Martina Boi
Some time ago I found myself typing on the Google search bar “Italian language policy”, but I noticed that the results that I could find were very very few. I opened every single page, I changed the key words, I tried different word (and languages!) combinations many times, but it didn’t help. I could have kept trying as much as I wanted but the reality (which I only discovered later) was simply that an Italian language policy doesn’t exist – the only case dates back to the Fascist era, after which there was no longer a real interest in issues related to the Italian linguistic heritage. Apparently, dealing with linguistic issues is not among the State’s priorities, which is the reason why the fate of Italian and the other languages and dialects spoken in Italy are in the hands of the single regions and of the European Union.
In fact, the Council of Europe has been quite active for what concerns the interventions for the protection and promotion of European minority languages. In 1992, an international treaty was concluded in Strasburg – the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The Charter aims to promote the use of minority languages, in order to safeguard European cultural heritage, identities and traditions, as well as the respect of the will of individuals to be able to use these languages in their daily public and private activities. In June 2000 Italy signed the Charter BUT, more than twenty years later, the country has not ratified the Charter yet. The States that have signed and ratified the Charter committed to, among other things, adopt efficient solutions to promote their minority languages, to foster and encourage their (written and spoken) use in the public and private life and to make available adequate forms and means of education at all levels. Apparently, Italy has never been ready to or interested in working in this direction, which is the reason why in 2014 the State received a formal sanction from the Council of Europe, which sent a document with which they severely condemned the Italian immobilism (Corongiu, 2014).
What are the reasons for this non-fulfilment? The Parliament continues not to express its view on the issue, and in the meanwhile languages and identities die. Perhaps it is, like always, a matter of power whereby the strongest wins while the rest is forgotten. After all, with the spending review of Monti government a distinction was made between languages protected by international agreements and considered “national minorities” and languages “without a State”. The first ones are languages spoken by communities that can be associated with actual States: in North Italy languages like German, Slovenian and French are spoken alongside Italian, and in these cases language retention is supported by factors such as institutional support and the power and prestige of the languages in question (Van Herk, 2018). On the other hand, other languages are simply recognized as “minority languages” (and thus are given less attention) because they cannot be associated with any sovereign State (Sardinia is an example). Of course, such a differentiated treatment expressed by this spending review has had consequences for education. Education is one of the main means through which promoting and valuing the use of a certain language, but when the resources to do so are limited, the possibility for that language to keep thriving are constrained as well.
What we can see here is that while many interesting projects have been made and signed (on paper), actual interventions and actions are rarely concretely realized. When minority languages do not have the support of a State apparatus, it must be the speakers of those languages themselves the ones who assert their desire to make their voice heard, it must be them the first ones who strongly believe in the value of their language and identity by working for a change that takes form in their everyday lives action after action, word after word. It is here that we see the importance of family language policies, and of the consequent linguistic behaviors that could arise from these policies (Fogle & King, 2013). As we see from Van Herk (2018), the status and shape of a language can be affected not only by governments and big institutions, but also by education (when the possibility is given to it) and by single individuals. And, importantly, language planning effectively works only if a plan is actually implemented with concrete interventions after a theoretical elaboration has been developed (Van Herk, 2018).
While all these points seem to make sense, I wonder: can the desires and actions of single individuals promote a real change when it comes to language use and revitalization or are these actions effective only when appropriately supported by governments and institutions? There’s a lot to think about.
References
Corongiu, G. (2014, February 23). La mancata ratifica della Carta rivela le “scorrettezze” del Belpaese L’Europa e il sardo: cartellino giallo per l’Italia. Forma Paris. https://web.archive.org/web/20140302071825/http:/www.formaparis.com/blog/la-mancata-ratifica-della-carta-rivela-le-%E2%80%9Cscorrettezze%E2%80%9D-del-belpaese-leuropa-e-il-sardo-cartel
Chart of signatures and ratifications of Treaty 148. Council of Europe. https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=signatures-by-treaty&treatynum=148
Fogle, L. W., & King, K. (2013). Child agency and language policy in transnational families. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 19(0), 1–26.
Text of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Council of Europe. https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-charter-regional-or-minority-languages/text-of-the-charter
Van Herk, G. (2018). Language as a Social Entity. In Van Herk, G. (Ed.), What is sociolinguistics? (pp. 187-202). 2e Chichester, West Sussex, UK:Wiley-Blackwell.
