Linguae Europaeae

Is Yiddish on a Path to Extinction? By Juliana Ramirez Juliana Ramirez recently graduated with an Accounting degree and French minor from the University of Illinois. In the Spring of 2016, Juliana took French 418 to learn about the minority languages in Europe and finish her French minor. In the near future, she will start a summer internship at an Accounting firm in Chicago and come back to Champaign in the Fall of 2016 to pursue a Masters in Accounting. One of the most predominant languages of the Jews up until a century ago is on a path to extinction. Yiddish, which originated as early as the 9th century, provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with an extensive Germanic based vernacular fused with elements taken from Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as from Slavic and Romance languages (Jewish Generation) of the particular linguistic environment. The language is primarily native to Central, Western, and Eastern Europe, Israel, and regions with high Jewish populations. As part o...

by Cathy Swanson Cathy Swanson is a Masters student in Accounting with a Minor in Spanish. She is planning on working full-time at Ernst & Young’s Financial Services in Chicago and is interested in traveling in the near future. She wrote this text as a student enrolled in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ in the spring of 2015. Image Source It is impossible to summarize the progress made by Catalan, one of the regional minority languages of Spain, in the areas of culture, officialdom, and formal uses (Pons and Vila 2005). In fact, in many respects, Catalan might no longer considered a minority language in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, as it has become the predominant language of education from kindergarten to university and the local government in the autonomous region of Catalonia (Vila i Moreno 2008). The criteria used by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages to define regional or minority languages include historicity, territoriality, lingu...

by Jonathon Prinz Jonathon Prinz is a senior in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in International Engineering and Germanic Studies. After graduation, Jonathon is planning on working for UOP Honeywell as a mechanical engineer in Des Plaines, Illinois. He is planning on traveling the world after a study abroad experience in Germany last summer sparked his interest in other places and cultures. He wrote this blog post as a student enrolled in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’. Turkish/German flag flying in Germany [ Image Source ] When people think of Germany, many tend to think of the typical German stereotype: beer, pretzels, and lederhosen.  While this is true in part, people usually never conjure up images of a nation of immigrants.  This is because the textbook German identity is popular, yet is not a realistic depiction of what Germany actually is today. After the Second World War, Germany has seen an enormous increase in immigrants entering as guest work...

by Andrew Schwenk Andrew Schwenk is a first year graduate student in European Union Studies at the University of Illinois at Urana-Champaign. Andrew is planning on graduating in December 2016 and is interested in heritage management in Europe. He wrote this text in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe.’ Image Source In Thomas Mann’s perpetually popular debut novel from 1901, Buddenbrooks, the German author helps make the Buddenbrook family’s unnamed hometown more real through the language he uses. The novel’s characters use a mixture of Standard German, Low German, Lübeck merchant slang, and French. All of this helps situate the family in their mid-19th century, northern German (Low German), upper-class (French) context (Wolf). If Thomas Mann was born a century later, however, would he still use Low German to give his characters their north German credentials? And what even is Low German anyway? Low German, known in German as Plattdeutsch, is a German dialect located in the...

by Zsuzsanna Fagyal-Le Mentec | "Commemorating is remembering the first step of a journey of a thousand miles…" (Unknown) Twenty years ago on November 5th 1992, an important step was taken towards protecting small languages in Europe. The Council of Europe’s landmark international convention, called the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages was opened for signature, calling on the Council’s member states to protect and promote the small languages that have been spoken in their territories for centuries. The European Union Center and participating centers and units on the Urbana campus organized a one-day symposium on November 5, 2012 to reflect on the progress in implementing and monitoring the Charter, and discuss the effects of lack of protection of languages in greater Europe.    1 .    Here is why we did it… Not speaking a language on a daily basis increases the risk of losing it forever. Words start coming slowly, stylistic nuance...