Let’s Linguicide, or: The joke that is the ECRML

Another post? Yes. I have to rant about something – and ranting, as everyone who knows me will tell you, is what I do best. I’m the David Mitchell of the internet. Anyway, I feel a bit silly complaining about this to an audience mainly fromIreland, since the Irish language has been decimated there for similar reasons, but I won’t go into that since I’m not really competent to comment seeing as how I don’t live there.

So, the title may confuse you. You probably have never heard of the ECRML. It is the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. That explains it all, right? But seriously, the ECRML is there to do exactly what it sounds like: Protect regional and minority languages. It has a major flaw of concept though: The languages that need protecting aren’t decided by some independent EU committee or anything. They are decided by the countries themselves. Anyone see a flaw in this? Yep, exactly. The government of the country can deny linguistic groups the benefits they deserve on a whim.

So why do I make such a fuss about this? Because I am part of one of those linguistic minorities. The Ripuarian language, Ripuarian Franconian, Rhenish language or whatever term for it most strikes your fancy, was taught to me by late grandmother. It currently has only 900’000 estimated speakers, though that is a euphemistic estimate that includes people who speak German with a few Ripuarian loan words and can thus hardly be described as Ripuarian speakers. If we subtract, say, 300’000 such people from that figure, we end up with 600’000. As if that isn’t bad enough, a vast majority of those people are above the age of 60 years. In 20 years time, the language will probably have about 100’000 speakers left who, considering the breadth of dialects of Ripuarian and the large area throughout which it is spoken, will probably just stop speaking it in favour of German, or German mixed with Ripuarian slang.

You’ve probably guessed why I’m so annoyed at the ECRML now: The ECRML does not include Ripuarian. We have a moribund language, with self-proclaimed linguists (probably more accurately described as arrogant prescriptivists) trying to “save” it (in reality doing more harm than good), and yet the German government says “Nope. We don’t care. It’s not a language, it’s a dialect.” The issue with that is that there is no definition for a “dialect”. People can just call things dialects in order to denigrate them. The most reasonable way to distinguish between a dialect and a language – I find – is to look at mutual intelligibility, or, to put it simply, how well speakers of language A can understand language B.

In those terms, it’s been determined that Bahasa Indonesia is not a dialect of Malayalam, Dutch isn’t a dialect of German, Portuguese isn’t a dialect of Spanish and Czech isn’t a dialect of Polish. These language pairs all have relatively high rates of mutual intelligibility. I – and most others who have familiarised themselves with it – would judge that Ripuarian and German are no more mutually intelligible than Dutch and German. Yes, there are commonalities, as there are in all languages of one family, but they are linguistically distinct languages – you could not, as a German speaker, speak without major problems to people who only speak Ripuarian. On the other hand, Low German, which is recognised by the ECRML, is quite understandable to speakers of German (aka High German).

So what is my point? My point is that the ECRML is a joke. My point is that prescriptivist “linguists” (who, sadly, form the majority of linguists in Germany) deem Ripuarian dialectal, vernacular, or even “common” (yep, that’s not classist at all), and I’m bloody sick of it. I speak this language, it is what my ancestors spoke – hell, it’s what Charlemagne spoke, the man who unified Germany– and I think that some half-arsed attempt at language saving to shut up the activists just simply isn’t good enough. Academics look down on the language, the apathetic, frustratingly unsentimental people who live here look down on it and if the EU is going to do something to stop languages from dying, I’ve got one for them right bloody here.

I’m sorry, I know I care too much about language, and if I bored you, sorry, or if I made you laugh…good for you. I needed a good rant, and I hope there’s at least some of you who understand how tragic it is when something as defining and wonderful as a language is nearly dead, and nobody’s doing a damn thing about it.

Frederic Bayer, German Correspondent – 17/06/2012

The Sunday Post: On the cusp of revolution

In recent weeks, Europe’s attention has been heavily focused on Greece. As I write this, the Greek people have been voting in a general election which will decide the political future of the country. It comes after a political deadlock some six weeks ago, when none of the Greek parties could agree on how to form a government. At this time, it appears that the up-and-coming SYRIZA political grouping (capital letters intended), which had vowed to take a tougher line against the authorities in Europe, will not be able to form a government on its own. In addition to this, its leader, Alexis Tsipras, has vowed that it will go into opposition instead of taking part in government, the latter of which could possibly require it to compromise on its values.

The election in Greece, while seemingly simply a general election, has been monitored across Europe because it has become a microcosm for events in the union as a whole. It is not the first time that an election has occurred in a member state which is in a bailout program – Ireland is one example of this, which had a general election in 2011. It is, however, the first time that an anti-bailout party has come seriously close to being able to form a government. SYRIZA, made up of the “Radical Left”, became a political force of note after the previous elections. This time around, it was touted as being a serious contender for government.

People across Europe who are opposed to austerity across the continent – those who take issue with the European Union’s current direction and in particular the influence of Angela Merkel’s government in Germany – rallied behind the left and hoped for a SYRIZA victory. On the other side, Angela Merkel herself weighed in on the election buildup by encouraging the Greek people to vote for a pro-bailout party (see the report here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18474437)

I read a story on one major news network which described today as a ‘Day of Destiny’ for Europe. Though SYRIZA didn’t come out as a clear winner in this election, the result clearly showed that opposition to the status quo can be powerful.

Angela Merkel and those in power in the European Union may be breathing a relative sigh of relief with this result, but I believe that something far greater has been set in motion. The Greek people came within a hair’s breadth of toppling the austerity-driven policies of the EU leadership, with SYRIZA’s leader promising to tear up fiscal agreements that are crippling Greece. Had that happened, the consequences would have been unprecedented.

Something major is happening across Europe. With the ordinary people of Spain rebelling as we have seen on the news in recent weeks, alongside the rise of anti-austerity groups to serious political contender status in Greece and the collapse of pro-austerity governments in Romania and elsewhere, we are seeing opposition to austerity in Europe taking on a new life.

The message to the European Union leadership, alongside Angela Merkel’s government in Germany, is simple:

The people of Europe will resist. This ‘Day of Destiny’ is just the beginning.

Mark Meehan, Editor-in-Chief – 17/06/2012

 

The Sunday Post: Goodbye Democracy

This week’s Sunday Post comes from the keyboard of one of our most avid readers. The recent Fiscal Treaty referendum in Ireland brought forward many areas of discussion – chief among these was and still is the question of the erosion of democracy as fiscal issues continue to concentrate power in the hands of authorities in Europe . With the passing of the referendum in Ireland and the looming creation of the “European Stability Mechanism”, or “ESM”, the concern now is the question of who will control this ever-increasing fiscal power and who can be held to account, if at all, for its use.

In his piece below, Eoin Meehan shares his view on what impact the Fiscal Treaty and ESM will have on democracy:

“The recent referendum here in Ireland has made me very afraid for the future of Ireland. In principle, I have no problem with Europe building a “stability mechanism” to backup the Euro, they probably should have done it at the foundation of the Euro, but I do have a problem with the way the European Union is going about it.

For a start, lets look at the wording the Irish people were asked to insert into the Constitution:

“The State may ratify the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union done at Brussels on the 2nd day of March 2012. No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by the obligations of the State under that Treaty or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by bodies competent under that Treaty from having the force of law in the State.”

I have a problem with the phrase “No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted etc”. I read up on this and a few people said “it’s the standard wording for all the treaties, don’t worry!”. But its not; it was first used in the Lisbon treaty. This means that as an Irish citizen I cannot use the protection of our Constititution if I think my rights are being infringed. As we sign up to more and more EU treaties, I foresee this wording being used more and more. That means our Constitution is being slowly sidestepped.

Secondly, in the bill that sets up the European Stability Mechanism, paragraph 3 in section 32 states:

3. The ESM, its property, funding and assets, wherever located and

by whomsoever held, shall enjoy immunity from every form of

judicial process except to the extent that the ESM expressly waives

its immunity for the purpose of any proceedings or by the terms of 20

any contract, including the documentation of the funding

instruments.”

Read that again “shall enjoy immunity from every form of judicial process”. Every state that signs up to this is making the ESM above their law, immune from prosecution of any kind, unless it decides to waive that right. Based on our experience, do you really think *any* organisation with that immunity is going to waive it? Really?

So we have voted to approve a Treaty that sets itself above our Constitution, which creates an organisation which is immune from prosecution.

We can count ourselves lucky that we were able to vote – the rest of Europe can’t! Treaties like this are being imposed without reference to the democratic process.

My final issue is with the terms of the Treaty – that you can only access the ESM if you sign up to the fiscal terms. This was specifically inserted by Angela Merkel as a blackmail clause because she knew Ireland would have to vote on it.

Goodbye democracy, it was nice while it lasted!”

I’d be very interested to read your opinions on this topic – do you feel that we are handing over democracy to the European Union or countries in Europe? Are we signing away our freedom in exchange for “fiscal stability”? Alternatively, do you feel that this is unnecessary worrying? I’d love to hear from people on all sides of the discussion, all opinions are welcome.

Your comments and views are welcome as comments on this post, via twitter to @Meehan990 or @RP_Blog, via our Facebook page (a link to which can be found to the right of this post) or to our email address: revolutionpendingblog@gmail.com.

Mark Meehan, Editor-in-Chief – 03/06/2012