Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the UK’s and the EU’s language policy. The purpose of this overview is to provide an empirical background for the arguments advanced in Chaps. 2 and 3. With regard to the UK, the chapter especially focuses on the legal status of English and of the other autochthonous languages of the UK, also highlighting the distinctiveness of Northern Ireland. The chapter also briefly examines the status of allochthonous languages in the UK. With regard to the EU, the chapter illustrates the origins and evolution of the EU’s official multilingualism, also highlighting the growing distinction between official and working languages within EU institutions as well as the tension between the promotion of communication and that of linguistic diversity within the EU. The chapter finally examines the current place of English in the EU, and how this may be affected by Brexit.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See also the Equality and Human Rights Commission (2017) on this.
- 3.
- 4.
It should be noted that Luxembourg has three official languages : French , German, and Luxembourgish. The latter is, together with Turkish in Cyprus, the only national official language that does not have official status in the EU.
- 5.
Perhaps one could argue that this is not the case for the Irish language in the Republic of Ireland . However, the Irish language is not recognized as a minority language by the Irish State but rather as its national and first official language . It is for this reason that the Irish State has declined to sign up to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
- 6.
To be more precise, Irish was not made an official language of the EC/EU on Ireland’s accession in 1973. Instead, it was recognized as a ‘treaty language’ only. It was only agreed in 2005 that it would become an ‘official’ language , a commitment put into effect in 2007 but derogated. Irish will only become wholly operative as an ‘official ’ language of the EU in 2022 (European Union n.d.-d).
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Mac Giolla Chríost, D., Bonotti, M. (2018). An Empirical Overview of the Constitutional, Legal, and Public Policy Status of the Languages of the UK and the EU. In: Brexit, Language Policy and Linguistic Diversity. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78726-8_1
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