Olga MLADENOVA, linguiste

In the multinational and multilingual empires of the past (the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungary or USSR) people used to have one of two identities: simple or nesting. Having an inclusive nesting identity, one can belong to different groups on different levels without being a renegade to either. Lacking such flexibility, the exclusive simple identity provides for clear-cut boundaries among ethnic groups. The reason is that ethnicity occupies a different slot in the hierarchy of human identities in these two models: subordinate to citizenship in the nesting type or on par with it on the highest hierarchical level in the simple type. While the multinational empires granted official support to the nesting ethnic identity, after their collapse the resulting independent nation states favoured the simple ethnic identities of the titular nations. Multilingualism in the European Union can help promote a new European nesting identity and overcome the isolation of the constituent nation states. 

(Olga Mladenova)