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13 - Language Regime Change and Europeanization

The Council of Europe, Slovakia, and the Treatment of Romani

from Part III - Levels of Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Milena Pandy
Edited by
Ericka Albaugh ,
Linda Cardinal  and
Rémi Léger
Ericka Albaugh
Affiliation:
Bowdoin College, Maine
Linda Cardinal
Affiliation:
Université de l'Ontario français
Rémi Léger
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University, British Columbia
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Summary

In an increasingly integrated Europe, state language regimes are not the only ones that matter. It is also essential to understand how they interact with supranational language regimes. As Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries worked towards and then gained European Union membership after 2000, to what extent did their state language regimes become “Europeanized”? This question is examined through the case of Romani in Slovakia. The chapter has two aims: first, to demonstrate that the concept of a language regime can be fruitfully applied to supranational entities, and second, to examine the impact of such regimes at the state level. The Council of Europe’s language regime led it to advocate for increased support of Romani, as well as increased minority language rights in member states more generally. This work became bound up in the wider dynamics of Europeanization and European pressure on CEE states. At the level of the Slovak state, official policies towards Romani were changed in response to such pressure. Implementation of such commitments was limited, however. An analysis of state treatment of Romani language in Slovakia from approximately 1998 to 2018 thus illustrates a process through which a state language regime was altered but not transformed.

Keywords

RomaniSlovakiaCouncil of EuropesupranationalEuropeanizationinteractionminority languages
Type
Chapter
Information
States of Language Policy
Theorizing Continuity and Change
 , pp. 246 - 266
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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