Linguae Europaeae

by Eda Derhemi In the beginning was the Word … As humans we are defined by and immersed in language. We often think of it as a simple means of communication, but, on deeper reflection, the way we see our language is much more complex than that. With the strengthening in recent centuries of the link between language and national identity (a link built and maintained subjectively through human interaction and interpretation), symbolic attachment to one’s language has also come to mean hate for the language of whoever was perceived as national enemy. Potentially that link could have remarkable power for social mobilization, cohesion and interaction. Joshua Fishman has written insightfully on the positive power of the symbolic link of language and ethnicity. But it can also be a reason for wars, and it is a favorite topic for political manipulation and propaganda. The mobilizing power of language understood as a symbol of group identity is much greater than that of language as the too...

by Zsuzsanna Fagyal, Eda Derhemi, Jessica Nicholas, Jui Namjoshi, and Alessia Zulato, bloggers and editors of this site Latin is not a dead language, Croatian is the newest official state language of the European Union, there are many sides to Catalan identity in Spain, Albanian is still spoken in some villages in Italy and Greece, and Maltese is also a language, not just a type of dog! In case you’ve ever wondered where all this kind of information can be found and how they fit together, you’ve just found the ideal blog site: log on to read us every other week! Today, on European Multilingual Blogging Day , we have the privilege of writing about ourselves, as Linguis Europae is celebrating its one-year anniversary. The idea of this site was born from the stubborn determination of getting students to write something fresh and new about European languages and cultures in the foreign language that they study. We are grateful to the EUC for the Foreign Languages Across the Curricul...

Jacqueline Yonover is a Global Studies major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She composed this blog entry in the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (GER  418) course in the spring of 2013. by Jacqueline Yonover Location of Cataluña Image Source   The Catalan language is a Romance language that is has been characterized by many years of conflict related to issues of identity among the Catalonian people (Gruyter, 2008). It is language that has always maintained linguistic, cultural, and economic differences compared to that of the rest of Spain (Cos Pujolar, 2006).   The origins of Catalonia’s contemporary linguistic controversy can be traced back to the dynastic developments, which began with the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile and furthermore the unification of Spain in 1469 (Gruyter, 2008). The state of the Catalan language has changed continuously since the 1400’s—experiencing periods of dominance and also years...

by Cesar Jauregui Cesar Jauregui is a French and Italian major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He composed this blog entry on the Maltese language – a Semitic language and one of the official state languages of Malta - in the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (ITAL 418) course in the spring of 2013. Google Maps: http://maps.google.com   La Malta è un’isola nel mediterraneo ed anché è un paese della Unione Europea. Formalmente conosciuta come La Repubblica di Malta; è uno degli piu piccoli paesi della unione ma anche uno degli pocchi paesi europei che non ha una lingua indo-europea come lingua ufficiale. Il Maltese é una lingua semitica derivata dal siculo-arabo; una lingua antica  ed erà un dialetto del arabo  che erà parlato in Sicilia e Malta. Oggi quel dialetto è diventato la lingua maltese.   La lingua maltese è stata influenzata per tutti i periodi storici della isola maltesa. Malta è un paese giovane, divenne indipendente ne...

by  Steven Bieszczat Steven Bieszczat is a Political Sciece major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His blog entry on the Sami is the second entry in Linguis Europae , dedicated to Scandinavia’s indigenous migrant minority language groups. Steven wrote this blog entry in the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (PS 418) course in the spring of 2013.   All dialects of the Sami language are considered endangered languages today. 1  This is the case because for centuries the native Sami peoples of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia have been the subject of cultural oppression, territorial infringement, and rights violations. Long before the settlement of northern Scandinavia by Finns, Russians, and Nordic-speaking peoples, the Sami utilized the land for hunting, fishing, and herding reindeer. The Sami have lived in the area for thousands of years, speakers of a non-Indo European language that is related to Finnish and Estonian. 2     ...

by Kelly Djoum Kelly Djoum is an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, majoring in Biology and minoring in French. She wrote this blog entry on the role of the French Academy in matters of language policy and planning in France in the EUC sponsored ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (FR 418) course in the spring of 2013. Image Source     La langue anglaise n’a pas une académie qui réglemente l’usage, la grammaire, et le vocabulaire. La langue est parlée dans plusieurs pays différents et inclut les variétés de dialectes. Le français, cependant, est complètement différent. L'Académie française était établie en 1635 pour “veiller sur la langue française et accomplir des actes de mécénat” (Academie-francaise.fr). L'académie est l'autorité officielle sur l’usage du vocabulaire et la grammaire française. L'académie a longtemps été contre l’usage des dialectes régionaux, mais Parlement veut inclure les langues régionales dans la ...