The political and social upheavals following 1989 have had a significant impact on the minority languages of Eastern Europe. There have been attempts at enlightened treatment of minority linguistic groups in some of the new states but in others such groups have been openly oppressed. This volume draws on sociologically and ethnographically oriented work from a number of disciplines to allow the reader to compare developments in the different states, and to examine the interplay of language issues, ethnic nationalism, and processes of state formation and restructuring in the various political and historical contexts of Central and Eastern Europe. A companion volume (0-333-92925-X) examines the status of minority languages in the European Union.

Developments in the European Union over the last decade have been largely positive from the perspective of stateless and minority ethnic groups and the survival and prosperity of minority languages. This selection of sociologically and ethnographically oriented work enables the reader to compare developments in different ethno-linguistic revival movements within the European Union. The contributions also explore the impact of EU policy and discourse on the individual movements and the orientation of Western Europe as a whole towards linguistic heterogeneity and cultural diversity. A companion volume (0-333-92924-1) examines the status of minority languages in post-1989 Eastern Europe.

This new study powerfully asserts the pivotal importance of the interplay between language and ethnicity, which is often underestimated as a component for political stability. These leading scholars present five key case studies of South Africa, Algeria, Canada, Latvia and Senegal. All five countries are multilingual nations where language has been a central political issue that has challenged their unity and stability. These studies are underpinned by two general, comparative and theoretical discussions, which analyse how scholars consider social class and economic factors to be the primary sources for political cohesion or of malcontent with the system and the new avenues opened by a focus on issues of langauge. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of linguistics, language, politics and sociology. This is a special issue of the leading journal Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.

This book offers an inclusive perspective on the constellation of languages in Europe by taking into account official state languages, regional minority languages and immigrant minority languages. Although "celebrating linguistic diversity" is one of the key propositions in the European discourse on multilingualism and language policies, this device holds for these three types of languages in a decreasing order. All three types of languages, however, are constituent parts of a multilingual European identity and should be taken into account in any type of language policy. Both facts and policies on multilingualism and plurilingual education are addressed in case studies at the national and European level. The selection of case studies is based on a careful weighing of geographical spread of countries and languages across Europe on the one hand, and availability of established expert knowledge on the other. After an Introduction to the theme of the book (Guus Extra and Durk Gorter), Part I deals with official state languages with a focus on the spread of English as lingua franca across Europe (Juliane House), on French and France (Dennis Ager), on Polish in Poland and abroad (Justyna Lesniewśka), and on language constellations in the Baltic States (Gabrielle Hogan-Brun). Part II deals with regional minority languages with a focus on Catalan in Spain (Francesc Xavier Vila i Moreno), Frisian in the Netherlands (Durk Gorter et al.), Hungarian as a minority language in Central Europe (Susan Gal), and Saami in the Nordic countries (Mikael Svonni). Part III deals with immigrant minority languages in the United Kingdom (Viv Edwards), Sweden (Lilian Nygren-Junkin), Italy (Monica Barni and Carla Bagna) and Europe at large (Guus Extra and Kutlay Yağmur).

In the past two decades, post-Soviet countries have emerged as a contested linguistic space, where disagreements over language and education policies have led to demonstrations, military conflicts and even secession. This collection offers an up-to-date comparative analysis of language and education policies and practices in post-Soviet countries.

This volume presents articles on the modern Armenian diaspora in post-socialist Europe, including the Baltic States, Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. Specialists from the fields of cultural anthropology, sociology, and area studies offer their insights into current developments of Armenian communities which, although located within common post-socialist time-space, differ from one another significantly in terms of their historical background, identity politics, and socio-cultural characteristics.

This volume presents 16 original studies of variation in languages representing the three main European language families, as well as in varieties of Greek and Hungarian. The studies concern variation in or across dialects or dialect groups, in standard varieties or in emerging regional varieties of the standard. Several studies investigate a specific linguistic element or structure, while others focus on areas of tension between variation and prescriptive standard norms, on regional standard varieties and regiolects, on problems of linguistic classification (from folk linguistic or dialect geographical perspectives) and the classification of speakers. Language acquisition plays a main role in three studies. The studies in this volume represent a range of methods, including ethnographic and 'interpretative' approaches, conversation analysis, analyses of the internal and geographical distribution of dialect features, the classification and quantitative analyses of socio-demographic speaker background data, quantitative analyses of both diachronic and synchronic language data, phonetic measurements, as well as (quasi-)experimental perception studies. The volume thus offers a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmos of world-wide research on variability in (originally) European languages at the beginning of the 21th century and the linguistic expression of cultural diversity.

The third edition of the MLA's widely used Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures features sixteen new essays by leading scholars. Designed to highlight relations among languages and forms of discourse, the volume is organized into three sections. "Understanding Language" provides an overview of the field of linguistics, with special attention to language acquisition and the social life of languages. "Forming Texts" offers tools for understanding how speakers and writers shape language; it examines scholarship in the distinct but interrelated fields of rhetoric, composition, and poetics. "Reading Literature and Culture" continues the work of the first two sections by introducing major areas of critical study. The nine essays in this section cover textual and historical scholarship; interpretation; comparative, cultural, and translation studies; and the interdisciplinary topics of gender, sexuality, race, and migrations (among others). As in previous volumes, an epilogue examines the role of the scholar in contemporary society. Each essay discusses the significance, underlying assumptions, and limits of an important field of inquiry; traces the historical development of its subject; introduces key terms; outlines modes of research now being pursued; postulates future developments; and provides a list of suggestions for further reading. This book will interest any member of the academic community seeking a review of recent scholarship, while it provides an indispensable resource for undergraduate and graduate students of modern languages and literatures.

This book provides a history of witchcraft in the territories that compose contemporary Romania, with a focus on the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The first part presents aspects of earthly justice, religious and secular, analysing the codes of law, trials and verdicts, and underlining the differences between Transylvania on one hand, and Moldavia and Wallachia on the other. The second part is concerned with divine justice, describing apocalyptic texts that talk about the pains of witches in hell, but also the ensembles of religious painting where, in vast compositions of the Last Judgment, various punishments for the sin of witchcraft are imagined.

The author presents a new approach to the study of language policy, by focusing on language policy formation and implementation as a dynamic, conflict-laden process involving the interaction of various actors with different motivations and uneven bargaining powers, rather than as a product , examinable post hoc from existing language legislation.