May 2005

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5th PARTNERSHIP FOR DIVERSITY FORUM FOCUSES ON ADDED VALUE OF LESSER-USED LANGUAGES (Eurolang)

May 2005 – The 5th Partnership for Diversity (PfD) forum was held in Gorizia in the multilingual region of Friuli. The forum focused on the added value and the benefits of lesser used languages. The PfD gathered a number of experts from across Europe who represented different minority languages of Europe. Among all them, it is worth to be mentioned the presence of a number of local and regional authorities, such as the Mayor of Gorizia, Vittorio Brancati, Roberto Antonaz, regional councillor for Culture and Education, and the German-speaking representative Velia Plozner. The Mayor of Nova Goriza described how linguistic diversity helped to “dilute the border” and that the area is an “European laboratory for cross border cooperation.”

Several speakers such as Giorgio Brandolin, president of the province of Gorizia, criticised the lack of progress with the implementation of Italian language law 482, but that he remained optimistic. In accordance with the information published in Eurolang, he described how Gorizia “was multicultural but events and tragedies in World War One and Two had destroyed years of multicultural best practice. He emphasised that “linguistic minorities suffered because of the negligence of Italy and Yugoslavia”.

Different participants such as the Galician representative for the Language policy, or the Catalan Director for Language Policy Mr. Miquel Pueyo, took part of the plenary sessions. Also the plenary speaker Meirion Prys Jones from the Welsh Language Board discussed the importance of engaging young people in the language regeneration effort and the Board’s efforts to encourage this.

The Forum continued with workshops and debates in Gorizia and Nova Goriza (Slovenia). The main conclusions of the PfD in Gorizia were that minority languages give the regions added value and that diversity and bilingualism are a great opportunity in the new Europe going against the European project merely being based on economics. The Forum, which concluded in the Friulan capital Udin (Udine), will move next year to Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.