Volume 2007, Issue 183

The topic of “Small and Large Slavic Languages in Contact” within the framework of the sociology of language calls for an explanation, particularly regarding the restriction to Slavic languages. The size of linguistic communities has long been recognized as an important factor for survival, elaboration, official recognition, international importance, influence on other languages, etc., even though sheer size isn't everything (cf., e.g., the former position of Flemish in Belgium, long dominated by the numerically inferior French, or the situation of Belarusian in Belarus as described in this issue). On the other hand, it is rather unusual to analyze the quantitative (and power) relationship between languages chosen on the basis of their genetic relationship, that is, the Slavic group of languages within the Indo-European family. There are, however, several reasons that justify this choice.

The history of the Slovenian standard language has been marked by its relationship with other Slavic languages since its very beginning. The closer connection with Slavic languages in the nineteenth century was first seen as a necessary step in Slovenian language planning in order to eliminate the overwhelming German influence. Nevertheless, integrational Slavic language planning never really prevailed in the Slovenian language community. Contact between Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian became more extensive and sociolinguistically relevant in Yugoslavia. Although both languages formally had the same status, Serbo-Croatian tended to overtake prestige functions via various strategies in the language policy. Serbo-Croatian was dominant in some of the language domains in the Slovenian language community, for example, in the military; Slovenian territory was populated with speakers of Serbo-Croatian without any plans to make them proficient in Slovenian, etc. Serbo-Croatian thus became the hidden second language in Slovenia. The act of Slovenian independence in 1991, however, changed the linguistic situation considerably.

The Lower Sorbian language is in a double minority situation. Together with Upper Sorbian, it is a minority language in the context of Germany, where the majority language is German. Within the Sorbian context, it is a minority language in its relationship with Upper Sorbian. The article describes the development of Lower Sorbian in this double minority context up to the present. Special attention is paid to the intra-Sorbian minority situation, since this aspect of the Lower Sorbian language question has not yet been studied adequately due to ideological constraints.

This article deals with the current linguistic and communicative relations between Czech and Slovak. The decade since the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993 has introduced new and largely asymmetrical features into Czech-Slovak language contact which are extensions of previous relations and processes. The “asymmetry point of view” may produce a picture with sharp differences, whereas the corresponding social reality is a refined segmentation of the situation with a number of contradictory phenomena. Today's contact situation is characterized by the fact that after the division, both languages are frequently used among Czechs and Slovaks in a variety of communicative situations. In the contact environment, it is not unusual for a particular speaker to alternate between Czech and Slovak. The occurrence of the natural category “Czechoslovak” (“českoslovenčina”/“českoslovenština”) in spontaneous discourse may be considered a manifestation of language management oriented toward such language behavior. This article examines the way in which this category, known throughout the history of Czech-Slovak language relations, is used today.

The first section of this article provides a brief explanation of the notion of “Rusyn language” and presents the development of four standard Rusyn languages based on dialects in the countries where Rusyns live. This section also presents linguistic phenomena reflecting the specific location of the Rusyn language in Slovakia, anchored between two Slavic language groups, East and West, and primarily between the Ukrainian and the Slovak languages. The adaptation of Slovak lexemes and expressions dealing with various aspects of modern life to Rusyn phonological and morphological rules is one of the most striking features of the contemporary Rusyn language of Eastern Slovakia. Special attention is paid to linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that back or reinforce the influence of Slovak as a large language upon the Rusyn language in Slovakia as a small language. In the second part of the article, some questions of the sociology of the Rusyn language in Slovakia are presented, for example, its legal situation, and mainly, the usage of Rusyn in some communicative areas.

Belarusian occupies a very specific position among the Slavic languages. In spite of the fact that it can be characterized as a “middle-sized” Slavic language, the contiguity and all-embracing rivalry with the “strong” Russian language make it into an eternally “small” language. The modern Belarusian standard language was elaborated in the early twentieth century. There was a brief but fruitful period of its promotion in the 1920s, but then Russification became a relevant factor in its development for the following decades. Political factors have always held great significance in the development of Belarusian. The linguistic affinity of Belarusian and Russian in combination with other factors is an insurmountable obstacle for the spread of the Belarusian language. On the one hand, Russian speakers living in Belarus, as a rule, understand Belarusian but do not make the effort to acquire it as an active medium of communication. On the other hand, Belarusian speakers proficient in Russian do not have enough motivation to use Belarusian routinely, on account of the pervading presence of Russian in Belarusian society. As a result, they often lose their Belarusian language skills. There is considerable dissent as to the perspectives of Belarusian. Though it is the “titular” language, which determines its importance in Belarus, it is also a minority language and thus faces the corresponding challenges.

This article analyses the language situation in the Ukraine in terms of the coexistence of the Ukrainian and the Russian languages on both status and corpus levels as, correspondingly, a “small” language and a “large” one. During the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian language was, to a considerable extent, forced out of usage, and its structure was influenced by the Russian language. After the Ukraine became independent in 1991, certain gradual changes in favor of the Ukrainian language have been implemented. In 1989, Ukrainian was declared “the state language” of the Ukraine. However, the Ukrainian-Russian bilingual situation in the Ukraine at the turn of the twenty-first century is still far from stable. One of the languages usually prevails in specific social areas and in specific regions of the country. Language problems are rather politicized in the modern Ukraine. The pro-Ukrainian side appeals to the interests not only of Ukrainophones, but to the whole nation with the message that the Ukrainian language and culture may disappear without state support. The pro-Russian side appeals to the civil rights of Russophones. The pro-Ukrainian side puts an accent on individual bilingualism by saying that if Ukrainophones speak Russian fluently, Russophones should have a good command of Ukrainian as well. The pro-Russian side pushes for state (national) bilingualism and for the equal legal status of Russian as the language of nearly half of the Ukraine's population.

This article draws on the analysis of (standard) Slavic languages comprising the following pairs: Slovenian – Serbo-Croatian, Lower Sorbian – Upper Sorbian, Slovak – Czech, Rusyn – Slovak, Belarusian – Russian, and Ukrainian – Russian. In these pairs, the first language may be classified as small, the second one as large. This may be done on the basis of the following criteria: number of speakers, spread of the language, its economic strength, status of speakers, how the language is elaborated, and its prestige. These factors operate in particular periods of history, thus a language may vary regarding its “smallness” or “largeness.” The notion of a small or large language is relative: with respect to a particular language, a language may be small and with respect to a different language, the same language may be large. Given that the areas where these languages are spoken border on each other and “semicommunication” (Haugen 1966) between their speakers is possible, the large languages influence the small ones. A large language penetrates the communicative domains of a small language or even its structure, especially in terms of vocabulary. The legal equality of small and large languages cannot stop these processes, as it works to the benefit of large languages simply due to their “largeness.” Actual equality may be guaranteed by compensatory measures to the detriment of large languages. This article also further develops Language Management Theory, particularly its power dimension. Another characteristic of this approach is its focus on the reflexivity of linguists' work — the descriptions of language situations produced by linguists are viewed as an essential part of the language situations themselves.

Edward Breza, Herausgeber/editor: Najnowsze dzieje języków słowiańskich. Kaszubszczyzna/Kaszëbizna [Moderne Geschichte der slawischen Sprachen. Kaschubisch / Modern history of the Slavic languages. Kashubian]. Opole: Uniwersytet Opolski, Institut Filologii Polskiej, 2001. 244 pp. ISBN 83-86881-30-5. (Hauke Bartels)