Linguistic Landscape and Minority Languages

TLDR

The study examines the linguistic landscape of streets in Friesland and the Basque Country, where minority languages Basque or Frisian are spoken. The authors aim to analyze how minority, state, and English languages appear on street signs and compare this across settings with differing minority language policies and English diffusion in Europe. They collected and analyzed over 975 photographs of street signs to quantify language usage and examine bilingual/multilingual sign characteristics. The results show that linguistic landscapes reflect official minority language policies and differ markedly between the two regions.

Abstract

This paper focuses on the linguistic landscape of two streets in two multilingual cities in Friesland (Netherlands) and the Basque Country (Spain) where a minority language is spoken, Basque or Frisian. The paper analyses the use of the minority language (Basque or Frisian), the state language (Spanish or Dutch) and English as an international language on language signs. It compares the use of these languages as related to the differences in language policy regarding the minority language in these two settings and to the spread of English in Europe. The data include over 975 pictures of language signs that were analysed so as to determine the number of languages used, the languages on the signs and the characteristics of bilingual and multilingual signs. The findings indicate that the linguistic landscape is related to the official language policy regarding minority languages and that there are important differences between the two settings.