			Home About us Contact

Minority Languages (minority + languages)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	84%

Selected Abstracts

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Ten Years of Protecting and Promoting Linguistic and Cultural Diversity

MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2008
Alexey Kozhemyakov
With about 250 languages spoken throughout Greater Europe, the European continent represents an excellent testing-ground for finding the proper identity and fostering the mutual understanding of linguistic groups, and promoting the perception of linguistic diversity as a part of national and all-European cultural wealth. [source]

Minority Languages, Nationalism and Broadcasting: The British and Irish Examples

NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 3 2000
Mike Cormack
This paper examines the relationship between nationalist movements and minority languages, with particular emphasis on examples from Britain and Ireland. This relationship is less straightforward than often assumed, and the media's role in it is particularly complex. The varying political uses of minority language broadcasting are discussed, along with the implications of the separation between cultural and political nationalism. The notion of the routine banality of daily broadcasting is used to indicate how such broadcasting can work against nationalist mobilisation. Finally, Ireland is examined in the light of the previous discussion in order to offer an explanation of why it was so far behind many other areas in the provision of minority language broadcasting. [source]

Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority Languages and Language Varieties , Edited by Kendall A. King, Natalie Schilling-Estes, Lyn Fogle, Jia Jackie Lou, and Barbara Soukup

ANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2009
Kara D. Brown
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

Kinship systems and language choice among academics in Shillong, Northeast India

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS, Issue 2 2001
Anne Hvenekilde
In Shillong, the capital of the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya, Indo-Aryan languages from the plains meet the Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic minority languages of the hills, and the result is a degree of multilingualism that is high even by Indian standards. English is widely used by academic groups everywhere in India, but structured interviews with all 17 faculty members of two departments at North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong reveal special reasons why some parents now choose to use English with their children rather than their own mother tongue. Caste imposes fewer barriers in this part of India than elsewhere, and marriages across ethnic groups are common, but con ?icting kinship practices can bring complications. If a woman from a matrilineal group marries a man from a patrilineal group, both families will, according to their traditions, consider the children to belong to their kinship group. Using English with their children, rather than choosing the language of just one set of grand-parents, can be a way of avoiding potential con?ict. Thus, in addition to the use of English in higher education, increasing geographic mobility, and the general prestige of English, the con?icting demands of different kinship systems needs to be considered among the factors contributing to the spread of English at the cost of local languages in Northeast India. [source]

Normalizing bilingualism:The effects of the Catalonian linguistic normalization policy one generation after1

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 3 2008
Michael Newman
This study examines the evolution of language attitudes of linguistically diverse adolescents in urban Catalonia a generation after the instauration of Linguistic Normalization, official language policies favoring Catalan. Woolard (1984, 1989) and Woolard and Gahng's (1990) classic Catalan/Spanish matched guise studies are used as a baseline. Current data come from a modified and expanded replication of those original studies. Findings show: (1) differences in attitudes between youths of Spanish and Catalan background have softened; (2) disparities in Status and Solidarity have evened out; (3) language choice can be highly gendered; and (4) bilingual proficiency is now valued by and for both communities. The support for bilingualism and the easing of divisions are understood as signs of increased ,linguistic cosmopolitanism,' a stance that looks beyond parochial own-group communities and favors bridging linguistic boundaries. The significance is that minority languages can be valued when they take on such symbolic roles. [source]

Problems with the ,language-as-resource' discourse in the promotion of heritage languages in the U.S.A.

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 3 2005
Thomas Ricento
In the United States, language ,rights' have been tethered to ethnic or racial entitlements as a means to redress historical patterns of discrimination and exclusion. The perception that language ,rights' are about the redress of past wrongs has had negative effects on efforts to gain broad public support for the teaching and maintenance of languages other than English. The language-as-resource orientation (Ruiz 1984) is considered as an alternative to a language rights approach. However, analysis of texts produced by advocates of the heritage language movement reveals the shortcomings of the language-as-resource metaphor in advancing broad-based support for the teaching, maintenance, and use of minority languages in the U.S. While efforts to promote heritage language education as a national strategic priority may result in short-term governmental support, wider and more sustained popular support for such programs will require significant modifications in the underlying values and ideologies about the status and role of languages other than English in education and public life. [source]

,An important obligation of citizenship': language, citizenship and jury service

LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2007
R Gwynedd Parry
This paper considers whether there should be the power to summon bilingual juries in criminal trials in Ireland and Wales. It will examine the relationship between jury service as an obligation and privilege of citizenship, and the eligibility for jury service of Irish and Welsh speakers as a linguistic group. It will also demonstrate the relationship between the citizenship argument in its collective context and the rights and interests of individual speakers of these languages within the criminal jury trial process. In doing so, it seeks to emphasise that this is a multidimensional issue which requires an evaluation from a combination of perspectives, both collective and individual. It is this combination of perspectives, taken conjunctively, that supports the case for bilingual juries. Moreover, this particular debate has a particular relevance to the wider debate on European citizenship and how Europe views the concept of multilingual citizenship within its constitutional framework. Indeed, it raises fundamental questions about how Europe manages its diverse cultural and linguistic heritage and how speakers of minority languages are integrated on a basis of equality and respect towards their cultural and linguistic autonomy. The paper also addresses the objections to bilingual juries and will explore how the advent of bilingual juries could continue to preserve the random selection principle (the primary objection to bilingual juries) sufficiently to bring about fair, impartial and competent tribunals. [source]

Can Language Politics Ensure Languages Survival?

LINGUISTICS & LANGUAGE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 6 2008
Evidence from Italy
In light of the minority language revitalization trend, which has spread throughout Europe, encouraged by International and European legislation, at the end of the last century, an Italian law was approved to give a national framework to minority language preservation and renaissance. The status and prestige of minority languages thus appeared to be strengthened, though several theoretical and practical problems continue to impede national implementation of the law. Some of these problems , the different language minorities present in Italy, the linguistic variety that should be used in public settings and the nature of the language that is the object of the national language policy , are examined in this article. The purpose of this article is to consider the pros and cons of Italian language policies and politics through case studies representative of Italian sociolinguistic diversity, thus highlighting the roadblocks to protecting minority languages. [source]

Language and nationality: the role of policy towards Celtic languages in the consolidation of Tudor power

NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 3 2001
Gillian Brennan
This article considers the attitude of the governing elite in sixteenth-century England to the minority languages spoken by subjects within their jurisdiction, concentrating on Cornish, Welsh and Irish. Perhaps influenced by the tendency of nineteenth-century nationalists to equate nationality and language, historians have assumed that Tudor governments were hostile to languages other than English and wished to suppress them. An examination of a variety of sources leads to the suggestion that this was not the case. There was a certain amount of apprehension in the political sphere in the 1530s but in the second half of the century cultural perception of languages dominated as attempts to spread the Protestant faith led to an encouragement of the range of vernaculars. The conclusion points to parallels between sixteenth-century and contemporary sympathy towards minority cultures in the context of the devolution debate. [source]

Minority Languages, Nationalism and Broadcasting: The British and Irish Examples

Lingual and Educational Policy toward "Homeland Minorities" in Deeply Divided Societies: India and Israel as Case Studies

POLITICS & POLICY, Issue 5 2009
AYELET HAREL-SHALEV
In a bilingual or multilingual society, certain sectors may be regarded as disloyal should they speak the language of state enemies or be associated in one way or another with neighboring hostile countries. Within this framework, the present article analyzes how two deeply divided democracies, India and Israel, determined and implemented language and educational policies with respect to two major minority languages, Urdu and Arabic. A comparison is conducted between the policies of secular democratic India, regarding Urdu, a language of its Muslims minority, and of Israel, an ethnic democracy, regarding Arabic, the language of its Arab-Palestinian minority. The findings indicate that both states have consigned the minority language to a marginal position on the public stage. Moreover, albeit that a certain level of autonomy in the educational sphere is given to the minority, the educational status of the minority is markedly low in comparison to the majority. En una sociedad bilingüe o multilingüe, ciertos sectores pueden ser considerados como desleales si hablan el idioma de estados enemigos o fueran asociados de una u otra forma con países vecinos hostiles. Dentro de este marco, el presente artículo analiza como dos democracias sumamente divididas, India e Israel, determinaron e implementaron las políticas lingüisticas y educacionales de los dos más importantes idiomas minoritarios, el Urdu y el Árabe, respectivamente. Se lleva a cabo una comparación entre las políticas de la democracia secular de India, en lo que respecta al Urdu, un idioma de su minoría Musulmana, y de la democracia étnica Israelí, con respecto al Árabe, el idioma de su minoría Árabe-Palestina. Las conclusiones indican que ambos estados han consignado el idioma minoritario a una posición marginal en el escenario de la vida pública. Además, el status educativo de la minoría es considerablemente bajo en comparación con el de la mayoría, aunque un cierto nivel de autonomía en la esfera educacional es dado al idioma. [source]

EARNINGS AND LINGUISTIC PROFICIENCY IN A BILINGUAL ECONOMY*

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 3 2005
ANDREW HENLEY
Bilingualism is a widespread phenomenon, yet its economic effects are under researched. Typically studies find that bilingual workers are disadvantaged. Governments often protect minority languages through official promotion of bilingualism, with potential economic consequences. This paper addresses the impact of bilingualism on earnings, using the example of Wales. Results show a positive raw differential of 8 to 10 per cent depending on definition of linguistic proficiency. This differential persists in earnings function estimates, which control for human capital and demographic characteristics as well as local area effects. The potential endogeneity of language choice and earnings is addressed through the use of appropriate instrumental variables. Results suggest that bilingualism may be exogenous to the determination of earnings. [source]