MINORITY LANGUAGES
80% of the world population speaks 83 major languages. However, 96% of the 6,000 languages existing in the world are used by 4% of humanity. One language ceases to exist every two weeks on average.
UNESCO estimates that half of all languages are in serious danger of extinction. The UN General Assembly has therefore proclaimed 2008 the “International Year of Languages” with a view to preserving and fostering their diversity, which is equivalent to defending multiculturality.
Half of all of the languages in the world are concentrated in only 8 countries: Papua New Guinea (832), Indonesia (731), Nigeria (515), India (400), Mexico (295), Cameroon (286), Australia (268) and Brazil (234).
But what do minority languages mean? Although there is no linguistic consensus when it comes to their determination, they are generally those which receive no “official” protection or consideration from the countries in which they exist.
According to different studies, even when a country has granted a language official status, in practice this status could be completely ignored. In other cases, a language which has been declared official may still be considered as minority, either because it has recently acquired the said status or because it was formerly discriminated and has not yet achieved the situation befitting of a normalised language.
There is yet another kind of minority language: those with respect to which their official status is only valid in part of the country in which they are spoken. This situation repeats itself time and again in many European countries: for example, with German in Denmark and Italy, with Danish in Germany or with Hungarian in Austria.
Euskera, the Basque language, identifies with many of the above-mentioned points. Euskera-speakers are split between two countries (Spain and France) and three administrations.
Under existing laws, Euskera only has a completely official status in the Basque Autonomous Community. In the case of Navarre it is not official throughout the province. The Basque Country is legally divided into three areas: the Basque-speaking northern area, the mixed language centre and the non-Basque-speaking southern area. Lastly, in France, Euskera is not recognised as an official language.
As demonstrated by the III Sociolinguistic Survey carried out in 2001 by the Basque Government, the situation varies widely between provinces. The areas with the highest percentage of Basque speakers are the north of Navarre, the inland part of the French Basque Country, Gipuzkoa and the east of Bizkaia. Alava, the western part of Bizkaia, the coastal area of the French Basque Country and the south of Navarre are, however, the areas with the lowest rate of Euskera-speakers. As far as the capitals are concerned, there is an obvious “majority” language, although this is somewhat less so in San Sebastian. In the Basque Autonomous Community almost 30% of the population is bilingual, 11% understand the language in both spoken and written form but don’t speak it, and 59% only speak Spanish.
In the BAC, the Basque Language Law is now 25 years old and thousands of youngsters have been educated in a bilingual system. As a result, the population that speaks most Basque corresponds to youths who were between the ages of 16 and 24 in 2001, of whom 48.5% were bilingual and 20.2% understood it in both its spoken and written forms.
Although the bilingual population continues to grow, there is nevertheless an enormous breach when it comes to regular use of the language. We must point out that the bilingual group to have experienced most growth is that which functions in Spanish (those who speak Spanish more often and more easily than Euskera). As far as the functional bilingual Basque population is concerned, figures stand at 8.7% among the over-35s and at 7.5% for those from 16-35 years of age.
Languages are not only communication tools, but constitute a determinant factor with respect to group identity. Half of all languages spoken on the planet could disappear in a century, a possibility aggravated by the era of information and new technologies like the Internet.
90% of all languages in the world are not represented on the Internet and 80% of the African languages don’t even have a written transcription, factors reflecting that while globalisation facilitates the diffusion of certain languages, it leaves others “in the minority”. To guarantee their preservation, UNESCO recommends that countries offer incentives to learn two or three languages from primary school age and asks the public and private sectors to invest more in fostering the translation of computer programmes and the development of Internet content in alphabets other than Latin.
Giza Eskubideen Aldarrikapena
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/bsq.htm
Euskadiko GGKEen Koordinakundea
http://www.ongdeuskadi.org/principal_e.asp