The European Union is an international organization of undoubtedly unique multilingual character. The official status granted to all 24 official national languages of its 28 MS is legally enshrined in EU Law and derives from both, the political necessity to democratically represent the multiplicity of languages of roughly half a billion citizens and the symbolic significance of diverse European historical, cultural and political traditions. This language regime is laudable and worthy of preservation if the EU is to maintain close ties to its citizens through public communication and deliberations in all 24 official languages (Athanassiou, 2006, p. 5). This is not, however, to close one’s eyes to the current challenges the EU is facing in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis and the rethinking this might entail for the working language regime deployed in the EU committee and delegation meetings.
Tag: Official language
Is the European Language Policy and adequate answer to the challenges it tries to tackle?
The answer to this question is not easy. Of course one can say that with the Charta for Regional and Minority Languages, Europe has given official recognition to its minority languages and hence given a solid basis for protection of minorities. However, the linguistic landscape of Europe is by far bigger than the entity of its languages as within one language many dialects can be spoken. The diversity is what unites Europe and sets it apart from other institutions that chose one or few languages as their working language(s).
A Iscola de Sardu
Welcome back! Time has come for a new post. Todays argument will be less focused on my experiences but more on linguistic diversity and its protection. I will discuss the issue in general and later I will focus on Sardinia (Italy), a beautiful region where I have been many times. There I enjoyed the incredible beaches, the breathtaking inner land and the fantastic food. I guess also the stories of the old people I met were very interesting, but about that I cannot be so sure. In Sardinia they speak a different language. For Italians that have no connections with the place and its people, it is almost impossible to understand even one word of it. Of course the first official language is Italian and everybody can understand it, but I clearly remember people talking to me in Sardo and I didn’t understand anything. However, I promised that today I will not bore you with my personal experiences, so I will highlight the main issues concerning minority and regional languages and later discuss some interesting things about Sardegna. Continue reading A Iscola de Sardu