Language Research

5. Costs: What does it cost in terms of money, time and government resources to police the country's language restrictions?

Updated (March 2003)

TRAINING COURSES FOR CIVIL SERVANTS IN FRIULI

In the middle of February, Udine (North-eastern Italy) town council started the first series of training courses for civil servants, which introduced the official use of the Friulian language to the town hall and to other public services provided by the municipality.

According to the Mayor of Udine, this was the beginning of the implementation of Law 482 [the Law on the Protection of Historical Linguistic Minorities in Italy approved in 1999] in their administration.

The courses are part of a project covering also bilingual place-names, official documents, information signs and the use of Friulian in offices, public libraries and municipal schools. They are organized by the township of Udine and the Friulian Philological Society, the oldest organization working on and with Friulian. The program comprises 22 courses with a total of 400 hours with the aim to give 410 municipal civil servants basic knowledge of the Friulian language (lessons on spelling, grammar and syntax), to introduce the Friulian administrative lexicon and to provide specific work-related knowledge.

Local policemen attend classes on the history and toponymy of the town, nursery teachers learn rhymes, songs and games in Friulian and office workers practice how to give out information in Friulian and they improve their terminological knowledge.

Source: Eurolang News, Turin, February 26, 2003, by Marco Stolfo, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4116 

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Updated (October 2005)

THE PRESIDENT OF ITALIAN BROADCASTER RAI ANNOUNCED A NEW DEAL FOR MINORITY LANGUAGES 

Claudio Petruccioli, the new president of the national broadcasting company Rai, has recently announced a more open attitude toward protection of the rights of twelve ethnic communities living in Italy. 

Just a few weeks after his nomination, Petruccioli met with the Friulan left-wing MP, Arnaldo Baracetti, from the 482 Committee, an organization representing Slovene, Friulan and German speaking associations and institutions from Friuli-Venezia Giulia. 

The Committee is entitled after the Law for the Protection of Minority Languages (the National Law 482), approved by the Italian Parliament in 1999, which is still awaiting proper implementation. 

The 482 Committee has often denounced RAI's lack of will to implement the law. In particular Friulans, the third biggest language community in the State, are still not guaranteed regular broadcasting services and the Slovenes, living in the province of Udin/e, cannot watch programs produced by the Slovene public service in the regional capital of Trieste. 

Mr Petruccioli was aware of the general situation and since the contract, which regulates RAI's services is going to expire at the end of this year, he promised that the new one would include clear statements on minority languages. 

The 482 Committee is keen on hearing the news from Rome; however, they plan to keep their eyes open for the progress in this matter. 

Source: Eurolang News, Udin, October 5, 2005 by Max Mauro, http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2470&Itemid=1&lang=en

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Updated (June 2006)

THE GOVERNMENT OF SARDINIA WILL INVEST 700,000 EUR ON THE SARDINIAN LANGUAGE TRAINING COURSES 

The Region of Sardinia has launched a project to start training courses on the Sardinian language and culture for schoolteachers and civil servants. To do so, the Italian Council of Ministers and the Department for Regional Affairs will fund the project with 700,000 EUR in compliance with the Act 482/99 on the Protection of Historical Linguistic Minorities. 

The courses will be organized and managed by the Universities in Cagliari and Sassari, which have already prepared them depending on the purposes of the participants. Thus, there will be different courses for teachers who have already had experience in teaching Sardinian and for those who have knowledge of the language but have never used it in class. However, the courses for civil servants will focus on administrative language, elaboration and translation of official records, as well as on information about local, regional and estate law and about history of Sardinian institutions. 

Elisabetta Pilia, who is responsible for the Sardinian Department of Public Instruction, Cultural Heritage, Information and Sports, has announced this news only a few weeks after a common Sardinian language was adopted by the Government as a standard written form. 

Source: Mercator News, June 2006 http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm

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Updated (September 2006)

SARDINIAN GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES AN INTERNET COURSE FOR CHILDREN 

The Local Authority for Public Education, Cultural Heritage, Information, Sports and Performing Arts has launched a free interactive multimedia course suitable for primary schoolchildren entitled "Playing with Sardinian". The course, which is available on a number of websites¹, aims to encourage the use of Sardinian, in its three main variants - Campidanese, Nuorese and Logudorese - either at school or at home. 

The course is condensed into twenty lessons, which include exercises on pronunciation, listening and comprehension, and also illustrated tales and songs. A small group of characters (clowns, puppets, and comics) help the ‘little students’ to browse through each section of the course. 

Commenting on this new resource, the Regional Councilor for Public Education Elisabetta Pilia said: "As with every language that aims to survive, Sardinian needs to be spoken. In particular, the new generations should learn to speak it with pleasure and with the awareness that this language is an important part of their cultural heritage". 

Source: Eurolang News, September 27, 2006 by Max Mauro http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2721&Itemid=1&lang=en  

1. It is now available on the website of the Region of Sardinia ( http://www.regione.sardegna.it/) as well as on two other regional portals for education and culture (http://www.conoscere.it/ and http://www.sardegnacultura.it/)  

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Updated (November 2007)

SARDINIAN REGIONAL GOVERNMENT SUPPORTS SARDINIAN 

Maria Antonietta Mongiu (Regional Councilor for Public Education and Cultural Heritage) has announced at the International Conference “Sardinian as a Legal Language” that the Sardinian regional government's will is to promote the use and learning of Sardinian. She added that they also plan to increase teaching in Sardinian at schools, as there are still many schools in the region not offering Sardinian learning facilities at all.

At the conference, the participants have discussed other interesting subjects; amongst all, the standardization process of the language for legal issues and the importance of working on a greater presence of the language in all fields, especially in public administration.

Source: Mercator Legislation, Newsletter No.35, November 2007 http://www1.fa.knaw.nl/newsletter2007/MERCATORnewsletter35.htm#ml1 

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Updated (August 2008)

NEW PLANS TO PROMOTE SARDINIAN

In Sardinia, the Regional Board has recently approved a plan to “assure linguistic rights for Sardinians”. The plan covers activities that the Sardinian government wants to provide over the next three years (2008 – 2010).

First, the plan proposes “experimental” introduction of the Sardinian language in some schools – teaching Sardinian during regular school hours. By now, Sardinian is taught as an elective class outside the main curriculum.

Then, the government wants to invest 500,000 euros three times a year for the training of teachers at the universities of Cagliari and Sassari.

Another area that will gain more attention is mass media – the plan is to set aside funds for the creating an online television channel in the Sardinian language with highly professional programs, which will bring together content of Sardinian linguistic heritage. The plan also calls for dubbing the cartoons for children.

Moreover, the Regional Board highlights the need for a new law calling for speech “in Sardinian” and not “about Sardinian”. The island government admits that the current linguistic law, which is in force since 1997, fails to distinguish between defense of Sardinian culture and the defense of the Sardinian language. The Sardinian government makes clear that the aim of a future law should be to ensure that the island's language “is present in the public communicative domain” and that it “is socially useful” and has “prestige”.

The Sardinian law of 1997 on the promotion and valuing of the language recognizes that Sardinian has “equal dignity” as Italian, despite the fact that it does not establish its official status and restricts the area of the language’s presence especially on matters of culture.

Source: Ciemen Nationalia, News – Europe, July 31, 2008 http://www.nationalia.info/en/news/219

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