Minority Language Literatures

[Patrick Murtha]

This set of definitions for Europe works for other areas too, I think:

The various regional and minority languages in Europe encompass four categories:

• The language of a community in one single country, where the language community is not the linguistic majority, e.g. Sorbian in Germany, or Welsh in the United Kingdom
• The language of a community in two or more country, in neither of which they are the linguistic majority, e.g. Basque in Spain and France, Sámi in Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden
• The language of a community who are a linguistic minority in one country, even though they are the majority in a different country, e.g. Danish in Germany, Finnish in Sweden, or Swedish in Finland
• Languages without any fixed territory, that are traditionally spoken in one or more countries, but which cannot be assorted to one specific region, e.g. the languages of Sinti and Roma, the Yiddish language, the Yenish language as well as Plautdietsch.

In Europe, Spain is the epicenter for such literatures, with Catalan, Basque, and Galician prominently.

Other such languages may or may not have a robust published literature, which may or may not have received much translation. But I am interested to learn, for example, that the major novel in Kashubian, Aleksander Majkowski’s The Life and Adventures of Remus, has been translated into French, German, and English, as well as Polish. (The English one is a little pricy for me right now, alas; I haven’t located a copy below $40 USD.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Adventures_of_Remus

 

[kpjayan]

^^
If you replace the word 'Country' with 'State', it will apply to India. To add to this, languages spoken by 'Tribes' ( Monpa, Coorgi etc) with the single state or multiple states ( Gond, Santhali etc)

 

[Patrick Murtha]

^ I always used to tell my World History students that because of its linguistic and cultural diversity, we needed to treat India as in some sense equivalent to Europe as a whole, not to countries within Europe.

 

[Liam]

Francis Boutle Publishers used to put out anthologies in the Lesser Used Languages of Europe series, but they haven't released any new titles since the Covid pandemic, I don't think (I've only been checking their website sporadically though, so who knows)--

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Francis Boutle Publishers used to put out anthologies in the Lesser Used Languages of Europe series, but they haven't released any new titles since the Covid pandemic, I don't think (I've only been checking their website sporadically though, so who knows)--

I did not know about this! It looks like a very nice series. I’ll have to dig in.

If I were them, I would look at Romansch / Ladin / Friulian, Kashubian, High and Low Sorbian, Sardinian, Basque, and Tatar for sure.

 

[Liam]

^Oh, it's superb, bilingual, with facing-page translations, and very nicely designed (I have the Breton and the Manx anthologies). I waited to buy the Welsh one because it was too expensive for me at the time, and then it went out of print! ARGH, should have bought it when I had the chance! ?‍

 

[Patrick Murtha]

^ Hoo boy, the cheapest copy on Bookfinder is $100.14, and the next, $193.75. The worst of all possible worlds is when a book has a small print run, gets little distribution, and swiftly goes out of print.

 

[Liam]

What I don't understand is why they stopped printing this particular anthology so soon. The Breton one was the first volume in the series, and it's still in stock! I wrote to them to ask this very question (also if we can hope to see the Welsh volume's return some day soon), but I received no reply.

 

[kpjayan]

Not sure if it belongs here..

Three reflections on the Basque literature

www.argia.eus