Who Speaks for the Lemko Language?

Abstract

Among the small Lemko community in Poland, debates over who legitimately speaks the language but also speak for the language are rooted in the idea of linguistic authority already discussed in Chapter 1. Some younger Lemkos are finding their way back to the language, thanks to the opening up of more liberal linguistic opportunities since 1989. Lemko pupils are being educated in Ukrainian-language schools in Poland and furthermore, in the traditional Lemko speech area in the south-east of the country, are receiving instruction in the Lemko language. However, their sense of being Lemko speakers can be undermined in that their own linguistic output is increasingly showing, not unnaturally, contact features with Polish, leading to a sense of ‘inauthenticity’ as speakers, which can affect their selfperception as legitimate heritage bearers or owners of the Lemko language. As a result, Lemko speakers construct their own varied senses of speakerhood in a situation of rapid language shift. Attempts to standardize the language have failed to secure any universal consensus among speakers and this, coupled with the uncertain status of Lemko as an identity marker, mean that different varieties of the language, and different ways of accessing speakerhood, are often contested by different members of the Lemko community. In particular, new speakers can find accessing authentic speakerhood to be problematic, and can be unsure which alignments they need to follow in order to be accepted by other speakers. By way of an example of this contestation, the translation of The Little Prince into Lemko is discussed towards the end of the chapter, in particular how this translation has become a focal point for ideological battles over which speakers of Lemko are ‘good enough’ to represent the language nationally and internationally.