minorized languages in Europe:

Old Nov 4th, 2000, 09:01 AM
  #1  
asko
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minorized languages in Europe:

I've seen a report on European countries and their languages, but I'd like to know, what about those small languages which are spoken by ethnic minorities, even in Western Europe? Appart of English, Spanish, French, German or Italian, which is the situation with the Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Basque, Catalan, Breton, Occitan, Frisian and those languages? Do people usually speak them? Are they very different from the bigger languages?
 
Old Nov 4th, 2000, 10:54 AM
  #2  
lingo
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I think everyone who lives in Wales learns Welsh when they are at school, but it's more predominantly spoken in the north - although you can certainly communicate with most people in English (and the Welsh language is nothing at all like English!). Other minority languages spoken in Britain include: Punjabi/Urdu, Hindi, Turkish - in fact the speakers of any of these might be more numerous than Welsh speakers!
 
Old Nov 4th, 2000, 12:02 PM
  #3  
Ben Haines
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Fodors

Situations vary. I'll try to answer your two questions for each language. I'm going to make big mistakes, which I ask others to correct.

Irish. It is taught in school, but is to a great extent a political revival, so I think not widely spoken. A Celtic language, Irish is like other Celtic languages, but wholly unlike any other European languages

Gaelic. Taught in school only in highland, island, and remote parts of Scotland, but widely and naturally spoken in villages and hamlets in those parts. Celtic.

Welsh. Taught in school everywhere in north and mid Wales (even to my Enlish niece, who was cross), but after a century or more of official suppression by the English Welsh is weak in the south, and is strong and the natural language of villages and towns of north Wales and to some extent of mid Wales. Celtic.

Basque. Sorry: I don't know.

Catalan. Sorry, I don't know how much Catalan is commonly spoken. It is a Romance language, with very much in common with French and Spanish, and quite a lot in common with Italian, Portugese, and Romanian.

Breton. Sorry: I don't know usage. Celtic.

Occitan. Sorry: I don't know.

Frisian. In the Netherlands and I think in Germany children of Friesian speaking families are taught in Friesian for their first two years at school. I have the idea that plenty of families up there in Friesia speak the language at home. It is a Germanic language, with much in common with Dutch, English, and German.

Of these languages, some, like Friesian, are minor, while others, like Welsh and Catalan, are minorised, brought down by harsh governments from glorious days of great literature. The histories vary.

I like Lingo's point. In Vienna nearly all the newspaper sellers on the streets speak Hindi, in Marseilles and Paris you eat well if you order in Arabic, in London corner shops a standard tongue is Gujerati, and in fish and chip shops it is Cantonese or Turkish, in Berlin your doner kebabs (delicious) are served you by Turks, and so-called Indian restaurants in England are run by Bengalis from Sylhet District (which has its own form of spoken Bengali), but on settling here the families tend to learn Urdu. In the small state primary school where I'm a school governor we have some thirty languages as mother tongue. When we gathered food for our parish International Evening two weeks ago we had good food from native speakers of Kossovan, Somali, Tamil, a couple of forms of Creole, Turkish, German, and even English.

As you see, I'm glad you asked.

Ben Haines, London


 
Old Nov 4th, 2000, 12:51 PM
  #4  
wendy
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This website might interest you:
http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/europe.html
This ethnologue was published in 1996, but an update is promised this month.
 
Old Nov 4th, 2000, 03:53 PM
  #5  
Carol
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OCCITAN:
I was recently in Les Eyzies de Tayac in the Dordogne region of France. The annual Occitan festival, which is held in a different place each year, took place in Les Eyzies this year. There were still many signs and decorations remaining. The signs written in Occitan(langue d'oc) were readable, but some of the vocabulary seemed to me closer to Spanish and Italian (especially Spanish) than French. (It has the "look" of Portuguese because of the frequent combinations of 2 or 3 vowels in a row, but is not really too much like Portuguese, i'm told.) From asking around and observing, I learned that, in general, people did NOT grow up speaking Occitan. It was somewhat of a dying language. Some southern French cultural activists, generally educated people, with a lot of pride and interest in their regional history and traditions, are apparently making an effort to revive Occitan. The annual festival is a celebration of this effort. I did not notice elderly, uneducated, "tradtional" people who seemed to be speaking anything other than standard French, so Occitan does not seem to be a popular, living, dialect. However, it seems to be trendy in some circles to try to speak a little Occitan. I noticed some younger and middle aged educated people (e.g., tour guide) speaking Occitan occasionally for fun, but they seemed to be making an effort to speak it; it was a LEARNED language for them and they were not entirely comfortable with it.

SICILIAN: In Sicily, I think only elderly people with limited schooling speak Sicilian ONLY. Everyone else speaks Italian to foreigners or to people from other parts of Italy, but Sicilian among themselves. they switch back and forth with complete ease. Unlike the Frenchmen who were trying to speak Occitan a little, the Sicilians grew up speaking Sicilian, and were completely comfortable and fluent in both Sicilian and Italian. People explained to me that they liked to speak Sicilian among friends and family. A college girl told me that a lot of the highly educated who remained in Sicily strongly believed that it was important to preserve Sicilian as a living written and spoken language. (It has rules of grammar and written literature dating from before Dante's writing in Tuscan.)

OTHER: I hope someone will tell us something about the curent status of Basque, which I think is unlike any other language. Also what about the romance languages (or dialects?) of Romansch and Ladin in Switzerland, and Ladino among Sephardic jews. Are these languages still alive? About 2 weeks ago i read something, I think in Parade magazine of all places, re the Friuli dialect in NE Italy which is dying out and there is a small movement to preserve it.

I think this is a very interesting topic and I hope a lot more people will have info, experiences or insights to add. Wendy, thanks for the website, which I plan to look up right now!
 
Old Nov 4th, 2000, 05:50 PM
  #6  
Rex - until further notice you can reach me
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Catalan is very much alive and well in Barcelona and perhaps even in parts of France at least up to Perpignan.

Breton is also alive and well. As an example, see the principal website for Quimper (Kemper in Breton) - - www.bagadoo.tm.fr/kemper - - I have never been there, but I know some familiies in Normandy that love vacationing there precisely for the language, and especially the music.

And there are also vestiges of the languages Provençal in Provence - - but I think it is much harder to find anyone speaking it. You will find some dual signs in the area between Aix and Nice, if my memory serves me correctly.

Best wishes,

Rex
 
Old Nov 4th, 2000, 06:27 PM
  #7  
harzer
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Basque, which has no known related language, is clearly thriving in south western France and north western Spain, as one can see from the political unrest in the Spanish areas at least. The currency of the Basque language, unusually, defines the territory claimed for the homelands of the Basque people.

Another minority language in Europe is that of the gypsies. Although we call it Romani, this is in fact only one of three major dialects spoken by the gypsies, all deriving ultimately from Punjabi or Hindi.
 
Old Nov 4th, 2000, 06:46 PM
  #8  
Ilene
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Romansch, although a minor language, is one of the 4 official languages of Switzerland. It is primarily spoken in the canton of Graubunden (in the SE portion of Switzerland). Of Latin derivation, and related to the romance languages.
 
Old Nov 4th, 2000, 07:31 PM
  #9  
Ben Haines
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Fodors

I think Ladino is no more in family use anywhere. It had a home in Thessaloniki, because the Ottoman Turks gave shelter to Jews chased from their own country of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, at their ethnic cleansing. But when the Nazis reached Greece they sent down the cattle trucks, and killed them all. It exists still in song: I've hard Ladino from the Fiery Furnace, a klezmer and other band here in London, and it had a mention a the yearly July festival of Yiddish culture in Krakow. I did wonder whether someboy in this remarkable correspondence would tell us whether there are families in Antwerp, New York, or Israel where families still chat in Yiddish.

Ben Haines
 
Old Nov 4th, 2000, 09:44 PM
  #10  
clairobscur
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It depends.

AFAIK, Welsh is still widely spoken.
Irish is an official language,and is taught as such but english is much more commonly used.
Basque is clearly alive,especially on in the spanish part of the Basque country, quite often known but seldom spoken in France.
Catalan is by far the main language in spanish Catalunya, but seldom spoken in France.
Breton is comatose. Older people still speak it in the western part of Britany on a daily basis, and some young people learn it at school, but just enough to keep it (barely) alive.
You can consider the Occitan dialects as dead. Only the older people still understand them, and most of them quite never speak them. A standardized (and artificial) form can be learnt at school, but quite nobody make this choice. Except for the aformentionned Catalan, which is an occitan language too.

No idea concerning Gaelic and Frisian.

Irish,Gaelic,Welsh and Breton are celtic languages, and for this reason are totally different from the other european languages (romance, germanic,slavic languages)but are also indo-european languages. I believe that Gaelic is closer to Irish and Breton closer to Welsh, but I don't think that a Breton speaker can understand a Welsh speaker more than a french speaker can understand a spanish speaker. I could be wrong,though.

Occitan (including Catalan) is a romance language, close to french and spanish. However, it can't be understood by a french or spanish speaker (except perhaps for some words from time to time). And the occitan dialects are fairly different one from another, though two occitan speakers should manage to understand each other with some effort.

Basque is a very peculiar case, as it's not even an indo-european language. It's absolutely different from any other european language. It is often assumed that Basques were present before the arrival of indo-europeans (celts, in this case), and that the language could have been originated from central asia. But it can't be related with certainty with any other language (amongst the various theories, one, which is very serious, even states that the "closest" language could be one of the more important family of native american languages).

As french, I would add two languages which are still alive here : the Alsacian (a germanic dialect) and the Corsican (related to Italian).
French dialects (spoken in northern France, as opposed to Occitan dialects spoken in southern France) can be considered as having disapeared.
The situation is very different, AFAIK, for the Germanic, Spanish and Italian dialects or languages, which are still spoken on a daily basis.
 
Old Nov 5th, 2000, 02:34 AM
  #11  
Sheila
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I know a bit about the situation with (Scots) Gaelic (pronounced Gaalik- as ooposed to Irish (Gaylick). It is commonly spoken as a first langauge only by indiginous people in the Outer Hebrides- there are many incomers and many of them have learnt. It is taught everywhere north of the Highland line, but is rarely a teaching medium nowadays, even in the Gaeltacht. I read, when I was a school about a century ago, that a language was considered dead when it had no monoglots left. At that time (late 60s) there were about 10,000 Gaelic monoglots. I suspect there may be practically none now.

However the language, like Welsh, has had a bit of a resurgence because a lot of money has been pumped into Gaelic broadcasting in the last decade or two; and Gaelic medium education is now available in places like Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Perth- all well into the Lowlands.

If you travel in Scotland, you wuld have to be in the Outer Isles before you overheard it in a shop or pub or something
 
Old Nov 5th, 2000, 05:30 AM
  #12  
xxx
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In the Basque country, are there many people who speak ONLY Basque, and do not also speak Spanish (or French or Catalan)?
 
Old Nov 5th, 2000, 08:16 AM
  #13  
haritz
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Almost nobody is Basque-speaking monoglot in the Basque, maybe some old sheperd or farmer will speak very few French or Spanish. Although in Spain it might be difficult to find someone who speaks English, the matter is not so much in the Basque Country, at least among the young people (<30). It is true that most of them do not have a great level but speaking quietly you shouldn't have many problems while visiting Bilbao or other places in my country.
 
Old Nov 5th, 2000, 03:33 PM
  #14  
topsy
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Great topic!
 
Old Nov 5th, 2000, 03:50 PM
  #15  
Cathy
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Asko,
Great topic, regarding Irish or as it sometimes called Gaelic (distinct from Scots Gaelic). It is one of the 2 official languages of the Republic of Ireland - the other is English. It is compulsory for all school going children and necessary for entry to University etc. Tecahers and other government employees must pass an examination (oral and written) in Irish to prove that they can conduct their duties through the medium of Irish. However despite this the language is not widely used throughout the country. There are certain areas called Gaeltacht areas (mostly along the West coast - South and North) where there are communitites which speak only Irish and conuc all business though the first language. However everyone in these regions also speaks English. These regions receive special funding ect and thrive on the summer school business where school kids etc come for intensive crash courses.

Hope this helps, check out www.irlgov.ie for further information,

Cathy
 
Old Nov 5th, 2000, 07:27 PM
  #16  
perpetualstudent
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wonderful topic--the best on the site

I've nothing to contribute, but topping and eagerly awaiting more
 
Old Nov 6th, 2000, 04:47 AM
  #17  
ilisai
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Ladino is indeed alive amongst the Sephardic community, though you will find few under 40 years old who are still taught it. Go into just about any Sephardic synagogue, and hear a portion of the service conducted in Ladino. I am a Sephardic Jew, that is why I know. Most of my family is fluent in it. My great-granparents were from Greece, though Sephardim refer to Thessaloniki as Salonika. For anyone that is wondering, Ladino is a hybrid language which has its roots in Spanish, and is now a mixture of Spanish, Hebrew, Greek, Turkish, among other things. Were you to look at it written, it will look very much like Spanish, though some of the vocabulary and grammatical constructions may be different. It is a very colorful language. Some proverbs I heard often growing up:

El cabello largo, el muelo corto. - Long in hair, short in sense
La mentira tiene pies cortos. - Falsehood has short legs.
Por hablar la verdad, se pierde la amistad. - Speak the truth and lose friends.
Novya que te vea. - You should be a bride.
And the one I always heard from my mother: Dime con quien conoscas, te dire quien sois. - Tell me who you know, and I'll tell you who you are.
 
Old Nov 6th, 2000, 04:47 AM
  #18  
ilisa
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I can quote in Ladino, but can't spell my own name.
 
Old Nov 6th, 2000, 06:32 AM
  #19  
ilisa
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Sorry for yet another post on this fascinating topic. I would like to clarify something that Ben Haines said. Ben, you referred to the Nazi's killing all the Jews in Salonika. That is not quite correct. Approximately 5,000 Sephardic Jews of Salonika survived the Holocaust, many of whom settled in the United States. My grandparents housed many of these "displaced persons" after the war.
 
Old Nov 6th, 2000, 08:40 AM
  #20  
Lesley
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Catalan is the official language of Catalunya in North East Spain. Fifteen years ago, no-one would have thought of addressing tourists in Catalan. Now, I am almost always spoken to first in Catalan (but people happily change to Castilian when they realise I can't communicate in Catalan). The nearer you get to the French border, the more Catalan it becomes. It is difficult to follow it by ear, but if you have Spanish and French, you can make sense of it when you read it.
Basque is widely spoken in the Basque contries, but it doesn't help to know any other language as it predates all indoeuropean languages. Gallego, another Spanish language, is spoken in the North West of Spain. It has similarities with both Spanish and Portuguese.
 

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