If costs are a concern one could argue that all these countries shouldn’t have things translated into their national languages either. Especially when another official language could do the job. While we are at it, might as well tell the Scandinavian EU members to just learn German. The Baltic countries could just agree on one language. What is up with Slovakia, Slovenia and Czech Republic anyways. Just merge and agree on one language duuh…
Political factors are also a major consideration. France, for instance, has a national policy against the recognition of domestic minority languages like Basque, Breton and Corsican.
I think this is more of the real concern here.
While Belgium, Cyprus, Portugal, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia supported granting EU recognition to the Spain’s additional official languages, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany and Sweden backed Italy’s demands for “further clarity on the costs and legal implications of the move.”
Belgium needs to balance Flanders and Wallonia. Cyprus has its Greek-Turkish situation with Armenians and Maronites in the mix. I think there is some Slovakia vs. Czech Republic beef from the separation of Czechoslovakia involved…
Bavarian is not a language but a dialect (group), same as Alamanian. Reason being that they do have a common Dachsprache (Standard German) that is of the same language group (High German).
Contrast to Norwegian and Swedish which are more closely related than Bavarian is to Alamanian, but do not have a Dachsprache they could be dialect of, thus they’re languages. Then there’s Low Saxon which does share a Dachsprache with Bavarian and Alamanian (unless it uses Dutch as Dachsprache), but is more closely related to English than to Standard German.
In short: If you want to be more than a dialect you have to stop speaking Standard.
Catalan is recognized as a language. For Bavarian it is contested and the majority of scholars consider it a dialect rather than language
Bavarian is commonly considered to be a dialect of German,[6][7][8] but some sources classify it as a separate language: the International Organization for Standardization has assigned a unique ISO 639-3 language code (bar),[9] and the UNESCO lists Bavarian in the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger since 2009; however, the classification of Bavarian as an individual language has been criticized by some scholars of Bavarian.[10][11]
Reasons why Bavarian can be viewed as a dialect of German include the perception of its speakers, the lack of standardization, the traditional use of Standard German as a roofing language, the relative closeness to German which does not justify Bavarian to be viewed as an abstand language, or the fact that no country applied for Bavarian to be entered into the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.[12][13]
However if Bavaria would pay for it, i wouldn’t mind them having EU documents translated too. However i doubt that they would want that, as their own laws are written in standards German and they would have to teach their entire legal system to also be able to read and write in Bavarian. This would be quite hilarious as the Bavarians would fail in their own supposed language, showing that the 12 million speakers are more casual dialect speakers instead of actually proficient in what is supposed to bei “their” language.
Is Bavarian an official language of Bavaria? Are children taught in Bavarian most of their classes, are laws published in Bavarian, are movies released in Bavarian?
It also seems like children aren’t taught in school in Bavarian, which makes quite a difference about passing the language to the newer generations and people who don’t speak it at home.
I’m not saying that the number of speakers isn’t a good reason, more that different languages are used in different context. Someone in Catalunya could live their own lives only in Catalan. Not sure if that’s possible with Bavarian in Bavaria.
I’m not saying that the number of speakers isn’t a good reason
No I’m saying the number of speakers ALONE isn’t a good reason and you listing a myriad of reasons beyond just the number of speakers that you think Bavarian doesn’t fulfill just further proves my point.
why you don’t want to answer my questions about the use of Bavarian
Because I thought they were rhetorical questions, as mentioning Bavaraian in the first place was rhetorical.
I never argued that it should become a recognized EU language, I used it as an example of why a large number of speakers alone is not a good argument.
But since you’re interested:
Is Bavarian an official language of Bavaria? - No the official language in Germany is German.
Are children taught in Bavarian - Official school language is also German but if the teacher and class speak Bavarian they also teach in Bavarian.
are laws published in Bavarian - No, Laws are published in the official language of Germany, German
are movies released in Bavarian? - Yes, movies set in Bavaria often use some form of Bavarian though usually in a way that would still be mostly intelligible to standard German speakers.
Is there a movement in Bavaria to get the language recognized as an EU language? - Afaik not as an EU language but there are various language associations that do fight for more recognition and promotion of Bavarian.
Is Bavarian an official language of Bavaria? Are children taught in Bavarian most of their classes, are laws published in Bavarian, are movies released in Bavarian?
Thank you for your answers. From what you said, and what I can see on the link you provided, the situations for Bavarian and Catalan are quite different.
You mention a few times “German, the official language of Germany”. The main difference is probably that Catalan is an official language of Catalunya. All the other aspects are a consequence of that legal status.
Well, Belgium has three official languages, it just happens to share them with its neighbors. Ireland also has two, Luxembourg three, Malta two…
Also Catalan is spoken as a first language by about 4 million people. That is more than the population of the smallest 8 EU countries.
If costs are a concern one could argue that all these countries shouldn’t have things translated into their national languages either. Especially when another official language could do the job. While we are at it, might as well tell the Scandinavian EU members to just learn German. The Baltic countries could just agree on one language. What is up with Slovakia, Slovenia and Czech Republic anyways. Just merge and agree on one language duuh…
I think this is more of the real concern here.
Belgium needs to balance Flanders and Wallonia. Cyprus has its Greek-Turkish situation with Armenians and Maronites in the mix. I think there is some Slovakia vs. Czech Republic beef from the separation of Czechoslovakia involved…
That alone does not make a good reason. There are 12 million speakers of Bavarian. Should that also become an official EU language?
Ned dass i do wos dagegn häd.
Bavarian is not a language but a dialect (group), same as Alamanian. Reason being that they do have a common Dachsprache (Standard German) that is of the same language group (High German).
Contrast to Norwegian and Swedish which are more closely related than Bavarian is to Alamanian, but do not have a Dachsprache they could be dialect of, thus they’re languages. Then there’s Low Saxon which does share a Dachsprache with Bavarian and Alamanian (unless it uses Dutch as Dachsprache), but is more closely related to English than to Standard German.
In short: If you want to be more than a dialect you have to stop speaking Standard.
Catalan is recognized as a language. For Bavarian it is contested and the majority of scholars consider it a dialect rather than language
However if Bavaria would pay for it, i wouldn’t mind them having EU documents translated too. However i doubt that they would want that, as their own laws are written in standards German and they would have to teach their entire legal system to also be able to read and write in Bavarian. This would be quite hilarious as the Bavarians would fail in their own supposed language, showing that the 12 million speakers are more casual dialect speakers instead of actually proficient in what is supposed to bei “their” language.
Removed by mod
Why not?
Is Bavarian an official language of Bavaria? Are children taught in Bavarian most of their classes, are laws published in Bavarian, are movies released in Bavarian?
All of these are true for Catalan.
So, you’re saying the number of speakers alone is not a good reason?
Is there a movement in Bavaria to get the language recognized as an EU language?
From what I’ve read, Bavarian seems to be mostly used for spoken communication, not written.
The Bavarian wikipedia project has 27k articles: https://bar.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hoamseitn
The Catalan one has 774k: https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portada
There is a TV channel in Catalan (https://www.3cat.cat/tv3/), and several newspapers written in that language (https://www.elnacional.cat/)
I couldn’t find anything similar for Bavarian. https://www.br.de/index.html seems to be in German.
It also seems like children aren’t taught in school in Bavarian, which makes quite a difference about passing the language to the newer generations and people who don’t speak it at home.
I’m not saying that the number of speakers isn’t a good reason, more that different languages are used in different context. Someone in Catalunya could live their own lives only in Catalan. Not sure if that’s possible with Bavarian in Bavaria.
No I’m saying the number of speakers ALONE isn’t a good reason and you listing a myriad of reasons beyond just the number of speakers that you think Bavarian doesn’t fulfill just further proves my point.
Those aspects were already listed in the above comment, so not sure what point you are proving.
Curious why you don’t want to answer my questions about the use of Bavarian, I was genuinely curious about it.
In this comment I originally replied to, where?
Because I thought they were rhetorical questions, as mentioning Bavaraian in the first place was rhetorical.
I never argued that it should become a recognized EU language, I used it as an example of why a large number of speakers alone is not a good argument.
But since you’re interested:
see also: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Austro-Bavarian#Use
I was talking about this comment
Thank you for your answers. From what you said, and what I can see on the link you provided, the situations for Bavarian and Catalan are quite different.
You mention a few times “German, the official language of Germany”. The main difference is probably that Catalan is an official language of Catalunya. All the other aspects are a consequence of that legal status.