mersiowsky - 2-17-2018 at 12:46 PM
Lětopis Abstract 2017 2: Itçaina, Xabier: Cultural Insecurity, Social Change and Territorial Institutionalization Using the Example of the
French Basque Country
The French state is deemed to be reluctant to grant any official recognition and protection of minority and regional languages, in the name of a
certain Republican ethos. However, this lack of institutional support from above has been partly compensated for by some local institutional
arrangements, which created new conditions for a certain recognition of regional languages. The French Basque Country illustrates well this
paradoxical situation. Since the early 1990s, new institutions were set up at the territorial level for Basque language and culture. In 2005, the
process of institutionalization took a step forward with the distinction between cultural and linguistic policy and the foundation of the Public
Office for the Basque language. These institutions resulted from compromises between the state, local elected officials and linguistic movements. A
key factor here was the cross-border influence of the Spanish Basque language policy model that was used repeatedly by French Basque language
activists in their negotiation with the state and with local policy-makers. This emerging linguistic policy had some measurable effects on language
revitalization, with a slight increase in language proficiency among the youngest generations after 2006. However, the social use of the Basque
language (in the family sphere, in public services, at work) kept on declining. This paper will concentrate on the political and normative debate
raised around the social use of the Basque language in France. Special attention will be paid to the use of Euskera in the economy, and to
articulating the debate between the linguistic controversy and the competing local development models.