Języki regionalne: zagrożenie czy umocnienie polskiej wspólnoty językowej?
Regional Languages: A Threat or a Chance for Strengthening the Polish Language Community?

Summary/Abstract: Gerd Hentschel’s essay concerns the concept of the linguistic community. Hentschel shows that in both political and scholarly discussions, this concept is used unreflectively and its meaning lacks scientific clarity. When this happens, this concept is treated, subconsciously or consciously, as synonymous with that of the national community. This approach belongs to Leo Weisgerber’s tradition and its concepts – which today seem vague – such as the spirit of language and the worldview of language, which provide an ideological framework for distinguishing one linguistic and national community from another. In the Europe of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these concepts should not be seen in a decidedly negative light. Thus, it is enough to compare the diversity of today’s European geopolitical landscape with the situation after the Congress of Vienna. On the other hand, such concepts can also be seen as an obstacle to the linguistic emancipation of national languages. Dialects are initially only linguistic constructs, which are accorded the dialect status on account of them having certain structural features. Sometimes, however, speakers of different dialects see themselves and their group as something larger, namely, as a linguistic or ethnic community, which is usually based on specific historical, social and cultural events and circumstances. Against this background, Hentschel’s essay is an attempt to construct a non-exclusive concept of linguistic community, i.e., one in which a large linguistic community accepts various smaller ones and in which individuals can belong to more than one without a conflict of loyalty.

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