Mehrsprachigkeit in Europa: Plurilinguismo in Europa ... - EURAC

Giovanni Poggeschi
Greece and Turkey), but also from the mere juridical point of view the protection of linguistic
diversity is a rather new trend (whether it is effective or not, is another story, but at least we
can say that in the legislation of most European countries a certain degree of linguistic minority
protection is assured).
The fi rst Constitution which mentioned the linguistic factor is the Belgian one from 1831, where
the Article 30 named Choice of Languages states that
“The use of languages current in Belgium is optional; only the law can rule on this matter,
and only for acts of the public authorities and for legal matters”.
It can be interesting to observe that so far Belgium which is a federal State with complete
cultural autonomy for its Communities (French, Flemish and Germans) has not ratifi ed the
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), after having signed
it in 2001 (Lemmens – Alen - De Witte – Verstichel: 2006), and that it has not even signed the
Charter for Regional and Minority Languages that dates back to 1992.
Coming to the Constitutions of the four States taken in consideration in this paper, all of
them mention languages, and only the Italian one (which puts at Article 3 language as criteria
of non discrimination) mentions linguistic minorities, in Article 6:
“The republic protects linguistic minorities by special laws”.
The Spanish Constitution with Article 3 has one of the most detailed frames of linguistic
protection of diversity, while the French Constitution just protects the French language through
Article 2. They say:
“1. Castilian is the offi cial Spanish language of the State. All Spaniards have the duty to
know it and the right to use it.
2. The other Spanish languages shall also be offi cial in the respective Autonomous
Communities in accordance with their Statutes.
3. The wealth of the different language variations of Spain is a cultural heritage which
shall be the object of special respect and protection”.
“The language of the Republic is French”
Article 14 of the Spanish Constitution about the principle of non discrimination does not
mention any language. This could seem strange, because language is a feature which receives
much care in Spain. The reason is the following: not being mentioned, the Spanish language
can be an aim of positive actions which otherwise would be hard to justify. This means that
a language policy about the strengthening of a regional language is easier without the duties
towards the majority languages which could be consequence of the inclusion of language among
the criteria of non discrimination (Milian Massana 1991: 79).
In the Greek Constitution, which underwent a very deep revision in 2001, the language is
mentioned in just two provisions: in Article 5, which is about the clause of non-discrimination;
and in Article 3, which is a very peculiar provision about the leading role of the Orthodox Church
in Greece: we will see that the religious factor is also decisive in assessing a minority protection
in the countries concerned by the Treaty of Lausanne (Bernardini d’Arnesano 2004).
“The text of the Holy Scripture shall be maintained unaltered. Offi cial translation of the
text into any other form of language, without prior sanction by the Autocephalous Church
of Greece and the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople, is prohibited”.
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