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Cultural and Linguistic Minorities in the Russian Federation and the European Union pp 83–105Cite as

Obstacles and Successes

Comparing Minority Language Activism Among the Sorbs in Germany and the Sámi in Finland

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Part of the book series: Multilingual Education ((MULT,volume 13))

Abstract

This contribution discusses the role of minority-language activists in their efforts to revitalize endangered minority languages. There is a significant gap between most of the potential speakers of minority languages and the group of activists who advocate language maintenance and revitalization measures. The role of minority language advocates and activists is to mitigate between the majority society, which may look only at statistically “proven” numbers of minority language speakers when drafting policies and allocating funding directed towards minority communities, and members of the minority who do not actively express their minority identity. The majority society has to be informed about the variety of reasons why people belonging to minorities have given up their original mother tongue and the role and responsibility of the majority society in that development. On the other hand, members of the minority have to be kept informed and encouraged to give up their fears and shame and be motivated to revitalize their language skills. This contribution seeks to explain, using the cases of the Sorbian and Sámi language communities, the problems related to the demands placed by a dominating majority society on minorities. The main question in this chapter is: who is responsible for language revitalization and maintenance?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For example in Finland, a person can register only one mother tongue. Multilingual people tend to choose Finnish because they think it is pragmatic. However, it should be kept in mind that the identification with the non-registered language may be much stronger (Aikio-Puoskari et al. 2007, 15–16).

  2. 2.

    I have elsewhere discussed this dilemma of non-speakers of a minority community who somehow feel obliged to mourn a lost language even though other aspects of identification may actually be more important and vital for them, see Toivanen (2007).

  3. 3.

    Sápmi as an area stretches from northern Norway, Sweden and Finland to Russia.

  4. 4.

    See on the coercive power of ideologies that keep minorities in less powerful positions (Toivanen 2014).

  5. 5.

    http://www.domowina.de.

  6. 6.

    The Historical Dictionary of Contemporary National Movements (Minahan 1996, 334) recounts that the Sorbs declared their independence on January 1, 1919, and that their territory was settled by 45 % Sorbs and 55 % Germans as the two “major national groups”.

  7. 7.

    The Sorbs living in Upper Lusatia, the Upper Sorbs, call themselves die Sorben in German, whereas the Sorbs living in Lower Lusatia, the Lower Sorbs, call themselves die Wenden.

  8. 8.

    These numbers are based on an ethno-sociological survey from 1987 carried out under the leadership of Ludwig Elle at the former Institute for Sorbian Folk Studies. About 40,000 people identified themselves as mother-tongue speakers ((Elle 1992, 19ff.)).

  9. 9.

    Elle (1992) describes carefully the difficulties of documenting such numbers. The statistics have always been influenced by the circumstances of the census.

  10. 10.

    The numbers are rough estimates.

  11. 11.

    This is true for the Finnish Constitution, section 17(3) and the Norwegian Constitution, section 110(a). The Swedish Constitution does not contain a section on the Sámi but apparently a new proposal would include the protection of Sámi as an indigenous people (see http://www.galdu.org/web/?odas=4541&giella1=eng [last visited 10.12.2013]).

  12. 12.

    Such as the International Labor Organization’s convention 169 from 1989. Finland has, however, only signed this convention but not been “able” to ratify it. I will return to this debate later in this chapter.

  13. 13.

    Even though it should of course be said that the organization is by no means accepted by all Sámi as “the” legitimate representative.

  14. 14.

    Several school and education associations were founded and standards for languages established.

  15. 15.

    http://stiftung.sorben.com/usf/einigungsvertrag.pdf [last visited 12.10.2013].

  16. 16.

    http://www.samediggi.fi.

  17. 17.

    Skolt Sámi is nearly extinct in Russia and already extinct in Norway (Salminen and Tapani 1993); see also the chapter “Uneven Steps to Literacy”.

  18. 18.

    Earlier this was possible by using the category of “other” and adding to that one of the Sámi languages, for more see Aikio-Puoskari (2002).

  19. 19.

    Perusopetuslaki 21.8.1998/628, Art 10.

  20. 20.

    Lukiolaki 21.8.1998/629.

  21. 21.

    Actually, the concept of education in “one’s own mother tongue” is used in Finland for those belonging to language minorities. They learn Finnish in school as a native language and in addition they have the right to learn (normally after the regular school day) for two hours a week their true mother tongue. In Finland, pupils of Sámi or Roma decent do not normally speak their mother tongue fluently, so that in practice this instruction resembles foreign language teaching.

  22. 22.

    21 Eur/h Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö (2012), 32.

  23. 23.

    This is organized as e-learning.

  24. 24.

    See the project to revitalize the Inari Sámi language with Marja-Liisa Olthuis as the project leader: http://casle.fi/index.php [last visited 10.12. 2013].

  25. 25.

    Matti Morottaja has a 5-minute program every week on language maintenance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Reetta Toivanen

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  1. Reetta Toivanen
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of German, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

    Heiko F. Marten

  2. Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Michael Rießler

  3. Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Janne Saarikivi

  4. The Erik Castrén Institute, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Reetta Toivanen

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Toivanen, R. (2015). Obstacles and Successes. In: Marten, H., Rießler, M., Saarikivi, J., Toivanen, R. (eds) Cultural and Linguistic Minorities in the Russian Federation and the European Union. Multilingual Education, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10455-3_4

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