Table Of ContentLANGUAGE, ETHNICITY h
AND THE STATE, Volume One L
MINORITY LANGUAGES IN
THE EUROPEAN UNION
Edited by
Camille C. O'Reilly
Language, Ethnicity and the State
Volume 1
Also by Camille C. O'Reilly
THE IRISH LANGUAGE IN NORTHERN IRELAND: The Politics of Culture
and Identity
LANGUAGE, ETHNICITY AND THE STATE
Volume 2: Minority Languages in Eastern Europe Post-1989 (editor)
Language, Ethnicity
and the State
Volume 1: Minority Languages in
the European Union
Edited by
Camille C. O'Reilly
Lecturer in Social Anthropology
Richmond College
The American International University
London
pal grave
* Selection, editorial matter and Chapters 1 and S © Camille C. O'Reilly 2001
Chapters 2-4 and 6-8 © Palgrave Publishers Ltd 2001
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2001 978-0-333-92925-4
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Language, ethnicity and the state I edited by Camille C. O'Reilly.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: v. 1. Minority Languages in the European Union
- v. 2. Minority Languages in Eastern Europe post -1989.
1. Linguistic minorities-Europe. 2. Ethnic identity-Europe.
3. Language policy-Europe. 4. Language planning-Europe.
5. Europe-Politics and government-1989-1. O'Reilly, Camille.
P119.32.E85 L28 2001
306.44'94--dc21
2001021751
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
10 09 08 07 06 OS 04 03 02 01
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
1 Introduction: Minority Languages, Ethnicity and the
State in the European Union 1
Camille C. O'Reilly
2 Many Tongues but One Voice: a Personal Overview
of the Role of the European Bureau for Lesser Used
Languages in Promoting Europe's Regional and
Minority Languages 20
D6nall 6 Riagain
Winds of change in Europe 22
The European Parliament intergroup for minority
languages 24
The structure of the European Bureau 26
'A rose by any other name' 28
The work of the European Bureau 29
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 34
Conclusions: looking back-and to the future 37
Notes 38
Bibliography 39
3 State Language Ideology and the Shifting Nature of
Minority Language Planning on Corsica 40
Alexandra Jaffe
Introduction 40
Language shift on Corsica 41
Linguistic revitalization 43
Three decades of Corsican language planning 45
The debate over mandatory Corsican 49
New perspectives on Corsican language and identity:
towards a plural model 51
Notes 54
Bibliography 54
v
vi Contents
4 'Catalan is Everyone's Thing': Normalizing a Nation 56
Susan DiGiacomo
Introduction: language and nation 56
The Catalan language in social historical context 58
National reconstruction and language planning 63
Grounding the language debate: the teaching of Catalan 67
Conclusions 70
Notes 74
Bibliography 75
5 Irish Language, Irish Identity: Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland in the European Union 78
Camille C. O'Reilly
Introduction 78
The Republic of Ireland: old language, new state, new
meanings 80
Northern Ireland: revival and opposition 83
Irish language, Irish identity 88
Irish identity, the Irish language and the European Union 96
Conclusions 99
Notes 100
Bibliography 102
6 Ethnic Identity and Minority Language Survival in
Brittany 104
Lenora Timm
Introduction 104
Exploring common designators of identity 104
Brittany: a small nation within the nation-state par excellence 107
Language and identity in Brittany: historical perspectives 111
Contrasting interpretations of Breton and Celtic identity 113
Expressions of Breton identity through the EMSA V
(The Breton movement) 119
Bretons vis-a-vis Europe 121
The future of the Breton language 122
Conclusions 123
Notes 124
Bibliography 126
Contents vii
7 When Language Does Not Matter: Regional Identity
Formation in Northern Italy 128
faro Stacul
Introduction 128
Regional identity in Northern Italy 130
A 'European' region? 133
Local identity and language 135
We and 'the Italians' 138
Conclusions 143
Notes 144
Bibliography 144
8 'Old' and 'New' Lesser-Used Languages of Europe:
Common Cause? 147
Tom Cheesman
Europe's non-European and non-white migrants 147
The language of the citizen vis-a-vis the language of the
migrant 149
Europe's 'new' minority languages 151
'Old' and 'new' cultural minorities 153
Cultural and linguistic change? 157
Conclusions 160
Notes 164
Bibliography 166
Index 169
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jane Friederichs, Alex Seago, Laura Lengel and joe
Ruane for their support and encouragement during the writing and
preparation of this book. Special thanks also to Sharon Foley for
reading and commenting on the Introduction, and to Patrizia Fregosi,
Peter Kennealy and the librarians at the European University Institute
Library in Florence, Italy, for all their help during the time I spent
there in June 1999. Thanks also to my family and friends for their love
and understanding.
viii
Notes on the Contributors
Tom Cheesman is a lecturer in German at the University of Wales,
Swansea. His major publications include The Shocking Ballad Picture
Show: German Popular Literature and Cultural History (1994) and Ballads
into Books (co-editor, 1997). He has also written a number of essays,
including those on popular ballads, monstrosities, Goethe, Werner
Herzog and hip hop. Cheesman is currently working on an ESRC
funded interdisciplinary project on diaspora literary cultures.
Susan DiGiacomo is currently a visiting assistant professor in the
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Middlebury College and
an adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology at the
University of Massachussetts, Amherst. She began to study Catalan
nationalist discourse, political identity formation and language ideol
ogy in 1977. Her publications include book chapters and journal arti
cles on language politics and the Catalan experience of Spain's
democratic transition; language ideological debates in the context of
the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona; and the tension between
images of the rural and the urban in both historical and contemporary
Catalan political discourse. DiGiacomo's interests in ideology, dis
course and power in complex societies extend into other domains as
well: cancer treatment and epidemiology, political violence and chang
ing labour conditions in academic employment.
Alexandra Jaffe is associate professor of Anthropology at the
University of Southern Mississippi. Her research on Corsica has focused
on the influence of dominant language ideologies on everyday prac
tices, minority language revitalization strategies and popular responses
to Corsican language planning. Her book on Corsica, Ideologies in
Action: Language Politics on Corsica, was published in 1999. Jaffe has
also published on the social meanings of greeting cards and (with
Shana Walton) on the implications of orthographic choice for stigma
tized language varieties.
Camille C. O'Reilly is lecturer in Social Anthropology at Richmond,
the American International University in London. She is the author of
a number of articles on nationalism and the Irish language revival;
gender, nationalism and the Irish language; the Irish language as
ix
