This book examines the role that language has played in forming modern European nations. With language an omnipresent issue within the European Union, the importance languages have played within the histories and present situations of member nations is a crucial topic. Drawing on an international cast of contributors, the book explores the issues of monolingualism vs. plurilingualism within individual nations, the revival of languages in nations such as former soviet republics, and concludes with a look at language in the electronic age.
List of contents :
Introduction - Tony Judt and Denis Lacorne * Part 1: The Limits of National Monolingualism * French Jacobinism and the Challenge of Linguistic, Ethnic, and Regional Variety - Alain Fenet * Occitan: The History of Decline - Philippe Martel * Language Wars in the USA: The Case of California - David Lopez * Part 2: The Fragility of Plurilingual Nations * Nationalism versus Bilingualism: The Belgian Case - Astrid von Busekist * Struggling Against Territory: Language Policy in Canada - Kenneth McRoberts * Multiculturalism and Plurilingualism: The Swiss Experience - Uli Windisch * Part 3: Nation-Making and Linguistic Revivals * The Invention of Hebrew as a Daily Language - Alain Dieckhoff * Acculturation and Linguistic Reconstruction in Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belorusse-Daniel Beauvois * Unity and Plurality in the Serbo-Croatian Linguistic Domain - Paul Garde * Conclusion: The Internet: A New Babel? * Languages and Language Communities in the Age of Electronic Discourses - Geoffrey Nunberg