Minority Languages From Western Europe and Russia : Comparative Approaches and Categorical Configurations

This book offers a comparative approach within a general framework of studies on minority languages of Western Europe and Russia and former Soviet space, focusing on linguistic, legal and categorization aspects. It is connected to a comparative study of the semantic contents of the terms referring to the different categories of these languages. The volume features multidisciplinary approaches, first linguistic (sociolinguistic and semantic) and legal, and investigates the limits of country-to-country comparisons, mirroring cases from France, Spain, and China with their counterparts from Soviet and later Russian configurations. Special examples, from a region as Ingria and a country as Tajikistan, help to contextualize this approach. In addition, the notion of migration languages, also minority languages, is studied in bilingual contexts, both from external (German, Greek, Chinese ...) and internal origins (Chuvash), linked to the urbanization in contemporary societies that has fostered the presence of these languages in major cities. Front Matter ....Pages i-x An Introduction to Comparing Categorizations of Minority Languages (Svetlana Moskvitcheva, Alain Viaut)....Pages 1-10 Front Matter ....Pages 11-12 Reflections on a Multidisciplinary Approach to “Minority Languages” as a Legal Object in Europe: The Categorization of Regional and Minority Languages under the Charter (Olivier Dubos, Victor Guset)....Pages 13-22 Reflection on a Multidisciplinary Approach to “Minority Languages” as a Linguistic Object in Europe (Alain Viaut)....Pages 23-33 The Epistemological Significance of Comparing Social and Scientific Approaches to Minority Languages in France and Spain (Christian Lagarde)....Pages 35-45 Front Matter ....Pages 47-48 Prototypical Notions of Minority Languages in the Soviet Union and Russia: “Native Language” (rodnoj âzyk) and “National Language” (nacional’nij âzyk) (Svetlana Moskvitcheva)....Pages 49-67 The Categorization of the Languages in Ingria and the Language Loyalty of their Native Speakers (Tatiana Agranat)....Pages 69-80 Categorization of Minor Pamir Languages in Tajikistan (Leyli Dodykhudoeva)....Pages 81-98 From Nominations of Socio-Ethnic Groups to Categorization of Minority Languages in China: Semantic Analysis (Xue Li)....Pages 99-113 Front Matter ....Pages 115-116 Typology of “Migration Languages” and Linguistic Representations in a Bicultural Situation (Antoine Pascaud)....Pages 117-128 Social and Political Status of “Non-classical” Diasporas across the Former USSR (Ekaterina Nedopekina)....Pages 129-148 Categorization of the Chuvash Language in the Chuvash Republic and Beyond (Marina Kutsaeva)....Pages 149-160