[Corpora-List] Re: Minor(ity) Language

[Thomas Koenig]

Ed Kenschaft wrote:

>On 3/9/06, Nicholas Sanders <nick at semiotek.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>But the Polish and Icelandic examples don't fit the model,
>>because they have no official status in the countries cited.
>>    
>>
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think *any* language has official
>status in the United States.  Does that mean we don't have any
>minority (or majority) languages?
>  
>

In judicial terms, that's exactly what it means. However, since you 
hardly want politicians to decide about scientific terminology, it makes 
little sense to talk about minority languages only in terms of minority 
languages recognized by a state as such.

Still, much of social theory has (in my view unfortunately) adopted the 
idea that minority languages are the languages of "ethnic" minorities 
that have settled on a given territory for a longer period of time: 
Inuit in Canada, Slovenes in Austria, and so on. In contrast, languages 
of recent migrants are hardly ever considered minority languages 
(Britain is an exception to some degree), especially if these migrants 
are dispersed throughout the territory of the state.

Thomas

-- 
thomas koenig
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/mmethods/staff/thomas/index.html