La diversitat lingüística dialoga amb l'autonomia: exploració de les relacions entre l'autonomia i l'educació en llengües minoritàries

AutorJosé María Arraiza
CargoPhD Åbo Akademi University
Páginas105-123
LANGUAGE DIVERSITY SPEAKING TO AUTONOMY: EXPLORING THE RELATIONS
BETWEEN AUTONOMY AND MINORITY LANGUAGE EDUCATION
José María Arraiza*
Abstract
This article explores the models through which political autonomy and language diversity relate to each other. Hence,
it constitutes an approximation to the relation between different forms of autonomy (territorial, non-territorial) and
educational models which separate or bring together students with different linguistic backgrounds (through immersion
policies). It reects on two longstanding notions: the imagination of a homeland and that of the mother tongue (where
language is the essence of a particular group). It uses four parameters: the principles of territoriality and personality
concerning autonomy and language rights on one hand (understanding territoriality as a geographically-dened regime
and not as a mono-lingual policy) and the principles of separation and (dual or two-way) immersion concerning public
language education policy on the other. Following the idea that contact between different ethnic groups promotes
integration, it advocates for dual immersion-based educational systems which promote integration with due respect to
the linguistic rights and national, ethnic or linguistic identity of both minority and (relative) majority students.
Todas las teorías son legítimas y ninguna tiene importancia.
Lo que importa es lo que se hace con ellas.
Jorge Luis Borges
Keywords: autonomy; language rights; minority rights.
LA DIVERSITAT LINGÜÍSTICA DIALOGA AMB L’AUTONOMIA. L’EXPLORACIÓ DE LES
RELACIONS ENTRE L’AUTONOMIA I L’EDUCACIÓ EN LLENGÜES MINORITÀRIES
Abstract
Aquest article explora els models a través dels quals es relacionen l’autonomia política i la diversitat lingüística.
Per tant, constitueix una aproximació a la relació entre diferents formes d’autonomia (territorial, no territorial) i
els models educatius que separen o uneixen estudiants amb diferents passats lingüístics (a través de polítiques
d’immersió). Reecteix dos conceptes de llarg recorregut: la imaginació d’una pàtria (homeland) i la de la llengua
materna (on l’idioma és l’essència d’un grup determinat). Es fan servir quatre paràmetres: d’una banda, els principis
de territorialitat i personalitat relatius a l’autonomia i als drets lingüístics i, d’una altra, els principis de separació i
immersió relatius a la política de l’ensenyament públic en matèria de llengües. Seguint la idea que el contacte entre
grups ètnics diferents promou la integració, advoca per sistemes educatius basats en la immersió que promouen la
integració amb el respecte pertinent als drets lingüístics i a la identitat nacional, ètnica o lingüística tant dels estudiants
minoritaris com dels estudiants que constitueixen la majoria (relativa).
Paraules clau: autonomia; drets lingüístics; drets de les minories.
* José María Arraiza, PhD Åbo Akademi University, European Masters Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation (E.MA), LLM
Peace Support Operations (NUI Galway), carraiza@yahoo.es
Article received: 30.06.2016. Review: 19.07.2016. Final version accepted: 09.10.2016.
Recommended citation: ArrAizA, José María. «Language Diversity Speaking to Autonomy: Exploring the Relations between
Autonomy and Minority Language Education», Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of Language and Law, núm. 66, 2016, p. 105-
123. DOI: 10.2436/rld.i66.2016.2840.
José María Arraiza
Language Diversity Speaking to Autonomy: Exploring the Relations ....
Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of Language and Law, núm. 66, 2016 106
Summary
1 Introduction
1.1 Territoriality and personality in relation to language rights
1.2 Territoriality and personality in relation to autonomy
1.3 The individual and the homeland
1.3.1 Personality and territoriality-based group identities
1.4 Immersion and separation in relation to language education
2 A relation between two dichotomies: territoriality/personality and separation/immersion
2.1 Personality and separation
2.2 Territoriality and separation
2.3 Personality and immersion
2.4 Territoriality and immersion
3 Concluding observations
Bibliography
Legislation
Decisions by courts and other bodies
Treaties & agreements
Reports and other documents
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Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of Language and Law, núm. 66, 2016 107
1 Introduction
Most languages include in one way or the other the concept of political autonomy: home rule and self-rule in
English, autonomía in Spanish to give some examples. But how does autonomy understand and comprehend
languages? Autonomy regimes often incorporate linguistic diversity through its legal frameworks. Within
such regimes, language education policy inuences the linguistic make-up of their particular societies.
Language education policies have consequences on the manner in which persons acquire formal education
and a world view as well as in the way individuals and groups relate to public institutions and between
themselves. In turn, the national, ethnic and linguistic diversity of a particular area often implies political
demands for the institutional recognition of linguistic and self-governance rights. The result is an imperfect
circular relation in which language, society and political institutions mutually and continuously shape each
other: linguistic diversity inuences the design of autonomy arrangements and vice-versa.1
What is the role of the law-maker within this relation? As Picasso said: “some painters transform the sun
into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun”. In law-making terms, the legislator may
attempt to capture a linguistic diverse environment into a particular autonomy regime, but at the same time
the resulting legislative form of autonomy will shape society itself and the way individuals understand
themselves. This shaping will primarily take place through the educational system. Within the educational
systems, a crucial decision is necessary in multilingual societies: whether to place all students together in the
same classrooms and schools or to divide them according to their mother tongue or their parents’ choice of
language of instruction. Of course, in many situations linguistic divisions also coincide with geographical
ones, leaving the choice moot. However, it will still necessary to decide whether and how isolated linguistic
communities will be offered the opportunity to learn each other’s language (if at all). In this article, I consider
the policies which separate students in accordance with mother tongue as “separation” and those policies
which bring them together as “immersion”. Another possible term for this second type could be that of
“conjunction”, as used by F. Vila I Moreno to refer to the Catalonian education model and emphasizing
the aim of social integration as well as promoting the use of the (perhaps otherwise declining) Catalonian
language as well as the fact that “immersion” only applies to those students whose mother tongue is not the
rst language used in education.2 However, here I choose “immersion” because this term emphasizes the
linguistic process involving the “other” (rather than its consequences) and also applies to contexts where
regional or minority language promotion is not an issue. Moreover, I understand immersion as a “dual” or
“two-way” process where both the relative minority language speakers and the majority ones learn each
other´s language and culture.3
Students of a particular mother tongue are living either geographically dispersed or concentrated, and
there may be two or more consolidated groups within a territory. Hence, the decision whether to place
them together or not is intimately related to the wider principles of territoriality and personality in political
autonomy. These principles indeed apply both to the making of autonomy arrangements and to language
education policy.
Overall, from a normative perspective, the main legal policy dilemmas in the making of both autonomy
regimes and language education policies consist rst in the choice between the “territoriality principle”
(understood here as dening rights afforded to all the inhabitants of a dened area within a state or political
unit) and the “personality principle” (meaning in this context dening rights which persons belonging to
certain groups enjoy throughout the whole of a political unit or a state’s territory). As Alan Patten describes,
“the principle that citizens should enjoy the same set of language rights no matter where they are in the country
is commonly referred to as the personality principle. The opposing principle, that language rights should vary
1 ARRAIZA, José -María, Making Home Rules for Mother Tongues: The Legal Implications of Linguistic Diversity in the Design of
Autonomy Regimes, Doctoral Dissertation for Åbo Akademi University, Turku: Painosalama Oy, 2015.
2 In immersion systems, students with a particular rst language or mother tongue (L1) are taught in a different language (L2). In the
Catalan case, this happens only in specic cases, because a signicant part of the population, which has Catalan as her L1, is taught
in Catalan. So, the Catalan system is based on linguistic ‘conjunction’ (or non-separation of students) rather than on “immersion”.
VILA I MORENO, F. Xavier, “Escola I promoció de l’ús: el paper del ‘model de conjunció en català”, 11 Llengua I Ús. Barcelona
(1998, Primer Quadrimestre) pp. 65–76, p.66.
3 HOWARD, Elizabeth, SUGARMAN, Julie, PERDOMO, Marleny, ADGER, Carolyn T., The Two Way Immersion Toolkit, The
Education Alliance at Brown University, 2015.
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Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of Language and Law, núm. 66, 2016 108
from region to region according to local conditions is generally labeled the “territoriality principle”. In the
rst principle, language rights follow persons wherever in the state they may choose to live; in the second,
their language rights depend on what part of the territory of the state they nd themselves in”.4 In territorial
regime language rights (not necessarily a monolingual scheme) depend on where a citizen resides, in a
personal regime, language rights strictly follow persons and their choices.5 In this article, I use this broad
approach, understanding territoriality and personality purely as the manner in which the rules are dened.
In this sense, territoriality and personality in both language rights and in political autonomy are similar. The
main difference is that a territorially-differentiated language regime may be established in a given region
through decentralization and without actually devolving an autonomous law-making power to that particular
region (some examples could be the Autonomous Atlantic Regions in Nicaragua, the Autonomous Province
of Vojvodina or the municipalities of Kosovo).6 Leaving this difference aside, the language territoriality
principle (LTP) and the autonomy territoriality principle coincide.
Territoriality and personality concerning language are however often understood as different degrees of
coercion to use one or more languages, where territoriality is equated with a monolingual regime –with
no possible choice for citizens– and personality with a bilingual or pluri-lingual regime – where choice
is possible for citizens–. For example, Phillippe Van Parijs sees territoriality as a “a set of legal rules that
constrain the choice of the languages used for purposes of education and communication” within a given
territory (be it a region or a state). In his understanding, “the notion of a linguistic territoriality regime does
not refer to how much power linguistically distinctive communities are given over linguistically relevant
legislation, but to how constraining or, on the contrary, accommodating public practices are to the linguistic
wishes of the people who happen to live within given borders, irrespective of whether the relevant legislative
authority corresponds to those borders”. For Van Parijs, “in the standard case of a linguistic territoriality
regime, one single language is imposed throughout the country concerned in the various contexts deemed to
be in need of regulation”.7 As Helder De Schutter points out, “the strict and most popular version of the LTP
states that (non-immigrant) languages should be territorially maintained, such that each particular territorial
unit gives public support to only one particular language group”.8 In this manner, territorial coercion may
be used to ensure equality between majority and ) minority languages.9 Denise Réaume follows this stricter
approach and also understands that regulating language use by territory means also requiring people “to
adapt to the language of the place” and tend to favor mono-lingualism.10
These different understandings may lead to different qualications of linguistic regimes. For example,
according to the rst broader approach, territoriality refers to a geographically-dened specic-set of
language rules: a language regime that is determined by the authority that rules over a particular territory
(not necessarily monolingual), and thus Catalonia would follow a territorial approach (applying only within
Catalonia´s territory). According to the second, stricter, approach, territoriality refers to a policy of monolingual
coercion. In such case, Spain proper would be the one following stricto sensu the territorial approach, while
Catalonia by offering more than one linguistic option to its residents would follow a personality principle.
Throughout this text, I follow the rst approach, where territoriality is understood in the wider sense and
means the geographic-specicity of a regime and not the degree of monolingual coercion.
4 PATTEN, Alan. Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundation of Minority Rights. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.
5 PATTEN, Alan, “What Kind of Bilingualism?”, in PATTEN, Alan and KYMLICKA, Will, Language Rights and Political Theory,
Oxford (2003) [e-book version] Chapter 13, para. 5.
6 Arts. 19, 26 and 27, Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Ofcial Gazette of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina,
Nr. 20/2014, 22 May 2014; No. 162, On the Ofcial Use of the Languages of the Communities of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua,
22 June 1993; Kosovo Assembly Law 02-L/37 On the Use of Languages.
7 VAN PARIJS, Phillippe, “The linguistic territoriality principle: right violation or parity of esteem?”, Re-Bel e-book n°11, 2011, p.
11. Available at Http://www.rethinkingbelgium.eu
8 DE SCHUTTER, Helder, “Testing for linguistic injustice: territoriality and pluralism”, Nationalities Papers. Vol. 42 (6) (2014) pp.
1034–1052, p.1034.
9 IVES, Peter, “De-politicizing language: obstacles to political theory’s engagement with language policy”, 13 Language Policy
(2014) pp. 335–350, p. 339.
10 RÉAUME, Denise, “Beyond Personality: The Territorial and Personal Principles of Language Policy Reconsidered”, in PATTEN,
Alan & KYMLICKA, Will, Language Rights and Political Theory (2003) [e-book version] Chapter 12, para. 2.
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When it comes to self-government, the choice between territoriality and personality in the making of
autonomy regimes results in territorial autonomy, national cultural autonomy or functional autonomy. Such
choices affect directly how identities are dened (either through residency in a territory or self-identication
with a recognized group).11 Indeed, the territorial principle rests on the imagination of a physical homeland
where certain language rules apply, while the personality principle implies the existence of a community
capable of governing itself. There is in this sense an interesting parallel to the nuanced difference between
the expressions home rule and self-rule (that is, autonomy deriving from the ancient Greek auto-nomos,
αὐτόνομος: αὐτός meaning self and νόμος law)). Hence, the territoriality principle is normally accompanied
by a residence-based identity, while the personality principle relies on self-identication (where often the
mother tongue has a prominent role).
Thus, it is worth exploring the relation between different forms of autonomy and educational models which
separate or bring together students with different linguistic backgrounds. In this article I analyze such relations
and, as an approximation to a highly complex and multi-layered issue, propose an approach based on the
coordinates of territoriality and personality in autonomy regimes and separation and immersion in language
education. I use four parameters: the principles of territoriality and personality concerning autonomy on
one hand and the principles of separation and immersion concerning public language education policy on
the other. From a principle standpoint, not based on statistical analysis, I assume a priori that in absence of
strong political polarization (which is often found in post-conict societies such as Kosovo, or Bosnia and
Herzegovina), immersion of relative minority speakers and hence promotion of multilingualism is a better
choice in terms of social cohesion. In such contexts, the costs of not providing a “minority within a minority”
with separate language services are worth the gain in terms of social integration.12 In situations where such
political and ethnic polarization is indeed present, I take Gordon W. Allport’s “contact hypothesis” to
assume that separation prevents reconciliation and leads to increased tensions.13 From a wider perspective,
interpretation of minority rights standards such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
High Commissioner on National Minorities “Ljubljana Guidelines” also point to in this direction. As the
guidelines mention “it is essential for societies to nd the appropriate balance between the degree of separation
that is necessary to the free expression and development of diversity on the one hand and the establishment
and strengthening of links between and among the diverse communities of a society as a whole on the other.
If cross community links are not sufciently developed, integration is hindered, putting cohesiveness and,
ultimately, stability at risk”.14
1.1 Territoriality and personality in relation to language rights
Following the broader territoriality principle, as approached earlier, a norm concerning languages will
apply within a certain limited territory to everybody. All persons within the territory of Catalonia have the
right to use both Spanish and Catalonian before autonomy institutions. In the Åland Islands in Finland, the
autonomy statute denes Swedish as the sole ofcial language.15 In other cases, the territory is even limited
within an autonomy regime. The language law of the Foral Community of Navarra in Spain for example
divides its territory into a Basque speaking area, a bilingual area and a non-Basque speaking area.16 Each
territorial division is subject to a different regime, where the Basque-speaking area maintains a higher degree
of protection.17
11 TKACIC, Michael. “Characteristics of Forms of Autonomy”, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights. Vol. 15:2–3
(2008) pp. 360–401.
12 PATTEN (2014), pp. 227–232.
13 George W. Allport’s hypothesis enumerated four elements for contact to reduce conict: equal status within the contact situation,
intergroup cooperation; common goals, and support of authorities, law, or custom. DOVIDIO, John F., GAERTNER, Samuel L.
& KAWAKAMI, Kerry. “Intergroup Contact: The Past, Present, and the Future”, Group Processes Intergroup Relations. Vol. 6:5
(2003), pp 5–21, 7. ALLPORT, George W. The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, Perseus Books, 1954. I use the term “polarization”
in line with Charles Tilly’s proposal in The Politics of Collective Violence. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 84.
14 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, High Commissioner on National Minorities (OSCE HCNM), 2012
Ljubljana Guidelines on the Integration of Diverse Societies, p. 17.
15 Section 36, “Act 1991/1144 on the Åland Autonomy Statute”, 16 August 1991.
16 Art.5, “Foral Law on the Basque Language”, Ofcial Gazette of Navarra No. 154, 17 December 1986.
17 Ibid. Arts. 18 and 26.
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Then, according to the personality principle, certain persons have concrete linguistic rights regardless of
where they are. In Kosovo, persons belonging to minority communities such as Turks, Roma, Ashkaeli,
Egyptians or Bosnians have the right to defend themselves court in their language.18 The resource intensive
nature of such personality based rights means they are often tied to a certain demographic threshold which
links the linguistic rule to a territory. The above mentioned Kosovo communities have additional linguistic
rights, but these are only activated if certain demographic threshold is reached at the municipal level (5 per
cent for full co-ofcial status at the municipal level).19 In Hungary, in areas where at least 10 per cent of the
population belongs to a national minority, persons belonging to such groups may access ofcial documents
and relate to the local administration in their language.20 In Serbia, a minimum of fteen students belonging
to a minority are necessary to activate a right to education in the mother tongue.21
In order to implement such thresholds, norms based on the personality principle require that the state has
demographic numerical information about the ethnic and national demographic make-up of the country.
Personality based norms often are accompanied by the legal recognition of a certain list of groups (e.g., in
Kosovo the Serbs, Turks, Ashkaeli, Roma, Egyptian). Assessing their demographic strength is often achieved
through a census where individuals are given choices as to how to identify themselves in terms of belonging
to an ethnic, national or linguistic group. The design of such a process is at the center of ethnic politics. In
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo, the lack of an option to choose multiple identities has
led to rigid understandings of ethnic and national origin. More recently, in the Republic of the Union of
Myanmar, where a nation-wide census took place in 2014, data on ethnicity and religion was not publicly
released due to political contestation.22
Indeed, outside the parameters of minority language policies and autonomy, there are still states where the
ofcial policy is monolingual, following the one state-one language paradigm. No exception to majority rules
is established either through territorial and personal principles. In this sense, Myanmar is also an example
of a state which has had since the early 80’s a strict one language policy, where no ofcial institution,
including education, used any other language than Myanmar/Burmese, despite the country having more than
135 legally recognized ethnic and linguistic groups.23 The situation has to some extent changed, at least on
paper, with the 2008 Constitution, which establishes Burmese as the only ofcial language but recognizes
certain minority language rights.24 These rights are further developed through a “Law on Ethnic Rights”
whereby “ethnic peoples” have the right to “teach and learn their languages as long as they do not counter
the national educational policy”.25 The situation on the ground is far from such goals.26 In practice, there are
parallel systems where the territories controlled by ethnic armed groups such as the Karen National Union
(KNU) implement their own education systems while government controlled areas implement a monolingual
Burmese-only regime.
1.2 Territoriality and personality in relation to autonomy
When we talk about autonomy, a certain territory is physically dened where a political community will
rule itself. Territorial autonomy regimes have normally a legislative body able to establish norms concerning
language use as well as many other competences. Territorial forms of autonomy include territorial legislative
autonomy (such as the autonomous communities of Spain, the Åland Islands, the Region of South Tyrol or
18 Art. 4(5), “Kosovo Assembly Law 03/L-047 on the Rights of Communities and their Members”, 13 March 2008.
19 Article 2(3), “Kosovo Assembly Law No. 02/L-37 on the Use of Languages”, 26 July 2006.
20 Art. 6(1), “Hungary Act CLXXIX of 2011 on Nationalities”, 19 December 2011.
21 Art. 13, Republic of Serbia “Law on National Minorities”. Ofcial Gazette of FRY No. 11 of 27 February 2002.
22 2014 Republic of the Union of Myanmar Census, available at http://myanmar.unfpa.org//census/>.
23LO BIANCO, Joseph. Building a National Language Policy for Myanmar, A Brief Report. University of Melbourne/UNICEF/
Pyoe Pin Programme/Thaybyay Foundation (2016).
24 Arts. 22(a), 354(d) and 450, 2008 “Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar”.
25 Republic of the Union of Myanmar, “Ethnic People’s Rights Protection Law” (2015 Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Law No. 8), 7th Waxing
Day of Tabaung 1376 ME (February 24, 2015).
26 SOUTH, Ashley & LALL, Marie, Ethnic Conict and Education: Mother Tongue Based Education in Myanmar. USAID and Asia
Foundation, February 2016.
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the Faroe Islands) which is the “classic” form of autonomy regime, including the power to legislate over
certain enumerated competencies and where subsidiary powers lie at the central level.27
The personality principle applied to autonomy may be described as the power of a community to govern
itself in matters of culture (including language, education and traditions) through self-governance bodies
which are elected by and represent exclusively the members of such community. The national cultural
autonomy model was rst theorized in the context of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire
by the Austrian socialists Otto Bauer and Karl Renner, who proposed a model where nation and state were
decoupled, organizing national groups into non-territorial public corporations (with the power to levy taxes
amongst members) accompanied with certain rights as well as power sharing mechanisms at the central
level.28 Renner and Bauer’s model contested the idea that sovereignty is unitary and indivisible, that self-
determination requires territorial control and after all that the nation state model is the only valid one. They
advocated for integration into multi–national states which focused primarily on people and secondarily on
territory.29 There are several examples of national cultural autonomy in central, eastern and South Eastern
Europe. National Minority Councils in Serbia, for example, may design education materials for their own
communities.30 The model reected however a perhaps too essentialist and rigid idea of ethnic identity,
which is reected in the inner cultural conservatism of most national cultural autonomy institutions.
Another example of personality-based (or non-territorial) autonomy regimes is functional autonomy. In this
type of regime a certain function (e.g., education in a minority language) is entrusted to the representatives of
a group, adding an administrative layer to the normal one. According to Markku Suksi’s, functional autonomy
is “an organisational option for the provision of adequate linguistic services to a minority population in
respect of a certain public function (such as education) by means of creating special linguistically identied
administrative units at different hierarchical levels inside the general line organization charged with the
national or local administration of the public function”.31 For example in Finland, Swedish education is
administered at all levels by Swedish ofcials. The result of such policies may be to a certain extent the
creation of a linguistic choice, which then aligns with the personality principle in language policy.
1.3 The individual and the homeland
Personality and territoriality comprise two very different conceptions of self-rule. The reason is they have a
different understanding of the “self” in self-rule. For the personality principle the self means a group and the
individuals that comprise it. It refers often to an exclusive community. Language is often the strongest dening
feature of ethnic and national groups. This was a clear feature of early European linguistic nationalism, which
considered the mother tongue as nation’s spirit. Late 18th- and early 19th-Century German romantics saw
language purity as the primary ingredient of national identity. They were fascinated with the transcendental
aspects of language. For Fichte, the mother tongue was the root of the “fatherland”; for Herder, a “collective
treasure”; for Von Humboldt the “spiritual exhalation” of the nation.32 In their view, their language was
ideal and superior over others. The mother tongue in this view is the irreplaceable language with which an
individual can express his or her inner thoughts and feelings. Individuals are thereby supposed to belong to one
language community only.33 At the heart of it lies the implicit idea that the linguistic and the political should
be one. Linguistic nationalism seeks language purity and imagines an ideal national subject, monolingual,
27 SUKSI, Markku. Sub-State Governance through Territorial Autonomy, A Comparative Study in Constitutional Law of Powers,
Procedures and Institutions. New York: Springer, 2011, pp. 138–139.
28 MC GARRY, John & MOORE. Margaret, “Karl Renner, Power Sharing and Non-Territorial Autonomy”, in NIMNI, Ephraim
(ed.). National Cultural Autonomy and its Contemporary Critics. New York: Routledge, 2005, pp. 74–95.
29 NIMNI, Ephraim, “National Cultural Autonomy as an Alternative to Minority Territorial Nationalism”. Ethnopolitics. Vol. 6:3
(2007) pp. 345–364, 348, 360.
30 Republic of Serbia “Law on National Minority Councils”, Ofcial Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 72/2009.
31 SUKSI, Markku. “Functional Autonomy: The Case of Finland with Some Notes on the Basis of International Human Rights Law
and Comparisons with Other Cases”. 15 International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, Vol. 15 (2008), pp. 195–225, p.195.
32 MARTYN, David. “Borrowed Fatherland, Nationalism and Language Purism”, 72:4 Germanic Review (1997), pp. 303-315;
PAN, David, “G. Herder, the Origin of Language, and the Possibility of Trans cultural Narratives”, 4:1/2 Language & Intercultural
Communication, (2004) pp. 10–20
33 YILDIZ, Yasemin. Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition. Fordham: Fordham University Press, 2012, pp.
30–66.
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whose linguistic soul belongs to a single nation and a state structure.34 In opposition to such views, Yasemin
Yildiz describes the multilingual world of Franz Kafka to demonstrate how “(l)anguages do indeed relate to
identities, but not in any predetermined, predictable way (…)”.35
Indeed, the understanding of languages and identity has indeed evolved a lot since the early nationalist
romantics. Michel Foucault observed different periods in the historical evolution of languages, starting with
an initial “resemblance”, moving on to a Cartesian view of language as a “discourse” expressing ideas and
nally developing into the current “modern” understanding of language as an autonomous “object” and the
birth of philology.36 Similarly, the triad one nation/one language/one State has given way to “one world, many
States (and inter-governmental institutions) and a universe of cultures. The trend is obviously not constant:
the pendulum swings back and forth between a homogeneous conception of the state and a distribution of
power between groups through various measures, including language policies.
Conversely, for the territoriality principle the self in self-rule (or better home-rule) refers to a homeland,
another central myth in nationalism which often considers it as an eternal, unchanging and sacred entity. Since
the inception of European nationalisms territory has been imagined by linguistic nationalism as representing
the body of the nation and the language its soul. Constitutional and national identity has been understood
as an identical ideal.37 This is however far from the complex relations between identities and languages.
This vision disregards the historical and often arbitrary making and unmaking of states’ boundaries. The
attachment to a land, to a territory is also a fundamental feature of nationalism, which according to Ernest
Gellner consist on the political principle by which the national and the political (read here as territorial)
units should be congruent.38 In practice, “home rule” constitutes the norms that apply within a territory for
a community which is fundamentally dened by physical boundaries.
1.3.1 Personality and territoriality-based group identities
Personality-based norms require to some extent that the groups are dened by law: Hungarian, Serbian
Kosovo and Macedonian legislation for example dene which groups are entitled to certain rights (they
even provide specic lists of groups).39 In Myanmar, an administrative instruction lists one by one the 135
recognized ethnic groups derived from the 1982 Citizenship Law.40 The down side of such recognitions is the
non-recognition of those groups left outside (in Myanmar, notably the Rohingya in Rakhine).
This is a clear distinction from territorial based regimes, such as Spain where legally speaking, political
identities are dened by place of residence. Thus while the condition of, for example, Albanian in Serbia
is primarily a result of personal self-identication (and recognition of the group by law), the “political
condition of Basque” is dened in the Basque Autonomy Statute by the legally registered place of residence
(last legal place of residence if residing outside Spain).41 The same applies for Catalonian, Valencian and
all other identities. Acquiring such political condition is easier in Spain than in the Åland Islands, where the
equivalent right of domicile (awarded to Åland residents and their descendants) is only awarded to (Finnish)
newcomers after ve years of residence.42
1.4 Immersion and separation in relation to language education
When a sub-state entity is given at least a shared non-exclusive power to legislate on education matters,
it may broadly pursue different bilingual education models. It may as in Catalonia, seek to ensure that all
34 Ibid, p. 56.
35 Ibid., pp. 203–211.
36 MANJALI, Franson D. “Nietzsche, Derrida and the Deconstruction of European Linguistic Modernity”. Yearbook of the Goethe
Society of India, 2005: Rethinking Europe. (2005) pp. 81–107.
37 ROSENFELD, Michel. The Identity of the Constitutional Subject, New York: Routledge, 2010, pp. 152–156.
38GELLNER, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism, New York: Cornell University Press, 2008.
39 In Hungary: Bulgarians, Greeks, Croatians, Poles, Germans, Armenians, Roma, Romanians, Carpatho-Rusyns, Serbs, Slovaks,
Slovenes and Ukranians. Appendix, Art. 22(1), “Hungary Act CLXXIX of 2011 On the Rights of Nationalities”.
401982 Burma “Citizenship Law”, Pyithu Hluttaw Law No. 4, 1982.
41 Art. 7(1), Cardinal Law 3/1979, 18 December 1979, On the Autonomy Statute of the Basque Country.
42 Arts. 6 & 7, Act 1991/1144 on the Autonomy of Åland, 16 August 1991.
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inhabitants are uent in both the majority and the regional or minority language while promoting the latter
through “immersion” (or in Catalonia perhaps more specically “conjunction”) policies or it may prefer to
separate students on linguistic basis, which could hereby be called “linguistic separation” (the model, for
example, in Québec’s education system).43 There are also possibilities for offering mixed arrangements.
The rst option, or the “linguistic immersion” model, aims to further the sub-state entity’s own nation-
building program through compulsory learning of the regional or minority language as well as offering
bilingual services across the board to ensure a dual approach (promoting bilingualism). Apart from Catalonia,
this is also the case of South Tyrol in Italy and with certain nuances the Basque Country in Spain. The result
is not mono-lingualism but a form of bilingualism where the dominant minority language and the majority or
“State language” are normally acquired by all inhabitants of the territory.44 The mono-lingual Åland Islands
in Finland (even though Swedish is legally not a minority language but a national one) would be an example
of territoriality united to a monolingual language policy, where Finnish is given minimal attention.45
The second option, referred here as the “linguistic separation” model implies for the central level to establish
a mixed territorial and non-territorial model by offering more than one language of public instruction through
separate schools (or classrooms) whenever a certain demographic threshold is met or by directly dening
bilingual territories. This means establishing a degree of functional autonomy, especially if the measure is
implemented through specialized administrative units at both local and central levels. Such a model is present
in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia, in mainland Finland (Finnish and Swedish schools), the
Region of South Tyrol (German and Italian schools), Macedonia (Albanian and Macedonian schools) and
Serbia’s national minority schools. Mainland Finland presents in this context a two-way model promoting
multilingualism, where Finnish and Swedish language schools teach the other language as a second national
language.46 This is striking when taking into account that native Swedish speakers are a clear minority in
Finland. Implementing such a policy in places like Spain would not be politically acceptable (few inhabitants
of mainland Spain would willingly take on Basque, Catalan or Galician as a subject).
Finally, outside the remands of multilingual policies and autonomy is of course purely coercive monolingual
education absent of any consideration of regional and minority languages (with the exception of second
languages such as English). The case of the Myanmar mentioned earlier would be an example. In South
East Myanmar, for example Karen children have for decades faced the choice of enrolling in the Burmese-
only schools or studying in the earlier mentioned parallel unrecognized educational institutions run by non-
State actors (the KNU). At present, and in the context of peace negotiations (the 2015 National Ceasere
Agreement calls for the recognition of linguistic diversity), the idea of offering multilingual education is
on the table, with some policies being implemented as a pilot project in regions such as the Mon State (for
education in the Mon language).47 Discussions in the States of Karen and Kachin (where armed conict is
ongoing) are also taking place at the political level as part of the peace process.
2 A relation between two dichotomies: territoriality/personality and separation/immersion
How do then the dichotomies between territoriality (understood as geographic-specic regimes, not
monolingualism) and personality regarding autonomy and language rights on one side and separation and
immersion regarding education policy on the other interact with each other? The principles represent very
different ideas on language and the relation between the individual, the state and the community. In order
to expand knowledge on the interrelation between autonomy and languages, it may be useful to group such
43 Arts. 72 and 73, National Assembly of Québec “Charter on the French Language” CQLR c C-11 (Bill 101). VILA I MORENO
(1998).
44 HUGUET, Ángel, ‘La educación bilingüe en el Estado español: situación actual y perspectivas’, Cultura y Educación, Vol. 16:4
(2004), pp. 399–418.
45 Arts. 36 and 37, “1991/1144 Act On the Autonomy of Åland”.
46 Art. 10(2), “423/2003 Finland Language Act”. This is not the case however with the Saami language, which is only used as
language of instruction in the Sami Homeland together with Finnish.
47 Arts. 1(f) & 25(a)3, The Nationwide Ceasere Agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and
the Ethnic Armed Organisations, 2015.
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relations into four areas of language policy and autonomy design: personality and separation, personality and
immersion, territoriality and separation and territoriality and immersion (Fig. 1).
Separation
A B
Personality Territoriality
C D
Immersion
Fig. 1. Personality and territoriality in autonomy and language rights in relation to separation and immersion
in education.
The table shows four main choices at the disposal of the law maker (A, B, C and D). Area A refers to linguistic
separation and personality-based regimes, such as the functional autonomy or the national cultural autonomy
educational systems. Area B corresponds to territoriality and separation. Area C relates to personality and
immersion, a model where personality dened self-government rights over culture and language do not lead
to physical separation of students. Finally, Area D covers the territorial immersion models where monolingual
units offer education in the (relative) majority language in that sub-state territory.
2.1 Personality and separation
First, the area of personality and separation refers to situations in which autonomy regimes (and subsequently
language rights) are designed in terms of the personality principle (through national cultural autonomy
or functional autonomy) and the education system at least offers the possibility of separating pupils in
accordance to language. Within this area, Serbia and Hungary would be examples of personality dened
language rights and separate schools. From a self-governance perspective they both have personality dened
national councils for national minorities with competencies over education policy.48 Hungarian nationality
48 These are the Bulgarians, Greeks, Croatians, Poles, Germans, Armenians, Roma, Romanians, Carpatho-Rusyns, Serbs, Slovaks,
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self-governments have administrative powers over culture, media and education and a consultative role.49.
Similarly, Serbia’s national minority councils, elected through a special voters’ register, have important
competences in the eld of education (proposing the management boards of minority schools, proposing
curriculums to national education institutions).50
Personality and separation could also refer to cases in which functional autonomy or national cultural
autonomy systems are in place but there is a strong effort to provide multilingual education to all students
regardless of their mother tongue. The case of mainland Finland where -in addition to the existing functional
autonomy system triggered by demographic percentages- all Finnish citizens are obliged to learn Swedish to
a certain degree may be located within this area.
In Finland, the 2003 Language Act creates a linguistic division of the country on unilingual Finish, unilingual
Swedish, or bilingual municipalities, subject to revision every ten years. Unilingual municipalities use either
Swedish or Finish, while bilingual ones are obliged to use both languages in public documents. According
to the Basic Education Act, “the local authority in a municipality which has both Finnish and Swedish-
speaking residents shall be responsible for arranging basic and pre-primary education separately for both
linguistic groups”.51 The functional autonomy system is established through separate Swedish and Finnish
administrative boards of education at municipal, provincial and state levels (indeed, a full educational system
in Swedish).52 Students of primary and secondary education are allocated to schools in accordance with their
mother tongue (Swedish or Finnish and Saami in the Saami Homeland).53
Unfortunately, the personality and separation approach is ill prepared to deal with highly polarized post-
conict scenarios such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia. For example, in the Central Bosnia
canton (in the Federation entity), schools offer two types of curriculums within the same building, producing
the phenomenon known as “two schools under one roof”. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination condemned it for creating fear of the “other” and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Supreme Court has judged the practice discriminatory on an ethnic basis.54 Similarly, in Macedonia, separating
students according to language (and ethnicity) has raised concerns on integration since the signature of the
Ohrid Framework Agreement in 2001. The OSCE voiced concerns that Albanian students do not effectively
learn Macedonian or regularly interact with ethnic Macedonian students, increasing polarization.55
Indeed, in area A, the personality principle, where identity is dened by self-identication and not residence
in a territory, could be seen as pointing towards strengthening the idea of separate exclusive ethnic or national
identities which are relatively independent of their physical location and perhaps in some cases a more
“essentialist” understanding of identity. Said that, the case of Finland’s functional autonomy educational
system does not arguably t in a linguistic nationalism label. The complexity and differences in historical
and political contexts are in this sense determinant.
2.2 Territoriality and separation
The Basque Country and South Tyrol could be included as examples of situations in which territorial
legislative autonomy is present and education takes place separately in accordance with the students’ mother
tongue. In these two cases, within territorial legislative autonomy regimes students are divided according
to language (A, B and D models in the Basque Country) and German and Italian schools in South Tyrol.
In the Basque Country, students are given three options (not determined by a student’s mother tongue but
Slovenes and Ukranians. Appendix, Art. 22(1), Hungary Act CLXXIX of 2011 On the Rights of Nationalities”.
49 Arts. 19, 24(1) & 118.
50 Arts. 11–21, 47, Republic of Serbia Law on National Minority Councils”, Ofcial Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No.
72/2009. Minority voters may register in one national council only.
51 Article 4(4), Finland “629/1998 Basic Education Act”.
52 Ibid., p. 204.
53 Arts. 10(1), 10(2) and 6(2), Finland “Basic Education Act. Finland629/1998 High School Act”.
54 The Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina ruled that there was discrimination on access to education in
Mostar. Supreme Court of Bosnia, Judgment 58 0 Ps 085653 13 Rev, 29 August 2014.
55 Government of Macedonia, Ministry of Education and Science, “Steps Towards Integrated Education in the Education System of
the Republic of Macedonia” (2009).
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by parental choice). Option A means the majority of classes are given in Spanish with Basque as a subject.
Option B is the middle ground with an equal amount of classes in Spanish and Basque and Option D is the
option which gives primacy to Basque language education.
In South Tyrol, the 1946 De Gasperi-Gruber Agreement ensured linguistic rights (both in education and the
administration) for German speakers and gave South Tyrol legislative and executive powers. South Tyrol is
competent to legislate over primary and secondary education as long as it conforms to the principles set out
by the central level. The Tyrol model is different from the Basque model, because it is not solely based on
parental choice as much as on the student’s mother tongue. The importance of language as an identity marker
is much stronger in South Tyrol than in the Basque country, where use of Basque language is in practice
much lower. Hence, the idea of placing students of different linguistic groups (Ladin, German, Italian) has
historically met strong resistance. As a result, parallel German and Italian school systems are in place and
German and Italian students are taught the second language as a subject. As Verena Wisthaler points out, a
more inclusive model is found in the Ladin schools, where instruction is provided in both German and Italian
and Ladin language is taught as a subject.56 After primary education, Ladin school students normally enter
either the German or the Italian secondary schools due to their low numbers.57 In 1980, the South Tyrolean
governments’ approach to education was summarized in the principle that “the better we separate each other,
the better we understand each other”.58 Obviously, mixed families and migrants are not well reected within
this strict scheme.
The proponents of separation argue that immersion education models are in detriment of the weaker
language as they force all the population to be bilingual. The majority language speakers remain in a stronger
position while minority language speakers may struggle to continue to use their language. According to
this approach, equal recognition is not enough for language preservation in light of assimilation pressures,
economic and historic injustice and market failures. In a territorial autonomy regime, “minorities within the
minority” would arguably benet from separation as they do not see themselves forced to learn the regional
or minority language (e.g., persons who choose the Spanish language model within the Basque educational
system). The question is whether the interference with Spanish mother tongue speakers is worth the gain
through immersion. Advocates of the territoriality and immersion principle argue that the price is worth
paying.59 Proponents of separation maintain that, for example, French in Québec would be endangered by an
immersion system due to the relative weakness of French.
The issues are highly contextual. Recently, a Basque colleague once exposed the argument to me as follows:
if three persons are engaged in a conversation and only two of them speak a minority language, the group
will turn to a majority language in order to include the minority (the majority language speaker). In this
sense, applying a separated system in Catalonia would seriously erode efforts to promote this language. The
difference lays to some extent in the status of French in comparison to Catalonian. A minority language
such as Catalonian needs a strong public effort towards its promotion, while French is sufciently strong
internationally not to require such a support.
In sum, Area B introduces a territorial arrangement to separated education which adds layer to communal
identities. It is a complex zone where in addition to the territorial differentiation through an autonomy
regime, separation may be determined either by physical location, by ethnic or national belonging or simply
by personal or parental choice (for example, many Basques whose mother tongue is Spanish have chosen the
Basque instruction model in the last decades).
2.3 Personality and immersion
Area C, personality and immersion, would reect a model in which personality dened autonomy regimes
do not necessarily lead to the physical segregation of students. Such an approach would address one of the
56 WISTHALER, Verena. “Identity Politics in the Educational System in South Tyrol: Balancing between Minority Protection and
the Need to Manage Diversity”, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. Vol. 13:3 (2013) pp. 358–372, p. 363.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 PATTEN (2014), pp. 227-232.
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problems of personality-based autonomy and language rights arrangements: ensuring contact between the
students of different linguistic groups. This is a reason for further polarization in post-conict societies such
as Macedonia, Kosovo or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In this context, examples of what could personality and immersion (e.g., daily contact between students
of different groups) could be schools in the Balkans where a model of “integrated education” is sought in
order to overcome ethnic divisions. The Nansen Dialogue Model of Integrated Education, developed by
the NGO Nansen Dialogue, and which received the Max Van Der Stoel award from the Ofce of the High
Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2011
provides students with education in their mother tongue to Albanian and Macedonian students within the
same shift (unlike Bosnia and Herzegovina’s “two schools under one roof”). Albanian and Macedonian
students sit most of the day in separate classes following the ofcial Albanian and Macedonian curricula,
however, there are also continuous extra-curricular activities where students (and teachers) interact.60 Such
educational activities promote inter-ethnic linkages, in line with Allport’s “contact hypothesis”. This is
easier in areas where demography permits mixing students (i.e., where communities are not geographically
isolated). Some states, notably the U.S. have used public transport to counter de facto segregation linked to
residence.61
An alternative reading of Area C (Personality and Immersion) could perhaps relate to situations in which the
identity and personality of the constitutional subject is though as monolingual and no minority languages
are recognized (only one ofcial language, no separation on linguistic or other basis) and immersion is
understood as full assimilation in the “State language”. This would be the increasingly rare space of the
classic nation state where individual (indeed, citizen), language, nation and state are equated in places such
as the Union of Myanmar before the enactment of the 2008 Constitution. It could also refer countries like
Greece, Iceland or France there is little or no recognition of ethnic and national diversity in their legal
systems.62 However, in the context of this article personality refers only to situation in which some language
rights are recognized. Immersion is also understood here as a two-way process and not as assimilation, where
minority identities are not respected.
2.4 Territoriality and immersion
Catalonia and the Åland Islands would be examples of territoriality and immersion (Area D). From an
autonomy perspective the model is territorial legislative autonomy and from a language policy point of view
the approach is full immersion in the local ofcial language. The approaches and contexts are however quite
different. Catalonian is the “llengua propiaof Catalonia, it is almost unique to its territory and neighboring
regions, in contrast with Åland’s Swedish. The autonomy of Catalonia is the result of a very different historical
process (currently based in the 1978 Constitution of Spain) from the exceptional case of Åland, where
autonomy was created to address a territorial conict between two sovereign states. The use of Catalonian
has gained strength in the education system and Castilian Spanish is today the third language, after Catalan
and English. Students receive approximately three hours of Spanish language per week. The justication for
this low percentage is that the majority language is in fact dominant in the wider social setting.
Moreover, unlike in Catalonia, where both Spanish and Catalonian are co-ofcial, the Autonomy Act of
Åland establishes Swedish as its only ofcial language which means that non-Swedish speakers do not
receive the same linguistic protection as in mainland Finland. The Act on the Autonomy of Åland gives
its Legislative Assembly full competence concerning language education within its territory.63 In fact, the
Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities considered
Finnish speaking population in the Åland a “minority within a minority”.64 When the AC FCNM pointed
60 See Nansen Model for Integrated Education, Manual for Parents, Nansen Dialogue Centre Skopje, 2012. The Nansen Model for
Integrated Education website is at: http://nmie.org/index.php/en/>.
61 In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971) the Court sanctioned the policy of busing students
from distinct neighborhoods to ensure a racial balance and prevent segregation.
62 ARRAIZA (2015), p. 106.
63 Article 18(14), “Act 1144/1991 on the Autonomy of the Åland Islands”, 16 August 1991.
64 Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, First Opinion on Finland. ACFC/
INF/OP/I(2001)002, 22 September 2000, paras. 17, 46.
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to the possible problems faced by Finnish mother tongue students, the authorities stated that the possibility
to study Finnish as the second “foreign” (främmande) language from the fth grade and the availability
of certain remedial education in which Finnish can also be used “reects the special status of Åland as a
monolingual province”. 65
The reasons for this strong degree of protection are in the 1921 Decision by the Council of the League of
Nations on the Åland Islands. The decision granted this Swedish speaking territory both self-government
and language rights.66 While in the mainland the historical process of nation building during the Russian
dominated Grand Duchy of Finland area led to Finnish by-passing Swedish as the language of elites and
massive primary education, the Åland Islands continued to be predominantly Swedish-speaking.67 The 1921
international decision inserted new guarantees concerning the preservation of education in Swedish in order
“(…) to assure and to guarantee to the population of the Åland Islands the preservation of their language,
of their culture and of their local Swedish traditions (…)” which indicates the weight that language had in
the negotiations.68 Linguistic rights which apply to citizens of the Åland Islands include an exemption from
linguistic prociency in Finnish to access higher education in mainland Finland.69
Area D seems to offer an inclusive territorial identity which is based on language for all inhabitants of
a territorial arrangement. The model promotes integration and social cohesion in places like Catalonia,
however it also reinforces differences with the mainland state (Spain) and obliges “minorities within the
minority” to follow a perhaps unwanted policy. The model seems well prepared for situations in which the
relative minority can accept immersion in the regional language. In Catalonia this is made easier by the fact
that the language is close to Spanish and relatively easy to learn and widely used. Implementing such a policy
with the Basque language would for the same reasons not be feasible. In highly polarized societies this is
usually not feasible. The implementation of an immersion policy in the Serbian language in the Republika
Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina leads, for example, to ethnic Bosnian parents sending their children
to study in the Federation Bosnian schools.70 Similarly, in Myanmar, immersion in Burmese with almost
complete disregard for minority languages has led to parallel education systems which now faces signicant
challenges for integration.
65 Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Second Opinion on Finland,
adopted on 2 March 2006, para. 141.
66 Council of the League of Nations, Decision on the Åland Islands Including Sweden’s Protest, Ofcial Journal of the League of
Nations No. 697, September 1921.
67 Ibid.
68 SUKSI, Markku, Sub-State Governance through Territorial Autonomy, A Comparative Study in Constitutional Law of Powers,
Procedures and Institutions. New York: Springer, 2011, pp. 144–151.
69 Art. 41, Finland, “Act 1991/1144 on the Autonomy of Åland”, 16 August 1991.
70 European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI): Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina, CRI(2011)2, February 8,
2011.
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Separation
A B
Hungary Mainland Finland Basque country
Serbia South Tyrol
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Navarra)
Personality Territoriality
(Nansen integrated schools in
Macedonia) Catalonia
Republika
Srpska
Åland Islands
C D
Immersion
Fig. 2. Examples of education and autonomy systems in relation to separation/immersion and personality
and territoriality.
3 Concluding observations
Autonomy is one form of making the political and the cultural congruent. Political structures help re-create
group identities that are in turn used as platforms to demand territorial or cultural self-governance. Giving
rights to a group in turn helps to consolidate it as such: political institutions have an impact on linguistic
groups and vice versa. There is however no single formula to translate into law the multiple relations between
autonomy and language diversity.
The proposed approach to understand the complex relations between personality and territoriality in autonomy
and language policy on the one hand and separation and immersion in education on the other provides only
an approximation to at least some aspects of the relation between autonomy and language diversity. In
order to draw some lessons from the different approaches it would be however necessary to complement a
comparative law approach with concrete statistical data, beyond a purely comparative legal methodology. In
this sense, this comparison could be used to further research in this area.
Clearly, the models and their consequences are highly contextual and escape easy generalizations. Each
combination of territoriality and personality concerning autonomy and language rights and separation and
immersion concerning education may have different consequences in different contexts. Hence, while it is
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not possible to draw rm general principles out of this approximation to a highly complex issue, there are
some initial observations which can be extracted.
(Dual) immersion models seem more likely to promote integration following the contact hypothesis as well
as European minority rights standards (which generally seek to balance integration with respect for diversity).
Models based on separation have the advantage of protecting minority identity. However, they do so through
isolation and may also promote a rigid and essentialist understanding of ethnic, national and linguistic
differences. In highly polarized societies, such as Macedonia, linguistic separation may be combined with
immersion policies through integrated education approaches which place students in the same building
and promote joint extra-curricular activities. In light of the relative failure of such policies and continuous
instability it is even reasonable to argue for stronger measures aimed at cohesion with respect to diversity.
Where linguistic minorities are dispersed, non-territorial autonomy is an option to implement personality-
based linguistic rights, as it is the case in Hungary. In this regard, mainland Finland’s functional autonomy
seems to offer a less essentialist approach to identity than national cultural autonomy institutions, which
probably require further legal denition of the group (and an essentially different understanding of it).
Territoriality and separation are adequate in such contexts where a strong territorial, homeland based, identity
is present but members of the different linguistic groups would not readily accept immersion in the other’s
language, as it is the case in Navarra. Perhaps, it may also adequate where there are more than two languages
to accommodate in place.
Finally, the outliers such as Myanmar, where no minority language or autonomy arrangements have been
rmly established (yet) show the unsustainability of not dealing appropriately with minority issues. After
decades of civil war between ethnic armed groups and the state forces and in the middle of a multi-layered
peace process and an imperfect political transition it is abundantly clear that the only option which is not
feasible for a legal system is to deny cultural diversity and self-government. The only non-option –the only
clear risk– is actually not to deal with autonomy and language rights and ignore their potential.
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