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Germany's (single) national official language is German. The dominance of German in schools, politics, the legal system, administration and the entire written public domain is so great that for a long time the lack of a coherent language policy was not seen as a problem. State restraint in this area is due, on the one hand, to historical reasons; on the other hand, it has been promoted by the federal system in Germany, which grants the federal states far-reaching responsibilities in the fields of education and culture. More recently, multilingualism among the population has increased and has resulted in a growing interest in understanding the language situation in Germany and (in particular) taking a closer look at the different minority languages. In 2017, for the first time in about 80 years, there is a question on the language of the population in the German micro census. The Institute for the German Language has also carried out various representative surveys; in the winter of 2017/201, a large representative survey with questions on the language repertoire and language attitudes is in the field.
Latvia
(2019)
This chapter deals with current issues in bilingual education in the framework of language and educational policies in Latvia, and also outlines similarities or common tendencies in the two other Baltic states, Estonia and Lithuania. As commonly understood in the 21st century, the term ‘bilingual education’ includes ‘multilingual education, as the umbrella term to cover a wide spectrum of practice and policy’ (García, 2009: 9).
This chapter will present results of a linguistic landscape (LL) project in the regional centre of Rēzekne in the region of Latgale in Eastern Latvia. Latvia was de facto a part of the Soviet Union until 1991, and this has given it a highly multilingual society. In the essentially post-colonial situation since 1991, strict language policies have been in place, which aim to reverse the language shift from Russian, the dominant language of Soviet times, back to Latvian. Thus, the main interests of the research were how the complex pattern of multilingualism in Latvia is reflected in the LL; how people relate to current language legislation; and what motivations, attitudes and emotions inform their behaviour.
This chapter introduces readers to the context and concept of this volume. It starts by providing an historical overview of languages and multilingualism in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, highlighting the 100th anniversary of statehood which the three Baltic states are celebrating in 2018. Then, the chapter briefly presents important strands of research on multilingualism in the region throughout the past decades; in particular, questions about language policies and the status of the national languages (Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian) and Russian. It also touches on debates about languages in education and the roles of other languages such as the regional languages of Latgalian and Võro and the changing roles of international languages such as English and German. The chapter concludes by providing short summaries of the contributions to this book.
The establishment of Scottish Parliament: What difference does it make for the Gaelic language?
(2004)
After the Labour government takeover in Westminster in 1997, followed by the referendum on establishing a Scottish Parliament, hopes for more support for the Gaelic language in Scotland were nourished. In the election campaign to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, all parties which were elected to Parliament had mentioned Gaelic, and all parties except the Conservatives had promised an increase in support for Gaelic (cf. Scottish parties’ election manifestoes, obtainable from the parties or via their web sites). Now that the new Scottish Executive, formed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats, has been in power for some time, it is interesting to see if these hopes have been fulfilled.
The two core questions of this paper will thus be:
1. What is the status of Scottish Gaelic after the devolution process?
2. What difference does the existence of the Scottish Parliament make for the status of Gaelic?
It is important to note that this paper refers to language status and Gaelic’s position from a mere language policy perspective. The results are mostly based on an analysis of Parliament documents, the method of investigation being strictly philological. Empirical research has not yet been undertaken. The reference time of my paper will be the first year of Scottish Parliament and the new executive. Even though this is an arbitrary time break, the first year is a symbolic point of time. As the first legislation period as a possibly more natural reference point is not over yet, this choice seems legitimate.