Linguae Europaeae

Figure 1: Swedish flag and geographical location by Mariam Abushamaa Mariam Abushamaa is a recent UIUC alum and incoming law student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She majored in linguistics and hopes to become a lawyer, using the skills she learned from studying language and assisting in research projects at the University of Illinois in her future career. She wrote this blog post for 418 “Languages and Minorities in Europe” in Spring 2023. Sweden is known for being one of the most accepting countries of new immigrants, but recent proposals may reflect a change in this attitude. For example, new proposals, such as one limiting the rights to publicly funded interpreters, may cause a lot of new roadblocks for immigrants to Sweden who do not speak the language fluently (“Proposed Limits on the Right...”). Imagine for instance a healthcare system that is completely free to everyone, and suddenly your access to free healthcare is hindered because of your inability to speak Sw...

Poster for the anti-refugee Swedish Democrat party, a growing political group ( source ). By Sonja Brankovic Sonja Brankovic is a senior studying mechanical engineering at U of Illinois. She took ITAL 418 this past spring as a part of her International Engineering Minor in Germanic Studies. Sonja says: “This class has been unlike any other in European history and culture in that it has opened my eyes to marginalized perspectives I have never encountered before (even in personal travel and studying abroad). The course gave me a foundation to analyze historical language topics—the evolution of Basque’s codification, the ongoing linguistic de-Russification in the Baltic countries—as well as the ability to assess how the current refugee crisis will have an impact on the European linguistic landscape. This assessment is the main theme of my blog entry, and will hopefully give an idea of why the influx of Middle Eastern languages to Sweden is such a complex issue, and will continue t...