Position of the Basque
For the anthology of Basque sociolinguistics, Kike Amonarriz’s street survey of the size of the Basque country has remained: what most saw very small is in the upper platoon of the world’s languages, worthy of a difficulty.
The same could be said of what the Donostia Language Diversity Forum 2016 has shown: among minority languages, the Basque language is one of the few that is spreading – that is, speakers and gaining spaces.
We have been too afraid to underline the positive aspects of the situation in the Basque Country, as if this could mean losing dinner in favour of the language, or, worse for some, giving a medal to anyone.
But it is true; the Basque language is a reference among the minority languages of the world, especially because of its revitalization in the CAV. This position should lead us to two emotions: on the one hand, pride, what we have achieved has not been a gift from anyone, but the fruit of the social initiative and the capacity of the institutions, a good fruit of many good works; the second emotion, responsibility, looking at all the people of Euskera, also the whole world. We have begun to identify as linguistic cooperation the relationship we can have with other minority languages: to offer them our experience and to spread a little in exchange for their passion for language.
There's another league that interests us a lot: the smallest language in the world. In addition to minority languages, there are others with a stronger political status, but with a limited number of speakers. There are several in Europe: Dutch or Danish, Baltic, Balkan and Nordic. These languages have a small community of speakers and are in contact with the hegemonic languages, mainly English and German.
The difference with small languages lies in competences, because they have a state. However, some of their strategies and experiences can be valid, adapted to our reality. For example, how does the audiovisual sector in Denmark behave so that all young people are fully aware of English and consume mainly in Danish? Can we copy something?
It is fitting for us to look at our navel and also look at our surroundings, to contrast the analyses of the Basque country and to take advantage of the experiences of others. The position of the Basque Country is not the worst to take advantage of the opportunities; on the other hand, each of the speakers or areas we have won is a victory from the point of view of the linguistic diversity of the world. Cheer!
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