Linguae Europaeae

by Emily Swisher  Emily Swisher is a third-year doctoral student in French Studies at the University of Illinois. Emily hopes to become a professor of French and incorporate research from her subfields of Translation/Interpretation and European Union Studies into her professional work. She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021. The Arabic language has an undeniably strong hold in France. It is currently the second-most spoken language in the country with approximately four million locutors, far surpassing the combined number of speakers of France’s 25+ regional languages. Historically opposed to education initiatives in any language aside from the recognized national standard, France is now starting to reevaluate its policies toward the instruction of minority languages, and Arabic in particular. With a growing population of Arabic speakers on the mainland, the impetus for change seems to follow the adage, if you can’t beat them, join...

by Lucas Haney Lucas Haney is a senior in Spanish and Italian studies at the University of Illinois. Lucas’ future plans include pursuing an MA in Translation and Interpretation in order to help facilitate communication between groups with linguistic barriers, like in the medical field and/or the border between the US and Mexico. He wrote this blog post in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ in Fall 2021. Cyprus has had an interesting development as a country for a little over a century due to an ongoing dispute within the country that heavily affects Turkey as well. The beginning of the 1960s started off swimmingly with Cyprus officially declaring itself independent in August 1960 from the rule of the British. With this independence there was an agreement between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots for a partnership with a constitution that would help to govern the country (THO). At this point the use of Turkish, or more specifically Cypriot Turkish in some cases, was spre...

by Riley Masterson Riley Masterson is a senior in Global Studies and French at the University of Illinois. Riley's future plans include attending law school and working in the legal field. She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021. "Bratislava Castle from across Danube River." Author:  Hans Permana Source:  Flickr License: CC BY-NC 2.0 The image above shows Bratislava Castle on the banks of the Danube River in Slovakia. Not far downstream, the Danube forms the natural border between Slovakia and Hungary. Despite their proximity, Slovakia and Hungary have significant cultural and linguistic differences. These differences became a point of contention in 2009, when Slovakia amended its State Language Law (SLL) (NBC News, 2009). Slovak is cited as the “state language” of the Republic of Slovakia in Article 6 of the Constitution (Fiala and Wardyn, 2009). While Slovak may be far from a global lingua franca, or even a working langua...