Linguae Europaeae

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...

by Molly Schwerha | It has been nearly twenty years since the European community came together in Strasbourg (November 1992) and under with the auspices of the Council of Europe authored the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ( European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ). This was a significant step in building a broader understanding of the importance of protecting the historical regional or minority languages of Europe.  Member states of the Council of Europe enacted the Charter to protect and promote Europe’s diverse cultural heritage. They agreed that using a regional minority language in public and private life should be a fundamental right and that actions needed to be taken to do so.  Minority languages should be taught more in education to help keep them from becoming endangered.  Promote these languages and encourage their use in speech, writing, public and private. Great principles in theory, however, it is what is practiced t...