Article 30: Cultural, Religious, and Linguistic Rights of Minority or Indigenous Children

Abstract‘By promoting the differences through accepting their holidays, respecting their important days, celebrating important days connected with their tradition and culture.’ (Eastern Europe)

The language problem of minorities in a homogeneous state.

In this paper, I aim at presenting the language situation of some regional minorities in Poland: Silesians (Ślązacy), Kashubians (Kaszubi) and the residents of Wilamowice. Protection of language minorities is extremely important from the point of view of cultural development of countries. Throughout a long period of its existence, Poland has been a multi-cultural country populated by representatives of different national, regional and ethnic groups. However, the national and ethnic situation of Poland changed radically after the Second World War. Today Poland is one of the most homogenous states not only in Europe but also worldwide. However, Poland is not free from the discussion about minority rights. Shaping a strong regional identity, which was particularly true for the Silesians and Kashubians and residents of Wilamowice, was a social and cultural phenomenon, completely unknown in the long history of Poland. The Act on national and ethnic minorities and on the regional languages dated January 6, 2005, allows to use of Kashubian language as a “supporting language” before the municipality authorities, the smallest ad-ministrative unit. The other obvious point of this description concerns the demanding of similar linguistic rights by Silesians. The study also highlights the efforts of the residents of Wilamowice to preserve their unique language.

Fennougristiikan historiaa Virittäjän valossa

Artikkeli tarkastelee yhtäältä 125 vuotta täyttävän aikakauslehti Virittäjän historiaa fennougristiikan valossa, toisaalta fennougristiikan historiaa Virittäjän valossa. Päähuomio on erityisesti suomen etäsukukielten tutkimuksessa. Virittäjässäkin fennougristiikkaa ovat tyypillisimmin edustaneet konkreettiset pyrkimykset suomen ja sen sukukielten menneisyyden valaisemiseksi: keskiössä ovat olleet toisiinsa kietoutuneet etymologia ja äännehistoria sekä niiden kehyksiksi hahmotellut kantakielet eri vaiheineen ja kontaktikielineen. Tämän fennougristiikan kovan ytimen lisäksi Virittäjässä ovat kuitenkin aina olleet näkyvissä myös tieteenalan suuremmat kehykset: yhtäältä pohdinnat siitä, miksi ja miten tällaista tutkimusta harjoitetaan, toisaalta halu kertoa fennougristisen tutkimuksen tuloksista myös suurelle yleisölle. Erityisesti Suomi ja täällä etenkin Virittäjä ovat ympäristöjä, joissa suomalais-ugrilaisten kielten tutkijat ovat kerta toisensa jälkeen eksplisiittisesti pohtineet olemassaolonsa tarkoitusta. Vaikka ala mielletään usein kielihistorian tutkimukseksi, fennougristit ovat aina harjoittaneet myös synkronista kielentutkimusta; myös suomen sukukielten uhan­alaisuuteen ja vähemmistökielten puhujien oikeuksiin on kiinnitetty huomiota jo 1800-luvulta lähtien. Artikkeli keskittyy lähinnä Virittäjän ensimmäiselle vuosisadalle, mutta 2020-luvulle tultaessa fennougristiikka ja sen ilmenemismuodot Virittäjässä ovat muuttuneet lehden yleisilmeeseen verrattuna suhteellisen vähän. On the history of Uralic linguistics in Virittäjä The article provides an account of Virittäjä, the major journal of Finnish linguistics established in 1897, and its relation to the study of Uralic languages during the first 125 years of the journal’s history. At its most typical, the study of Uralic languages has been a branch of historical-comparative linguistics aiming to pursue the distant past of Finnish and other Uralic languages: etymology, historical phonology, questions of proto-languages and their chronology and geography as well as language contacts. Beyond this hard core of Uralic linguistics, Virittäjä has continuously provided a forum for discussing the larger frameworks of the discipline: questions of why and how Uralic linguistics is conducted in the first place. Virittäjä has also provided a forum for Uralicists to communicate the results of their research to scholars of Finnish and the wider general public. Moreover, Finland in general and Virittäjä in particular have traditionally been places where Uralicists have pondered and discussed the purpose of their own existence. In addition to historical linguistics, Uralicists have also engaged in synchronic linguistics, and from as early as the 19th century they have also paid attention to language endangerment and the linguistic rights of minorities. This article focuses mainly on the first century of Virittäjä’s history, though by the 2020s Uralistics and the manifestations of the discipline in the pages of Virittäjä have remained largely unchanged.

ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ВІТАЛЬНОСТІ МАЛОПОШИРЕНИХ МОВ УКРАЇНИ: ДОСВІД І ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ

This study summarizes the achievements of Ukrainian sociolinguistics at the turn of the 21st century in the field of studying the languages of national minorities in Ukraine. The relevance of the study lies in the influence of the new worldview paradigm. Its goal is to preserve and protect humanity’s unique cultural heritage, which is under threat of reduction or destruction. The topicality of sociolinguistic studies of the languages of national minorities is also associated with the changing socio-political context in post-Soviet countries, especially in Ukraine. Consequently, there is a need for sociolinguistic monitoring of the linguistic situation, as well as for studying the conditions and mechanisms of linguistic behavior of minorities in bilingual and multilingual regions. It is also important to develop practical recommendations on the balance of linguistic rights and cultural needs of Ukrainian ethnolinguistic communities. The study is presented as part of the research project entitled “Practices of language protection of the European linguistic and cultural space and the prospects for language policy in Ukraine” (2019–2023). The method of diachronic description allows us to trace the evolution of research ideas and the changes in methodological premises regarding the problems of language evolution in Ukraine from the times of the USSR to the present day.

The right to translation and interpreting into and from Albanian as a reflection of fundamental civil rights in Kosovo between 1912 and 1999

Through the analysis of official legal documentation, this paper presents a historical overview of the development of laws and practices regarding language policies in Socialist Yugoslavia, and the use of the Albanian language in education and in the security sector in Kosovo with special emphasis on translation and interpreting. The results of the analysis show that in the 1970s socialist Yugoslav laws governing the equality of languages in a multilingual state, as codified in the constitution and other administrative and legal documents, were quite progressive on paper but did not entirely translate into political and linguistic equality in practice, but that they, nevertheless, resulted in the increased trust in the formal Kosovo governing institutions; and that the abolishment of translation and linguistic rights accompanied by the abandonment of other fundamental civil rights at the end of the 20th century eventually strengthened the ethnic tensions and divisions in the region. The article concludes that translation and interpreting represent key activities supporting the implementation of linguistic rights and trust in the legal system, and that linguistic rights are effective only if they are supported with other fundamental civil rights, such as the right to education and political participation.

Production and sociocultural activities of the Belarusian society of the Deaf (2011–2015)

The article reflects the socio-cultural and industrial activities of the public association “Belarusian Society of the Deaf” (“BelOG”) in 2011–2015. This article, the material of which is based on the sources of the current archive of the Central Board of the Belarusian Society of the Deaf and others, introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, will fill the gap in historical science, given that this period of the association’s activity is not reflected in historiography, there is only episodic information about the Belarusian Society of the Deaf at the specified time. Despite the difficult economic situation in the manufacturing sector of “BelOG”, caused by the consequences of the financial crisis in the Republic of Belarus (2009), partial financing of socio-cultural events and facilities continued. However, at the same time, this period was full of significant achievements in solving the problems of the linguistic rights of the hearing impaired, the development of studies of the Belarusian Sign Language, culture, sports and the historical heritage of the Belarusian Society of the Deaf.