Lesser Used Languages

This paper discusses Dutch historical travelogues as a source for linguistic research. On the one hand one can find descriptions of exotic languages or undocumented remote dialects in travel journals, on the other hand one may come across philosophical and theoretical ideas about language in the utopian reports of imaginary voyages.

En este trabajo analizaremos la diversidad lingüística de Europa occidental y el estatus de las lenguas minorizadas que podemos encontrar. Comentaremos, también, el papel que creemos que debería desempeñar la Unión Europea para proteger esta diversidad.

В статье рассматривается проблема универсальности концептуальной метафоры. Раскрывается роль метафоры как основного орудия выражения в языке новых значений, устанавливается связь метафоры с абстрактным мышлением человека, тем самым показывается, что метафора является не только фактом языка, но и фактом мышления. Таким образом, метафора рассматривается как важнейший когнитивный механизм, определяющий эвристическую функцию языка. Показывается принципиальное отличие метафоры как от метонимии, так и от сравнения. Связь метафоры с абстрактным мышлением определяет ее удельный вес в различных типах дискурса, а также в различных языках, что определяется сравнительной узостью/широтой сфер использования данного языка.

THE GREEK LANGUAGE IN CALABRIA
BETWEEN MARGINALIZATION AND REEVALUATION
PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES

The Grecanic -as the Greek dialect spoken until today by the inhabitants of the villages of Gallicianò and Roghudi is called- is perhaps the most threatened linguistic minority of the Italian state.
Marginalized for centuries -as many other oral or less spoken languages- since 1968, the Grecanic has claimed its rightful place not only in the geographical, soci¬al and political environment in which it acted, but on a wider, international level. Thus, the identity of today’s Greek speaking populations was constructed around these two axes of marginalization and reevaluation. Carrying a heavy legacy of social discrimination as speakers of a foreign language (stigma of social inferiority with respect to the nearby Italian speaking environment) as well as Southerners (stigma of social inferiority with respect to the Italians of the North), the Greek speaking peasants of Calabria constructed their linguistic, social and cultural identity on the constant rejection and renunciation of their own language.
The first Greek speaking cultural association, «La Ionica dei Greci di Calabria», established in 1968 tried to fight against this feeling of shame and social infe¬riority. A series of initiatives and activities such as offering scholarships for lear¬ning Modem Greek in Greek Universities, the organization of Conferences, the fraternization of Greek speaking municipalities with municipalities in Greece etc., apparently have not functioned as factors of preservation of the Greek of Southern Italy, since language does not constitute an independent entity, but rather an organic part of a specific social, economical, political and cultural reality and every attempt to be treated in its own right, beyond and outside this reality is condemned with failure.
Taking into consideration the fact that the Greek speaking communities are situated in one of the poorest regions of the Italian South, it is easy to understand how precarious the future of the Greek language in Calabria is. This is best understood, if we try to see things in a comparative manner, paralleling Grecanic to other less spoken languages in regions, not in the southern, but in the -industrially advanced- northern parts of Europe, e.g. Wales. No similarities can be found between the two realities. The only common point is of purely nominal importance: both Grecanic and Welsh are classified as Less Used or Spoken Languages of the European Union. The means at the disposal of the region of Wales for the pro¬motion of the Welsh language are non existent and unthinkable for the Greek speaking populations of Calabria.
Economic prosperity, written tradition and numerical importance constitute three main factors that may help a less spoken language continue to exist if, and for as long as, something like that is indeed feasible. The Greek speaking communities of Calabria lack all of the above.

The present paper examines issues which emerged during the course of a project developing software for the production of bilingual multimedia stories in European languages of lesser diffusion. The language pairs in question are Basque and French, Catalan and Spanish, Dutch and Frisian, Irish and English and Welsh and English.
Arguments are presented for the greater flexibility of bilingual multimedia over ‘paper’ books in terms of visual display, choice of language and the use of sound. There is also discussion of the complex issue of how best to use both languages to support second language learning and whether ‘parallel authoring’ presents a more useful approach than translation.

Régulièrement, le monde francophone est aux prises avec des débats houleux et enflammés sur diverses questions linguistiques. Ces débats portent, ici et là, sur la pénétration de l'anglais dans la société et en particulier dans les milieux éducatifs, sur la place des langues régionales, sur ce que le sens commun appelle la langue des jeunes ou celle des banlieues, ou encore sur un supposé déclin de la qualité de la langue.