La diversità linguistica in Europa. Osservazioni dal punto di vista delle “piccole” lingue
Linguistic diversity in Europe. Observations from the view of “small” languages)

Summary/Abstract: The diversity of cultures and languages in the smallest spaces has always been a special feature of Europe. This diversity is expressed not only in the 36 official state languages in Europe, but also and in particular in at least 69 minority languages. There are 52 titular nations and at least 350 (linguistic) minorities in Europe. This heritage still remains partly unknown or misunderstood, also because in most European states there are no official surveys on the size of minorities and/or the language skills of the population. We are faced with the paradox that most states in Europe recognise the existence of national and linguistic minorities, but fail to survey what is a crucial element in the definition of a minority: the ‘number’.The aim of this article is to provide a rough quantitative overview of the languages spoken in Europe, both majority and minority, and then to trace their development in recent decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall using the States with Romance languages as examples. The sobering result is that autochthonous linguistic diversity in Europe is on the decline. But this is not a ‘natural law’, without exception: there are also growing minority communities. The good practices implemented in the Ladin minority in South Tyrol (Italy) reveal e.g. some sociolinguistic framework that allow communities to behave differently from the most and thus contribute to the strengthening of Europe’s linguistic and cultural diversity.

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