Articles in Eurolang

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Dear Madam/ Sir, Sehr geehrte Leserinnen und Leser,


We include a brief summary of the articles published in Eurolang.
Hiermit senden wir Ihnen kurze Zusammenfassungen der in Eurolang
veroeffentlichten Artikel.



NATIONAL, ETHNIC AND LINGUISTIC MINORITIES OF THE NEW MEMBER STATES – A
PROFILE
Brussel/ Bruxelles 5/5/2004 by Simone Klinge

With ten new member states having joined the EU on 1 May, the enlarged Union
is confronted with a series of territorial, linguistic and ethnic disputes
in most of the new countries. Some conflicts are also reflected in
relationships to the older member states.



SMALL AND LESSER USED LANGUAGES MUST CO-OPERATE, SAY WELSH LANGUAGE GROUPS
AFTER EU ENLARGEMENT
Abergele 5/5/2004 by Huw Morgan

With ten new countries having just joined the European Union - and many of
these with small if not minority languages, how will this affect the
minority languages within the Union. Will having more minority and smaller
languages lead to more pressure for more resources to help them? Or will
everyone have to share the same cake with the money available for each
minority language being less? These are some of the considerations facing
language groups in Wales following enlargement.



EU ENLARGEMENT AND MINORITISED LANGUAGES: ENGLISH THE WORST KILLER LANGUAGE
SAYS EXPERT
Brussel - Bruxelles 5/4/2004 by Davyth Hicks

Enlargement was heralded across Europe over the weekend, with celebrations
in Ireland and Brussels. Many events focused on the cultural richness and
diversity of the accession countries. On Saturday the Latvian President,
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, referred to cultural diversity as 'expensive, but a
good investment' and described how she wanted to 'preserve our
[Latvian]language, it is the only place in the world where it is spoken.'
However, language expert Dr Tove Skutnabb-Kangas tells Eurolang that "Europe
is linguistically the poorest part of the world, with only 3% of the world's
languages. And we are busy killing off even that small diversity..."



ETHNIC HUNGARIANS IN ROMANIA WELCOME EU ENLARGEMENT
Kolozsvár/Cluj 4/30/2004 by Áron Balló

May 1st 2004 will mean that the majority of Hungarian speakers will join the
European Union, as Hungary, and Slovakia and Slovenia with their Hungarian
speakers, become full members of the Union. The Hungarian-speaking community
in Romania also welcomes this step and expects the improvement of its own
situation as a minority.



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