The Case Of Basque: Past, Present And Future

摘要

This volume is a companion to an issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language (2005:174) devoted to Basque. It comprises eight chapters, whose themes range from the history of the Basque language (Erize) to the role of minority language policies within the EU (Breizi-gar). The book has an applied emphasis, with very good discussions of corpus planning (Urkizu), the normalisation of Basque (Mendiguren and Inigo) and -models of the factors relevant to increased language use (de Luna, Isasi and Altuna). Throughout the volume, I detect a note of guarded optimism regarding the success of interventionist language planning. The Basque language planning framework has established a strong statutory underpinning for policy measures; how this plays out within the economy (Zen-doia) and within political and civil society is the subject of a mature set of reflections by Hernandez, Olaso and de Luna. However, creating opportunity is one thing, arid implementing language reforms is quite another, as it is subject to great variation in interpretation and application by regional and local governmental agencies or, in Spain, by agencies under the control of statewide government. Building capacity so as to implement government plans often lags behind the declaration of rights - yet if such rights are to be fully honoured, significant training in language awareness and investment in improving language and organisational skills must be instituted.