Linguae Europaeae

by Alex Joyce | Editor: Jessica Nicholas (PhD candidate in French) Alex Joyce was a senior in Political Science in the spring of 2012 when she took the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (418) EUC survey class. In this blog entry, she argues passionately in favor of official bilingualism, as demonstrated by Wales, home to one of the best protected Celtic languages (Welsh) in the world. To begin, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPYkYfi_IiM You’ll hear that it was difficult to learn English for Adam who was learning in Welsh for so many years. And Adam still enjoys speaking Welsh! This video is great because it shows how one individual finds Welsh unique and important. Image Source The maintenance and promotion of Welsh in Wales (United Kingdom, see map) has proven to be successful despite the prevalence of English as a dominant language in the UK.  The purpose of this blog is to show all those who think that it is impossible to maintain one official state l...

by Alyssa Shroyer | Editor: Jessica Nicholas (PhD candidate in French) Alyssa Shroyer is a Senior in Early Childhood Education. In the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (418) EUC survey class, she focused on bilingual education in the Autonomous Territories of Spain that possess political power to enact their own measures on local languages and cultures. In this blog entry, she asks whether local pride should take precedence over global utility when opting for types of bilingual education. I recently read an article by Julie Kaminski regarding two schools in northern Barcelona , the Oriol Martorell School and Colonia Guell that have undergone change in the past decade, incorporating the teaching of Catalan as the primary language of their curriculum.  Spanish is minimally taught for all ages.  English is taught as a second foreign language in early elementary school, only 3 hours per week.  Italian is also a part of the curriculum as “it goes well with music.”...