we look upon them. The most eloquent example of the spiritual richness of the periphery in Sweden is Bengt Pohjanen who writes poetry, prose, drama, opera librettos, articles, film scripts etc. in three languages: Meänkieli, Swedish and Finnish. Possessing a thorough knowledge of the once lively Meänkieli culture, he is also a consistent representative of alterity in the hegemonic Swedish culture. As Bengt Pohjanen is a writer and a poet, as well as a public figure, a key personality of revitalizing the Meänkieli language, his works are especially suitable to be examined in a complex way, from the point of view of different human sciences (linguistics, literature, sociology, psychology).

Language Use and Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy-Makers and Educators in Northeast Vietnamese Areas

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130
Author(s):  
Ha Ngan Ngo ◽  
Maya Khemlani David
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Status ◽  
Wedding Songs

Vietnam represents a country with 54 ethnic groups; however, the majority (88%) of the population are of Vietnamese heritage. Some of the other ethnic groups such as Tay, Thai, Muong, Hoa, Khmer, and Nung have a population of around 1 million each, while the Brau, Roman, and Odu consist only of a hundred people each. Living in northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border (see Figure 1), the Tay people speak a language of the    Central    Tai language group called Though, T'o, Tai Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, or Pa Di. Tay remains one of 10 ethnic languages used by 1 million speakers (Buoi, 2003). The Tày ethnic group has a rich culture of wedding songs, poems, dance, and music and celebrate various festivals. Wet rice cultivation, canal digging and grain threshing on wooden racks are part of the Tày traditions. Their villages situated near the foothills often bear the names of nearby mountains, rivers, or fields. This study discusses the status and role of the Tày language in Northeast Vietnam. It discusses factors, which have affected the habitual use of the Tay language, the connection between language shift and development and provides a model for the sustainability and promotion of minority languages. It remains fundamentally imperative to strengthen and to foster positive attitudes of the community towards the Tày language. Tày’s young people must be enlightened to the reality their Tày non-usage could render their mother tongue defunct, which means their history stands to be lost.

scholarly journals Language Ideologies and Transnational Migration: A Study of Cape Verdeans in Galicia

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Nicola Bermingham
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Peripheral Region ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Cape Verdean ◽  
Language Identity ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Symbolic Resource

Changes to the global infrastructure have contributed to the growing (linguistic) diversity of large metropolises. However, there have been calls from scholars to explore “emerging superdiversity” (DePalma and Pérez-Caramés 2018) in peripheral regions in order to fully understand the complexities and nuances of the sociolinguistics of globalisation (Wang et al. 2014; Pietikäinen et al. 2016). This article, therefore, explores language ideologies among a purposive sample of five young adults of Cape Verdean origin living in the peripheral region of Galicia, Spain, and draws on interview data to examine the ways in which multilingual migrants engage with the language varieties in their linguistic repertoire. In studying immigration from a former African colony to a bilingual European context, we can see how language ideologies from the migrant community are reflected in local ones. The sociolinguistic dynamics of Cape Verde and Galicia share many similarities: both contexts are officially bilingual (Galician and Spanish in Galicia, Kriolu and Portuguese in Cape Verde), and questions regarding the hierarchisation of languages remain pertinent in both cases. The ideologies about the value and prestige of (minority) languages that Cape Verdean migrants arrive with are thus accommodated by local linguistic ideologies in Galicia, a region which has a history of linguistic minoritisation. This has important implications for the ways in which language, as a symbolic resource, is mobilised by migrants in contexts of transnational migration. The findings of this study show how migrants are key actors in (re)shaping the linguistic dynamics of their host society and how, through their practices and discourses, they challenge long-standing assumptions about language, identity and linguistic legitimacy, and call into question ethno-linguistic boundaries.

scholarly journals Minority languages in Estonian segregative language environments

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-240
Author(s):  
Elvira Küün
Keyword(s):  
International Study ◽  
Population Census ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
School Students ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Census 2000 ◽  
Basic School ◽  
Year 2000 ◽  
Research Grant

The goal of this project in Estonia was to determine what languages are spoken by students from the 2nd to the 5th year of basic school at their homes in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. At the same time, this problem was also studied in other segregated regions of Estonia: Kohtla-Järve and Maardu. According to the database of the population census from the year 2000 (Estonian Statistics Executive Office?s census 2000), there are representatives of 142 ethnic groups living in Estonia, speaking a total of 109 native languages. At the same time, the database doesn’t state which languages are spoken at homes. The material presented in this article belongs to the research topic “Home Language of Basic School Students in Tallinn” from years 2007–2008, specifically financed and ordered by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (grant No. ETF 7065) in the framework of an international study called “Multilingual Project”. It was determined what language is dominating in everyday use, what are the factors for choosing the language for communication, what are the preferred languages and language skills. This study reflects the actual trends of the language situation in these cities.

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).

scholarly journals Fishing capacity in Southern Italy: An insight into the status and trends of the Campanian fishing fleet

2021 ◽  
pp. 102102
Author(s):  
A. Di Cintio ◽  
L. Labanchi ◽  
M. Spagnolo ◽  
G. Musella ◽  
T. Romeo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Italy ◽  
Fishing Fleet ◽  
Fishing Capacity ◽  
Status And Trends ◽  
The Status ◽  
Insight Into

scholarly journals Environmental Sustainability in New Zealand Museums: A Case Study of Te Manawa Museum, Gallery and Science Centre

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nina Helen Finigan
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Current State ◽  
Science Centre ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Many

<p>Environmental sustainability is becoming an increasingly essential component of modern life. The contemporary museums’ role as public educators, and as guardians of tangible and intangible culture, places them in a unique position to address the various issues surrounding environmental sustainability, from climate change, to bio-diversity loss, to conservation. There is increasing momentum behind the idea that museums should not only engage with environmental sustainability, but that they indeed have a responsibility to. Although museums throughout New Zealand are addressing environmental sustainability, there is currently no thorough examination of how they are doing this. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation was so find out the current state of environmental sustainability in New Zealand museums, and specifically how staff are approaching it. Through engaging in a case study of Te Manawa Museum, Gallery and Science Centre, Palmerston North, and specifically the environmentally themed exhibition Te Awa/The River: Heart of the Manawatu, this dissertation analyses and discusses the realities of addressing institutional environmental sustainability. While the previous literature surrounding this topic has addressed the many reasons why museums should engage with environmental sustainability, this dissertation has expanded on this by analysing and discussing the realities of addressing environmental sustainability from a staff perspective. Through interviews with five Te Manawa staff members, this dissertation has revealed that while museum professionals agree that engagement with environmental sustainability should become part of bottom line holistic sustainable development, the status of museums as trusted democratic institutions can place them in a conflicted space ‘in-between’ when dealing with polarising issues such as the environment. This is particularly relevant to the discussion around new-museological theory, and the importance of local context and reflexive community engagement, where the community essentially help drive museological direction and content.</p>

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