Language Policy and Planning in the Baltic States, Ireland and Italy: Some Common Issues

Robert B. Kaplan

Professor Emeritus, Applied Linguistics, University of Southern California (Mailing Address: PO Box 577, Port Angeles, WA 98362 USA )

Richard B. Baldauf Jr.

Professor, TESOL, School of Education, University of Queensland, QLD 4072 Australia

Introduction

This volume brings together three language policy and planning polity studies related to five countries in Europe. (See the 'Series Overview' for a more general discussion of the nature of the series, Appendix A for the 22 questions each study set out to address, and Kaplan et al. 2000 for a discussion of the underlying concepts for the studies themselves.) In this paper, in addition to providing an introductory summary of the material covered in these studies, we want to draw out and discuss some of the more general issues raised by them.

Although the Baltic States, Ireland and Italy do not represent a geographic cluster, they do have in common a number of factors. All three of the polities:

• can be considered European; all are (or aspire to be) members of the European Union;

• have been concerned with spreading literacy as the reason for language policy development;

• have demonstrated the importance of bottom-up development as opposed to top-down planning;

• are experiencing an increasing influence from English as the result of their role in the European Union.

• are also experiencing pressure from the European Union and the various regulations it has espoused in the context of minority languages, in the context of linguistic rights, and in the context of the requirements imposed by membership.

In addition, all three polities are struggling to assert their national languages, but in differing ways. There is among these polities an interesting contrast – Ireland is struggling to resurrect an indigenous language (Irish) which has been overwhelmed by a major language of wider communication (English) (i.e. moving from essentially English monolingualism toward bilingualism in which Irish is a participant), while the Baltic states are struggling to minimise the influence of a major language of wider communication (Russian) on the historical national languages of the several states (Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian) (i.e. in effect, moving back to a monolingualism – based on the notion of one polity/one language, although bilingualism would certainly be welcome). On the other hand, multilingualism in Italy is rooted in the historical background of a country whose late unification maintained a situation of linguistic diversity that is unique within Europe. Several unofficial languages (still ambiguously called 'dialects') are widely spoken in everyday life and interpenetrate the national language giving it a strong regional flavor in different areas of the peninsula. These linguistic differences are evidence of the heritage of some ten centuries of political division and cultural diversity – a diversity which could not be erased by the official recognition of Tuscan as Italy's national language in 1861. Since then, the interaction between different sectors of the national community has involved a process of language change that is more complex than that found in other European countries. Thus, Italy is struggling to create a national language composed of influences from many linguistic traditions all pulling in different directions, making the official national language a protean structure.

The Baltic States

These three small independent countries, re-emerging from the wreckage of the Soviet Union, have gained a prominence in language policy issues over the past two decades that belies their relatively modest place on the map of Europe. Concerned to undo the political, demographic and social legacies of half a century of Soviet occupation, language issues in these independent polities became one of the key features of separation from the Communist past, but also one of the key features of controversy and at times of conflict. The conflict has been almost entirely with Russia, whose policies have included a linguistic element in defense of significant numbers of 'Russian speakers' who immigrated into the Baltic States during the Soviet occupation. Important differences can also be seen between the Baltic States – particularly Estonia and Latvia – and European and other international bodies with their own views of language, language conflicts and interpretations of language rights.

On the one hand, language issues have threatened relations with geographic and political neighbours, and have also threatened the entry of Estonia and Latvia into the European Union. On the other, all three Baltic States have in varying ways been able significantly to modify previous language regimes, with internal relations being far more accommodating on the part of language minorities and the population generally than they have been marked by overt hostility. This apparent contradiction between external strife and internal accommodation may serve to alert scholars to the importance of identifying perceptions and assumptions clearly in the analysis of any language policy situation.

Recent language issues in this region, however, have also represented a continuation of a much longer set of historical changes in language regimes; over the course of the 20th century alone, no fewer than six different major language regimes can be identified as having occurred, ranging:

• from intense Russification followed by brief liberalisation during Tsarist times,

• to the re-assertion of national languages during the first period of independence,

• to the return of a different incarnation of Russification during the first period of Soviet occupation in 1940–1941,

• to the imposition of German during Nazi occupation in 1941–1944,

• to the return of Soviet Russification under the guise of 'the socialist equality of languages' from 1944 to the late 1980s/early 1990s, and

• to the subsequent reinstatement of the three Baltic languages as the sole national languages in their respective territories.

This shifting history of language regimes makes the Baltic States a remarkable laboratory of linguistic change, persistence and language fractures. Also these three countries are small enough to permit the tracing of changes in the linguistic environment with some chance of accurately delineating their complexity. The recent changes in language regimes that the Baltic States have...