Law 482/99, December 15th, 1999, published in The Gazzetta Ufficiale n.297 on December 20th, 1999.

Abstract:

On the 26th November, 1999 the Italian Senate approved the bill 3366, Law on Linguistic Protection. The law was promulgated on December 15th, 1999.

By this law the state must protect the following languages and cultures in Italian territory (articles 1 and 2):

-albanian

-catalan

-german

-greek

-slovene

-croatian

so the speakers of:

-french

-franco-provençal

-friulian

-ladin

-occitan

-sardinian

         According to this law, every Provincial Council will have to delimit the territory where this norm will be applied, if requested by a third of the members of the Council, by at least the 15% of the resident population, or by means of a referendum (article 3).

         The main point of the regulation is education: so in infant schools, as in primary and secondary school, one will be able to choose any of the protected languages as a teaching instrument, if asked by the parents (articles 4, 5 and 6).

In any “protected” Communal Council, one will be able to speak in their first language. So in the regional provincial Assembly, in case the “protected” community represents at least the 15% of the population (in practice, this limitation will only allow the use of the minority language in the regional Councils in Friuli and Sardinia). A translation is in the course to be done, for those who may be interested (article 7).

The state official documents will be able to be translated, but only those written in Italian will be legal (article 8).

Public attention services in the protected communities must have bilingual staff (article 9).

One will be able to use the minority language before an examining magistrate. Finally, it will be possible to take up again original surnames. (article 11)      

(I you are interested in the complete text of this law, you can ask for it by electronic mail).