Page 218 - Manj razširjeni evropski jeziki in jezikovne politike

Summary

cies being suggested by the part of the highest organs of the political es-
tablishment. This monograph is not limited to the issues of mrj inside
the eu; on the contrary, it includes the diverse societal positions of this
type of languages spoken all over the European continent. Our survey in-
volves languages spread around the Balkans, the Italian-Swiss alpine val-
leys and plains, different areas of the Mediterranean, Scandinavia, Russia,
the British Isles, Western French territories, Central Europe and other re-
gions belonging to Europe from the geographical point of view.
When trying to categorise the mrj, it is necessary to distinguish be-
tween this group of languages on one side and the minority/regional lan-
guages (ml/rl) on the other. Slovenian, for instance, if we consider the
low number of its speakers in a relatively narrow territory, despite its
worldwidepresencedue to diaspora cannot butbeconsideredanexample
of a mrj; still, it enjoys the status of the first official and national lan-
guage in the Republic of Slovenia, whereas in its neighbouring countries,
i.e. the republics of Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia, it has the status of
a minority language, which means that only in these countries’ bordering
regions adjacenttoSloveniahas it been giventhe status of aminoritylan-
guage alongside the first official language, i.e. Italian, German, Hungarian
or Croatian respectively. Many other less commonly spoken European lan-
guages enjoy the status of the first or the only official/national language,
for instance Estonian in the Republic of Estonia, Icelandic in the Republic
of Iceland or Maltese on the territory of the Republic of Malta.
Conversely, in quite many cases a European macro language with a high
number of speakers and a wide speaking area has been granted the status
of a minority/regional language outside the territory of the country where
such a language is used as the first official and prevailing language, such as
Italian in the Slovenian part of Istria, French in the Italian autonomous
region of Val d’Aosta, German in the French region Le Grand Est or Ger-
man in the Romanian region of Transylvania. Certain less commonly spo-
ken languages do not have the status of first official/national languages
anywhere, but only appear as minority/regional languages. Such is, for ex-
ample, the case of Sardinian in the Republic of Italy, Faroese in the King-
dom of Denmark, and Scottish Gaelic in the United Kingdom. We can find
very few European less commonly spoken languages with a total zero sta-
tus, like Istro-Romanian in the Republic of Croatia or Romani languages in
a number of European countries. Considering the number of speakers of
the Romani languages, it is certainly impossible to classify them among the
less commonly spoken languages; nevertheless, on the basis of most other

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