Minority and Language Issues in Comparative Context: Slovenes in Italy, Ireland, and Wales

Abstract

This contribution applies a comparative approach in discussing both developments and key issues related to the formation and transformation of sociocultural and sociopolitical spaces, minority situations in Europe, and language policies in selected areas and regions. The authors base their observations on their own empirical research and combined with the theoretical discussions provided by international scholars and suggest that the relationship between territoriality and minorities is embedded in a wider process of transformation of areas of social and cultural contact. The key concept of minority and the differentiation of autochthonous minorities, between national and regional minorities, could be understood in such a context as the result of social modernization and territorialization in the classic period of European nationalism. The spatial dimension of minorities has thus significantly changed from the pre-industrial to the industrial and postindustrial period, producing important changes to inter-ethnic relations and opportunities for the development of minority protection measures. Here, different approaches could be adopted, ranging from classic non-territorial and territorial to current integrative concepts, the latter aiming to harmonize sociocultural diversity with a growing quest for social (re)integration and reconstruction of European multicultural landscapes. The three case studies demonstrate that far from being settled as a result of political normalization, issues of minority identity, minority language survival, and managing an increasingly pluralist society remain fairly intransigent challenges for the post-welfare state. Developments in Ireland and Wales demonstrate quite divergent attempts by the responsive state to honor its commitment toward its own official minority language during time of fiscal pressure and rapid socioeconomic change. However, in neither Wales nor Ireland, nor among national minorities such as Slovenes in Italy, is the indigenous language safe. These languages remain relatively fragile, subject to both conscious policy impacts and the unfathomable consequences of globalization, state pressures, and commercial forces.