engleski

Does Legal Protection Save Regional Languages?

Low German (in northern Germany) and Nedersaksisch (in the north-eastern Netherlands) belong to those languages in Europe that are in imminent danger of being given up by their native speakers. The paper will report on the similar situation of these two regional languages on both sides of the Dutch-German border with special attention to Western Westfalia and Emsland, regions generally known as conservative with respect to language maintenance and language change. For these areas the long coexistence of High and Low German resp. Dutch and Nedersaksisch could be described as a stable diglossia until the outbreak of World War II. Since then a decline of active Low German resp. Nedersaksisch speakers has taken place which amounts to some 30% per generation. This has negative consequences for these endangered regional languages: Although their degree of “Ausbau” has reached a remarkable level during the last two or three decades (a growing literary production, use in religious services, TV and radio programs including news and talk shows, modern pop music etc.), and although they have been placed on the Charter of Regional and Minority Languages of the Council of Europe, this impressive cultural expansion and improvement of status is threatened to collapse in the near future because of the rapid decline in the number of their speakers which we are witnessing at present.

regional language; language shift; Low German

nije evidentirano