Ethnolinguistic Revitalization: Theory and Practical Application
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Ethnolinguistic Revitalization: Theory and Practical Application Leoš Šatava ABSTRACT: In the past decades, the study of ethnolinguistic revitalization has become an important subfield on the border between ethnology/social anthropology and sociolinguistics. In two main blocks of the text, the author focuses on both aspects of the mentioned issue— theoretical and practical. Current trends in the field of ethnolinguistic assimilation and revitalization are briefly presented at the theorizing level of the work. The question of whether ethnolinguistic revitalization efforts are acloistered scholars’ vision or anatural phenomenon is analyzed and interpreted in detail; partial conclusions are also outlined. The level of practical dealings focuses primarily on the phenomenon of new speakers as asignificant current sociolinguistic phenomenon. Three Central European cases (the Sorbs, the Wilamowiceans and the Huncokár Germans) are presented in more detail. The given data are also linked to the Europe-wide context. In conclusion, asynthesizing summary of the above-mentioned thematic levels and data of the topic under discussion is presented. KEYWORDS: Ethnolinguistic assimilation/revitalization: current trends; theory and practice; new speakers; Central Europe; connecting the topic. 1. THEORETICAL LEVEL 1.1 LINGUISTIC ASSIMILATION/REVITALIZATION: CURRENT TRENDS Although (ethno)linguistic assimilation may be traced and documented far into the past, in the second half of the 20th century, however, the trend of language and ethnic assimilation greatly expanded and accelerated. The phenomenon of language shift (Fishman 1964), i.e. breaking the intergenerational transmission of the language to younger generations, can, therefore, be observed in numerous places all over the world at present. Currently, the number of living languages (especially in the context of globalizing processes) is fast decreasing; assimilation tendencies intensely affect even the remotest corners of the world, and their speed is astonishingly high. About one fifth of the approximately 6,000–7,000 still existing languages of the world are in the last phase of their existence and another approximately 50–70 per cent is today seriously threatened with extinction due to the fact that the language is not transmitted to the children any longer. Extreme estimates claim that by 2100 there will have survived less than 1,000 living languages on Earth (Krauss 1998: 103–106). Consequently, it means an unprecedented impoverishment of the linguistic soundscape. OPEN ACCESS
10 STUDIA ETHNOLOGICA PRAGENSIA 2/2023 Despite the obviousness and growing urgency of the endangerment and extinction of alarge majority of languages, however, decisive works or collections dealing with the given topic appear only as late as the early 1990s (Robins— Uhlenbeck 1991; Hale et al. 1992); especially apaper by the American linguist M.Krauss in Language (Krauss 1992) started aperiod of heightened awareness of reality. (Socio)linguists and subsequently also representatives of other social sciences and humanities, therefore, are paying great attention to the language shift and fast impoverishing of the scale of the languages of the world today; often even calling to arms (Crystal 2000; Dalby 2003; Dixon 1997; Grenoble— Whaley 1998; Nettle— Romaine 1999; Romaine 2015). The topic is also dealt with in essays (Abley 2005; Gauß 2001; Harrison 2007; Harrison 2010); practical guides on the protection and revitalization of languages are also increasingly common (Hinton— Hale 2001; Hinton 2013; Grenoble— Whaley 2006; Olko— Wicherkiewicz 2016; Tsunoda 2006). The diversity and variability of ethnicities, languages, and cultures are now increasingly understood and conceived as the cultural heritage of humanity; hyperbolically said as part of “environmental ecology” (Zima 2002) or “(bio)diversity” (Maffi 2001; Middleton 2003). Endangered minority languages are now thoroughly registered (database Ethnologue 2023; Encyclopedia of the World’s Endangered Languages 2007 and others). In recent times, the above issues are increasingly transferring into the sphere of the Internet— see e.g., websites of many projects (UNESCO ad hoc expert group 2003; Moseley 2010; Campbell 2012; Dwyer 2011). These facts have gradually been reflected not only in professional publications but due to the close interconnection of the language and the ethnic phenomenon, they have also showed in connection with the generally increasing interest in national and minority issues, human rights issues, and various activities in this field. More than half acentury has passed since the 1960s, the beginning of the era of ethnic revival in many Western European countries and the US. During this time, much has changed with regard to the endeavors and revitalization of small ethnic groups, national minorities and their languages in Europe and on other continents, both in the field of theory or legislation and practical aspects. Specific problems of minority groups (of course not only ethnic ones) have begun to be viewed— at least in democratic parts of the world— with greater understanding. Activities of the international community have led to the guaranteeing of fundamental rights of ethnic minority groups— see The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities adopted by the Council of Europe of 1994. Minority languages and cultures have also begun to be seen in anew light— the attitude to these groups as „disrupting public order“ has gradually shifted, going through the development of “alanguage as aright”, to today’s attitude to these groups as “cultural riches of mankind” (Hale 1992: 1–3; Our creative diversity… 1995/96; Šatava 2009: 66). It is also evidenced by the entering into force of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1992. Simultaneously, many institutions and organizations were set up to bring together ethnic minority groups and support their cultural efforts. From the position of advocates of preserving ethnic and linguistic diversity all these can be seen— as apositive developmental step.1 1 It is, however, afact that positive discrimination of linguistic/ethnic minority groups seldom meets with positive resonance from the majority population. OPEN ACCESS
LEOŠ ŠATAVA 11 On the other side of the coin, however, there are “practical” outcomes of the above trends. To what extent are the given documents only “paragraphs on paper” and to what extent are they sincerely intended programmes and efforts? To what extent were they or have they really been instrumental in standing up to the assimilation of languages and cultures? Atruly qualified analysis of these facts as well as prognoses of further development are rare to come across. Yet it is beyond dispute that the ensuing atmosphere has theoretically (and in many instances also practically) increased the chances of threatened, assimilating ethnic and language groups to survive. This fact (quantitatively, qualitatively, or even symbolically) was also reflected in professional ethnological, sociolinguistic and other social science texts. Since 1991, when Reversing Language Shift, the pivotal text of the doyen of sociolinguistics Joshua A.Fishman, subheaded as Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages (Fishman 1991) was published, themes of revitalization have become highly frequented, analysed and interpreted. This is evidenced by the fact that adecade later, the same scholar (as editor) could follow up on this work with acertain summary of the achieved results (Fishman 2001). It is obvious that we can hardly arrive at aclear-cut, unambiguous answer to the following questions: “How can assimilation processes be successfully resisted? How to halt the language shift among speakers of the threatened languages? How to get language revitalization started? What arguments could be used in order to account for these processes?” Cultural, political and demographic conditions, varying degrees of self-delimitation, emancipation and vitality— all these factors make it impossible to find a“universal cure” for problems of small, assimilating ethnic groups and languages. Yet, it is our opinion that acomparative exchange of experience in this field is not apointless matter but rather ahighly valuable venture. Though it goes without saying that all experiences, successful models, and programmes cannot be simply and easily transferred, some may provide stimuli to set an adequate movement in adifferent ethnic and linguistic territory in motion. Still, it should be pointed out that many aspects of contemporary (ethno)linguistic policy (Spolsky 2004) are also criticized— inter alia in the context of Bourdieu’s views of language practices and management as ideological manifestations stuck in contexts of dominance and subordination (García 2012: 85). One can also mention the dilemma of whether activities in the field of language revitalization may be too “linguocentric”— i.e. neglecting other social, economic or cultural aspects of life (Spolsky 2004: ix— x, 215–216). Why is it desirable to try to decelerate and stop ethnic or language assimilation? When can we speak about “anatural will of the ethnic group to be its own master” and where does the man-made construct, i.e., the ethnic engineering begin? These are some of the heretical questions to which hardly any simple answers exist (Grenoble— Whaley 2006: 19–20). Those who class ethnic consciousness as an atavistic residue which is apotential source of xenophobia and who consider attempts for the language to survive as an absurd waste of powers, tend to reduce human existence to one aspect only: to merely the pragmatic point of view. OPEN ACCESS
12 STUDIA ETHNOLOGICA PRAGENSIA 2/2023 Life, however, is far more complex. Human existence is characterized not only by the practical and the pragmatic. In J.Fishman’s words: “Material and materialistic beings though we be, we still have not totally lost neither the capacity nor the need to live for ideals, for loved ones, for collective goals. It is via the primary sociocultural institutions that language is first related to the verities that make life worth living …” (Fishman 1989: 397)2 In the introduction to the Reversing Language Shift, J.Fishman says that he took up the topic of revitalization because of, among other reasons, asense of debt— an effort not to write only about the assimilation (language shift leading to the death of alanguage) but also about how to face it (Fishman 1991: xii–xiii). Efforts at survival and further development of small ethnic and language communities should be viewed in the context of the general form of human well-being, of ecological activities, and of the struggle for an individual element in today’s globalizing world. It is, however, necessary to stress the fact that an excessive emphasis on the technology aspect of the functioning of the present–day civilization pushes the primordial, archetypal dimension of human culture to the background. It is just the attention paid to seemingly “impractical”, “outdated” and “local” phenomena which can be effective as adesirable counter current or, if we wish, as akind of “psychotherapy”. The facts above were perceived (only in aseemingly absurd or self-contradictory way) by Benedict Anderson, one of the “founding fathers” of the approach to ethnic consciousness as aman-made construct. In his (now classic) book Imagined Communities, he has the following to say: “… it is doubtful, whether either social change or transformed consciousness, in themselves, do much to explain the attachment that peoples feel for the inventions of their imaginations— or /…/ why peoples are ready to die for these inventions” (Anderson 1983: 129) And further he writes: “In an age, when it is so common for progressive, cosmopolitan intellectuals (particularly in Europe?) to insist on the near-pathological character of nationalism [i.e., in the neutral meaning of the word— L.Š.], its roots in fear and hatred of the Other, and its affinities with racism, it is useful to remind, that nations inspire love, and often profoundly self-sacrifying love. The cultural products of nationalism— poetry, prose fiction, music, plastic arts— show this love very clearly in thousands of different forms and styles” (Anderson 1983: 129). It should be noted, however, that even the chorus of those dealing with endangered small languages is not monophonous. Even the greatest enthusiast must admit that it is practically impossible to save, and even (socio)linguistically capture and describe all currently living languages or their distinctive sub-variants (Dixon 1991: 230). 2 Nevertheless, more recently Fishman’s theses on language revitalization became subject to criticism (J.Darquennes, G.Williams), namely for his allegedly too unilaterally evolutionist concepts of social change and the importance of the local factors, by underestimating the effects of economic factors or globalization and not reflecting current social theories (Nekvapil— Vasiljev 2008: 295–296, 298). OPEN ACCESS
LEOŠ ŠATAVA 13 1.2 ETHNOLINGUISTIC REVITALIZATION— ACLOISTERED SCHOLARS’ VISION OR ANATURAL PHENOMENON? However, the perception of linguistic diversity as something of value can also be seen as adistinctive ideological prism of “Western” civilization within the intentions of Sapir-Whorf’s language hypothesis as aspecific “vision of reality”. Paradoxically, however, spokespersons of the extinct languages themselves often do not perceive their loss as so painfully as linguists or other sympathizers of cultural diversity (Muehlmann 2012: 164–166; Yamamoto 1998). However, it is clear that in the process of ethnolinguistic persistence (despite the general importance of effective assistance from outside), the actors themselves have amajor role to play. Without their active involvement, therefore, efforts in the revitalization field can be described as “permanently inflating apunctured tire” (Fishman 1991: xii). This is one of the reasons why revitalization efforts and appeals coming from outside are sometimes referred to as paternalism (Ladefoged 1992: 810). Even among linguists themselves, we occasionally encounter crude “coarsegrained heresies”— fundamental doubts about the meaning of preserving language with alimited number of speakers and scant practical communication opportunity, or the withholding of links between language and culture (Malik 2000). In the case of artificially maintaining endangered languages by means of “transplants, respirators and respiratory tract”, it would even be possible to consider the benefits of “linguistic euthanasia” (Matisoff 1991: 221)! According to this view, languages and ethnic communities in human history have always disappeared and new ones have been established; moreover, new cultural forms are not necessarily based on language or ethnicity (Ladefoged 1992: 810). “From apractical economic point of view, it can be much more advantageous for ayoung person who comes from an endangered speech community to acquire mastery of amore robust language as early as possible, preferably the language of the majority culture …” (Matisoff 1991: 221). In these opinions, each human being has a“fundamental right of self-determination, and the free choice of abandoning one’s own language” (Brenzinger— Heine— Sommer 1991: 41). However, these opinions also meet with well-founded counter-arguments, commentaries and criticism (Mętrak 2018). In this context, asignificant objection is that the “free choice” of language choice is doubtful in the precarious conditions of the lives of disadvantaged minorities; language is often “thrown overboard” as acondition of social and economic rise (Dorian 1994: 801; cf. Dorian 1993).3 In connection with the question of whether ethnicity and its main feature, language, is something really so valuable, we could list anumber of other, often contradictory, opinions and theses. Certainly, the coexistence and blending of ethnic communities and their cultures probably mark the way that agreat part of humanity will take in the future because of intermingling and globalization. At the same time, the cultural boundaries will often weaken or disappear completely. The 3 Dorian 1981 is considered amodel study in the field in investigations into language extinction processes. OPEN ACCESS
14 STUDIA ETHNOLOGICA PRAGENSIA 2/2023 logical consequence of bi– or multiculturalism is thus an increased permeability, fading or total loss of the ethno-differentiating boundary. It is also worth mentioning atopic only rarely discussed recently, namely “the right not to have aspecific (usually ethnic) identity” (Eriksen 2001: 135), which, due to the widely recognized right to (ethnic) identity, is difficult to implement. If, however, an ethnic group completely abandons its own self-delineation, it will, at best, turn into a“hobby group” of people interested in language and tradition, like cultural or sports associations. Such developments may, of course, be entirely natural, legitimate, or even desirable— but there are major consequences to be expected regarding the persistence of the “primordial”‘ form of ethnicity or language. In this context, “… it seems that the loss of linguistic diversity results less from linguistic genocide than from linguistic suicide.” (Spolsky 2004: 216). Thus, in the process of ethnic and language survival the partakers themselves play the major role. In this respect Howard Giles and his colleagues launched the theory of “ethnolinguistic vitality” (further developed by their followers— Ehala 2010; Yagmur— Ehala 2011), which documents varying conditions and beginning situations in the process of language planning. Obviously, if we wish to achieve success in the field of reversing language shift, certain basic conditions must be met. Neither the best of laws nor apolicy well disposed to the minority group can be successful where sufficient will to survive as an individual ethnic community using an individual language is missing. First of all, it is the matter of securing what J.Fishman calls “immediate protection of the intimate intergenerational language transmission context”. Without this context, all efforts in the field of revitalization are then “… equivalent to constantly blowing air into atire that has apuncture.” (Fishman 1991: xii) For the initiatives in this field it is still valid that they: “…. cannot be supplied from the outside. They are to be had from within the social web of the community itself or not at all. For this reason it is extraordinarily difficult for even the most sympathetic outsiders to provide useful support for endangered small languages, most especially for non-European small languages wihin aEuro-American sphere of influence. Moral support and technical expertise, including linguistic expertise, can and should be offered, certainly, but acceptance or rejection will necessarily lie with individual communities. Even in the event of acceptance, effective leadership can only come from inside the community.” (Dorian 1998: 21) The argument returns to the confirmation of the significance of the local, of the small scale or of the face to face community life, which is, to acertain degree, capable of ensuring the indispensable intergenerational context in the intimate sphere (Fishman 1991: xii, 6). Vitality of small, often dispersed populations and communities can, in this respect, be incredibly strong and long-lasting. It is confirmed not only by, e.g., the Jewish or Armenian diasporas, but often also by small groups, like the North Frisian population (2 000 –3 000 speakers) of the isle of Föhr and their language fering (Paulsen 1980: 185–186). It is no coincidence that many of the current revitalization efforts and models are deliberately returning from global efforts to the community level (Williams— Evas OPEN ACCESS
LEOŠ ŠATAVA 15 1997).4 Basic provisions and declared rights do not often reach or are hardly of interest to common people— minor victories in the field of “community-fostering experience of acommon struggle on behalf of ashared verity” (Fishman 1991: xi) are also achance for gaining positions at amore general level. We could name anumber of cases of successful revitalization efforts in the ethnic and language field in the 20th century, especially in the last two or three decades.5 In the European context we can mention for example Catalonia, the Basque Country and Wales; as well as the Scottish Gaels or the Sámi in Scandinavia; in part also Bretons, Sorbs and other minority ethnic groups. At least partially successful ethnolinguistic revitalization has been carried out, including “first aid to endangered languages”, (Huss 1996)— even for some users of very small populations— for example the Norwegian Lule-Sámi of 1,500 people (Huss 1999: 142–145). As for the other continents, there are successes in the preservation and development of French in Canada or the revival of the language of the native Maori in New Zealand, Polynesian in the Hawaiian Islands and other Pacific languages, as well as some American Indian languages in the US, Canada and Latin America. Arevival of ethnic consciousness and, in part, of language also occurred among the inhabitants of northern Japan— the Ainu or among some groups of Australian natives. The territory of the former Soviet Union is also aplace where increased ethnolinguistic revitalization efforts have been recorded in the last decade. Intensifying activities bringing some results already can be observed not only within large ethnic groups such as the Tatars, but also in smaller populations such as the Turkic Gagauz in Moldova, the Volga Kalmyks or some Siberian ethnic groups, for example Yakuts and Evenks. The scope and effect of these activities apparently differ from case to case, and it is true that one may also give some disputable examples.6 Similarly, the fact that in some cases ethnolinguistic revitalization is successful (Walsh 2010) has not been fully analysed and interpreted yet; in other cases it has been done only partially or not at all (Gorenburg 2005). With some simplification, however, it can be claimed that favorable results of revitalization correlate directly with the extent to which the system of legal regulations, implementing provisions, or incentives works within the framework of language planning and language policy, and the extent to which such measures are binding and enforceable. Without afundamental change in this field, the slogans about policy of “full bilingualism” will necessarily remain but an impressive platitude. 4 In connection with an active policy of bilingualism, the idea of “language animateurs” is being implemented in Wales— these are people who stimulate and support bilingualism at the local level of life, in offices and elsewhere (Williams— Evas 1997: 51). 5 At this point it is necessary to recall over acentury old impressive precedent performance of the “linguistic revival”, which was the restoration of Hebrew as the language of the everyday communication of the Jewish population in the Middle East. 6 E.g., Cornish on the Cornwall peninsula in the UK. OPEN ACCESS
16 STUDIA ETHNOLOGICA PRAGENSIA 2/2023 2. THE LEVEL OF PRACTICAL DEALINGS 2.1 NEW SPEAKERS AS ACURRENT SOCIOLINGUISTIC PHENOMENON In the previous text it has already been stated that in the last decades of the 20th century, and especially since the turn of the 1990s, linguists and sociolinguists in particular took an increasing interest in the language assimilation and gradual disappearing of numerous world languages (Krauss 1992; Crystal 2000; Nettle— Romaine 2000; Brenzinger 2007; Austin— Sallabank 2011; Lewis— Simons 2013; Romaine 2015). Next to the description and analysis of these phenomena, acounter-current started to emerge, gradually bringing to the fore more significant, ambitious and sophisticated efforts at (ethno)linguistic revitalization considered not only as anarrow research specialisation but also as apractical and activist endeavours. In this field Joshua Fishman (Fishman 1991, 2001) became aperson of distinction; anumber of his concepts and models in the area of revitalization, e.g. reversing language shift/RLS, became commonly known, and inspired agreat many followers (Hinton— Hale 2001; Grenoble— Whaley 2006). Many ethnic groups in Europe (e.g. the Catalans, Basques, Welsh, Sámi and others) and other continents (the Maori, some Native American ethnic groups and others) succeeded in halting or at least slowing down language and ethnic assimilation. In spite of the given successful cases in the field of revitalization and despite the fact that the official social climate of the last decades has been favourably inclined towards the minority populations, ethnolinguistic assimilation has continued in many places. Minority population vitality has grown weaker and weaker. Simultaneously, however, in several regions language revitalization activities have given rise to anew phenomenon— significant groups of new speakers (Christmas et al. 2018; Šatava 2018a). Until recently, the return of an endangered language back to the level of intergenerational, handover like transfer in the home and family milieu (native speakers) was considered an obvious and desired goal of language revitalization.7 Although this model is still taken as the most effective or ideal one, the new, considerably altered situation cannot be ignored. Within many minority communities in Europe, there are currently groups of people (often large ones) who did not acquired knowledge of the language as part of socialization within the family but did so as part of school instruction or even as adults in the system of (immersion) education, in the form of language courses (often even online ones), as enthusiastic self-learners, and so on.8 7 See the eight-point scale of the GIDS— Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (Fishman 2001: 466); cf. the innovated ten-point scale of the EGIDS— Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (Lewis— Simons 2010: 11–15). The material by UNESCO group of experts refers to the theme in detail (Brenzinger et al. 2003). 8 An individual group consists of novices recruiting from among semi-speakers or rememberers— persons with only apartial or very limited knowledge of the traditional language striving to learn it. This level of language teaching qualitatively differs very much from the standard foreign language learning (Armstrong 2013). OPEN ACCESS
LEOŠ ŠATAVA 17 While only afew decades ago it was amarginal and largely ignored issue, the significance of the phenomenon of new speakers is now growing. The causes of the given reality lie in both the continuing language shift in many parts of the world (i.e. the trend of not passing the minority language on to younger generations) and changes in the existing established approaches to the phenomenon of ethnicity, often defined mainly on alinguistic basis. More recently, in many places the sharp inter-ethnic and inter-lingual boundaries are increasingly intertlinked. Anew dichotomous profiling is in progress: not only along the traditional majority versus minority line, but also among the minority language speakers themselves— traditional versus new users of the language. The traditional question of whether or to what extent language implies ethnicity emerges once again in anew form. The increasing importance of new speakers (frequently dynamic and activist) has since about the turn of the 21st century, grown so significant that at present this issue is an important and closely studied branch of ethnolinguistic revitalization (Hornsby 2015; O’Rourke— Pujolar— Ramallo 2015: 1–20). Most recently works aspiring to be compendia of the state-of-the arts of concern for this young branch of sociolinguistics are being published (Smith-Christmas et al. 2018). 2.2 NEW SPEAKERS— THREE CENTRAL EUROPEAN CASES Especially in the last decade, the phenomenon of new speakers has become asubject of increased interest in sociolinguistics and other social sciences. However, the territorial focus of experts’ interest is somewhat uneven. Significant attention has been paid to some (minority) languages in anumber of Western European countries— particularly Breton, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Irish, Basque, Galician, Catalan, Occitan or Guernesiais (Puigdevall 2014; Smith-Christmas et al. 2018). Looking closer, however, the situation is different in Central and Eastern European countries. With thew exception of Poland (Olko— Wicherkiewicz— Borges 2016: 17–149), the concern of social sciences and humanities with new speakers in the region, and with the practical level of this phenomenon, is still rather in its infancy. Nevertheless, taking some of these cases as examples can show and document that interest in these issues (especially in relation to specific situations) has gradually been increasing in Central and Eastern Europe. The following three micro case studies are intended to indicate some trends that can be encountered in the area today. At the same time, they can also be used as basic material for further comparison. 2.2.1 THE SORBS Lusatia, ahistoric region in eastern Germany, is homeland to the small Slavic ethnic group— the Sorbs. To an extent, they still speak in two close Slavonic languages— Upper Sorbian (ca 12,000–15,000 speakers) and Lower Sorbian (ca 1,000–2,000 users). Even in the past, both distant and more recent (20th century), there were in Lusatia anumber of (qualitatively very distinct) examples of new speakers of Sorbian. The same is true for the children of Silesian Germans moved to predominantly SorOPEN ACCESS
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26 STUDIA ETHNOLOGICA PRAGENSIA 2/2023 YAMAMOTO, Akira Y. (1998): Linguists and endangered language communities: issues and approaches. In: MATSUMURA, Kazuto (ed.). Studies in endangered languages. Papers from the International Symposium on Endangered Languages, Tokyo 1995, November 18–20, ICHEL Linguistic Studies 1. Tokyo: Hituji Syobo: 231–252. ZIMA, Petr (2002). Ekolingvistika. Jazyky jako organizmy žijící prostřednictvím svých uživatelů. Vesmír, 81 (1): 45–47. Leoš Šatava, prof., PhDr., CSc. (* 1954) works at ethnological departments of universities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Charles University, Prague; University of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Trnava). In the years 1996–2001 he was aresearcher at the Sorbian Institute in Bautzen/Budyšin, Germany. He focuses mainly on the issue of ethnicity— especially in connection with minority populations (encyclopedic handbook Národnostní menšiny vEvropě, Prague 1994). He also deals with sociolinguistic research as part of efforts to revitalize minority languages and ethnic consciousness (Jazyk aidentita etnických menšin, Prague 2009). The key professional outputs of research in Lusatia are the monograph Sprachverhalten und ethnische Identität, Bautzen 2005 and the collective work of Lužičtí Srbové na přelomu 20./21.století, Prague 2020. The author’s most recent work is dedicated to the stateless populations and regional languages of the European continent (Etnika bez státu aregionální jazyky vEvropě, Prague 2022). OPEN ACCESS