The European Charter For Regional Or Minority Languages And The French Dilemma

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages has been in force since 1998, but in France it has caused a heated debate and it has not been ratified. The questions raised include: should French regional languages be afforded protection? Is there a danger that their protection could lead to an assertion of regional identity that could threaten the cohesiveness of the state? Is there a threat to the official language? Can applying the principles of the charter, without going through the ratification process, effectively protect regional or minority languages? This colloquy sought to provide answers to these questions.

This publication considers the charter for Regional or Minority Languages from a legal perspective. It illustrates the charter ratification process in individual states, presents implementation case studies for some states parties, assesses the influence of this instrument on domestic law and the legal implications of non-compliance. Some papers also explore more general issues surrounding the charter, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of a broad interpretation of the undertakings of states parties and looking at the challenge of adapting this instrument to a changing society.

Mr Herwig van Staa

The Charter is the only European legal instrument specifically designed to protect and promote regional or minority languages, making it the legal reference framework throughout Europe. This publication sets out an article by article commentary on the charter by one of Europe's leading experts on regional or minority languages, in order to explain the control mechanism's conclusions and to enable critical assessment of them.

This volume contains a selection of papers based on presentations given at the international conference entitled "The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Achievements and Challenges", co-organised by the Council of Europe, The Government of Spain, The Government of the Basque Country And The University of the Basque Country, which was held in Bilbao (Spain) on 20 and 21 April 2009. This work looks at the future prospects of the charter in the light of the experience gained over the first decade of the charter's existence. it is evident that governments bear the primary responsibility in preparing for ratification and in applying the charter, and this is illustrated by case studies for some states parties To The charter. However, regional and local authorities also play a very important role in relation To The charter as they are confronted on a daily basis with the use and protection of minority languages

Safeguarding Europe’s linguistic heritage The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a Council of Europe convention designed to protect and promote states parties’ traditional minority languages and enable speakers of these languages to use them in both private and public life This third edition of the collected texts of the Charter presents, in addition to the text of the Charter and its explanatory report, the various decisions of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe concerning the arrangements for monitoring the application of the Charter by its states parties. It also includes the Rules of Procedure of the Committee of Experts of the Charter, which assesses the conformity of state policies and practices with the commitments undertaken. This publication outlines the evolution of the fundamental texts and commitments of European states to protect and promote the regional or minority languages spoken in Europe. Government experts and decision makers, representatives of the speakers of the more than 80 languages covered by the Charter and non-governmental organisations, researchers and other stakeholders will also find an update on the functioning of the Charter monitoring mechanism since its reform entered into force in July 2019.

This edited volume presents an analysis of the evolution of French language policies and their impact on French regional languages and their communities. It gathers studies on language revitalisation from several territorial minority languages (Breton, Alsatian, Catalan, Occitan, Basque, Corsican, Francoprovençal, Picard, Reunionese) and evaluates the challenges and opportunities that they face in the 21st century. The chapters tackle different aspects of language endangerment and language planning and adopt varied theoretical and methodological approaches. The first section of the book reconsiders the difficulties in establishing linguistic boundaries and classification for some regional languages. The second section examines the important theme of the new generation of speakers with issues of transmission and identity formation and the changes they can bring to traditional communities. The third section highlights new developments in the context of new technologies and the heightened visibility of regional languages. Finally, the last section presents an overview of the contemporary situation of minority language revitalisation in France and synthesises the key trends identified in this volume: from the educational domain to the European Charter for Minority and Regional languages. This book will appeal to students and scholars of the sociology of language, sociolinguistics, language policy, minority languages and language endangerment.