Table Of ContentPalgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities
Series Editor: Gabrielle Hogan-Brun, University of Bristol, UK
Worldwide migration and unprecedented economic, political and social
integration in Europe present serious challenges to the nature and position
of language minorities. Some communities receive protective legislation
and active support from states through policies that promote and sustain
cultural and linguistic diversity; others succumb to global homogenisation
and assimilation. At the same time, discourses on diversity and emancipation
have produced greater demands for the management of difference.
This series publishes new research based on single or comparative case stud-
ies on minority languages worldwide. We focus on their use, status and
prospects, and on linguistic pluralism in areas with immigrant or traditional
minority communities or with shifting borders. Each volume is written in
an accessible style for researchers and students in linguistics, education,
anthropology, politics and other disciplines, and for practitioners interested
in language minorities and diversity.
Titles include:
Glyn Williams
SUSTAINING LANGUAGE DIVERSITY IN EUROPE
Máiréad Nic Craith
EUROPE AND THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE
Anne Judge
LINGUISTIC POLICIES AND THE SURVIVAL OF REGIONAL LANGUAGES IN
FRANCE AND BRITAIN
Anne Pauwels, Joanne Winter and Joseph Lo Bianco (editors)
MAINTAINING MINORITY LANGUAGES IN TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXTS
Australian and European Perspectives
Máiréad Nic Craith
LANGUAGE, POWER AND IDENTITY POLITICS
Yasuko Kanno
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN
Nancy Hornberger (editor)
CAN SCHOOLS SAVE INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES?
Susanna Pertot, Tom M. S. Priestly and Colin H Williams
RIGHTS, PROMOTION AND INTEGRATION ISSUES FOR MINORITY
LANGUAGES IN EUROPE
Jean-Bernard Adrey
DISCOURSE AND STRUGGLE IN MINORITY LANGUAGE POLICY
FORMATION
Linda Tsung
MINORITY LANGUAGES, EDUCATION AND COMMUNITIES IN CHINA
Janet Muller
LANGUAGE AND CONFLICT IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND CANADA
Bernadette O'Rourke
GALICIAN AND IRISH IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT
Miquel Strubell and Emili Boix-Fuster
DEMOCRATIC POLICIES FOR LANGUAGE REVITALISATION: THE CASE OF
CATALAN
Durk Gorter, Heiko F. Marten, Luk Van Mensel and Gabrielle Hogan-Brun
MINORITY LANGUAGES IN THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE
Vanessa Pupavac (editor)
LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN CONFLICT
Serbo-Croatian Language Politics
Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost
WELSH WRITING, POLITICAL ACTION AND INCARCERATION
Peter Sercombe and Ruanni Tupas (editors)
LANGUAGE, EDUCATION AND NATION-BUILDING
Assimilation and Shift in Southeast Asia
Keith Langston and Anita Peti-Stantic´
LANGUAGE PLANNING AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN CROATIA
Dovid Katz
YIDDISH AND POWER
Michael Hornsby
REVITALIZING MINORITY LANGUAGES
New Speakers of Breton, Yiddish and Lemko
Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–403–93732–2
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a
standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write
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and the ISBN quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Revitalizing Minority
Languages
New Speakers of Breton, Yiddish and
Lemko
Michael Hornsby
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
© Michael Hornsby 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-49879-3
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
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ISBN 978-1-349-57148-2 ISBN 978-1-137-49880-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137498809
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hornsby, Michael, 1965–
Revitalizing minority languages : new speakers of Breton, Yiddish and
Lemko / Michael Hornsby.
pages cm.—(Palgrave studies in minority languages and communities)
Summary: “In recent decades the ‘death’ of minority languages has
attracted the attention of journalists, scholars and the general public
and now features in various discourses about the decline of ecological
and cultural diversity due to globalization. Many minority languages are
undergoing revitalization (mainly through educational initiatives) and, as
a result, some of these languages can demonstrate a slowing down in the
rate of decline in the number of speakers. This has led to the appearance,
in many instances, of so-called ‘new’ speakers, that is speakers who
have acquired a minority language outside the traditional conduits of
family and/or community. This book examines the background to this
phenomenon and demonstrates how new speakers have appeared among
Breton, Yiddish and Lemko speakers, all of whom demonstrate similar
struggles and successes in their attempts to use their adopted languages in
a meaningful way. “—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978–1–137–49879–3 (hardback)
1. Linguistic minorities. 2. Language revival. 3. Sociolinguistics.
I. Title.
P40.5.L56H67 2015
305.7—dc23 2015019587
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
For Rostyslav Kanibolotskyi
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Yiddish gives me a place at the table that
I otherwise might not have had
New speaker of Yiddish,
November 2014
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Contents
List of Figures xii
Series Editor’s Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction 1
1 Minority Languages: A Crisis in Authority 6
1.0 A crisis in authority 6
1.1 Questions of legitimacy 11
1.2 Ownership 14
1.3 Breton 16
1.3.1 ‘New’ speakers of ‘new’ Breton 20
1.3.2 Research participants in Brittany 21
1.4 Yiddish 23
1.5 Lemko 24
1.6 Investigating minoritized language communities 26
1.7 Researcher stance 27
1.8 The challenges of fieldwork 29
1.9 Time constraints and subsequent data 31
2 Legitimate Speakers of Authentic Breton:
Who Decides? 34
2.0 Legitimate languages and legitimate speakers 34
2.1 Legitimate language 35
2.2 The legitimate speaker 36
2.2.1 Revitalized Breton 37
2.3 Withholding and denying speaker legitimacy 39
2.3.1 Competing claims on authenticity 45
2.3.2 Constructing legitimacy: the question
of accent 47
2.3.3 Language ideologies in the
Traité de prononciation 48
2.4 Profile of a new speaker of Breton 54
2.5 Conclusion: notions of legitimacy in Breton 59
ix
