Introduction
The ability of any language group to reproduce itself depends on various factors. The incidence of these factors varies across Europe, so what is necessary in order to improve the chances of language reproduction also varies. The framework presented in this document allows us to generalise about the conditions for language production and reproduction, and then to locate each language group in a schema, according to its needs.

First of all it must be emphasised that changes in the economic order are constantly affecting society, and that we are currently involved in a fundamental paradigm shift from an industrial age economy to an Information Society based on the New Economy and on information and communication technologies (ICT). The two paradigms are treated differently in the following discussion. The data that allows us to categorise the different language groups derive from the Euromosaic and the Atlantis studies.

The Model
Let us say a few words of explanation before we discuss the analytic model. The sociological model treats the reproduction of social groups as a manifestation of how social structure changes in line with changes in the economic order. Individuals can move from one social class to another but an economic structure such as ours includes by its very nature the existence of different social classes. Many European language groups are located in the periphery where the cycles of economic accommodation vary and where the state intervenes (or has intervened until recently) to improve annual and seasonal employment. The processes of economic restructuring generate different migration cycles. ‘Strangers’ move into the peripheral communities and the core-periphery difference contributes to the concentration of opportunities in the core which attract much of the younger population from the periphery.

Individuals also have to be considered as members, not only of social classes, but also of ethnic groups, including language groups. Gender is another important variable. Each person carries his or her own form of identity. Clearly gender is reproduced biologically, whereas social classes are reproduced by the nature of the economy. Similarly, we maintain that an ethnic group is reproduced both by reference to its position in the economy, and by its ability to reproduce its distinctive culture. Language groups can absorb new members, not merely by biological reproduction, but also by incorporating those who learn the language. “Reproduction”, therefore, involves inter-generational transmission, and “production” involves the incorporation into the language group of those whose parents did not speak the language. There are three primary agencies of language reproduction: the family, education and the community. The last two contribute to language production.

The analytic model is presented in fig 1:

It indicates that in-migration affects the level of language group endogamy, with state language speakers marrying members of the language group. This can have a pronounced negative impact upon the ability of the language-speakers’ family to contribute to language reproduction. Similarly, when in-migration is pronounced the language used in the community and its institutions may change.

Outside of civil society, education is structured by two things:

(i) the need to produce the labour force for the economic order, and
(ii) the need of the state to assimilate all citizens into its ideological or cultural order.

Thus if a language group can ensure that the language is used in economic activity it is more likely that the language will be used in education. If the language is used across many different kinds of employment it can be used as the basis for upward social mobility, giving us the concept of language prestige. This contributes considerably to the status of the language group itself. Thus two things have to be recognised.

i) Labour markets are divisible into international, state and regional components. It is probable that the minority language will only have relevance in the regional labour market, unless it happens to be the main language in a (neighbouring) kin-state.

ii) Where not everyone is bilingual, using the minority language in the regional labour market will lead to what is known as labour market segmentation, where only speakers of the minority language can operate in one segment whereas the other segments are universal for all state members. As we move into a European labour market this regional condition pertains to citizens of each states, in that few states share the same state language.

Neither economic change nor social organisation operates in a vacuum, and the state intervenes in both. Legislation and social policy are both involved. The state can regulate the use of language in work, and it can also influence what happens in the public sector. This is what we refer to as legitimation, the process by a language is legitimised by legislation or social policy. It relates to institutionalised behaviour or how we do things without reflecting on them, that is, behaviour that is taken for granted. This is how we understand language use, not as a rational process but as behaviour that occurs automatically as institutionalised social behaviour. Thus, whereas the model refers to the conditions under which language competence is generated, the use of that competence depends on the level to which language use is institutionalised.

This model was used as the basis for Euromosaic an empirical study of all language groups in the EU. On the basis of this work we were able to classify all language groups by reference to the main variables – the role of the family, education and community in production and reproduction; the role of cultural activities and the media; the role of language prestige in motivation; and the relevance of status and legitimation for the institutional use of language. We can now consider the needs of these language groups with a view to increasing their production/reproduction capacity. In pursuing this goal we have grouped the various language groups into three clusters:

CLUSTER A1: Language groups which score high on all variables – family, culture, community, prestige, education, legitimation and institutionalisation.

Examples: Catalan, Swedish in Finland, Ladin and Irish.

Needs: The main focus here is on transferring competence into use, and on ensuring that access to competence generation is available universally. What has been achieved for the use of language in the public sector has to be extended to include the private sector. Education has to be reinforced by reference to the regional labour market.

CLUSTER A2: Language groups located in areas where economic change has been limited. The social and economic motivation for language group reproduction tends to be weak. The languages tend to have been institutionalised outside of legitimation and prestige. There is access to agencies of cultural reproduction and some degree of educational support. Tourism is prominent in the economy, and retirement migration is often a threat.

Examples: German in France; Frisian; Corsican.

Needs: There are two key needs: to extend the presence of the language in education and the labour market. The regional state requires autonomous integration and the ability to undertake action on behalf of the language group.

CLUSTER A3: Language use here focuses only on civil society and there may well be considerable rejection at central state level to the idea of supporting the reproduction of minority language groups. Thus prestige and legitimation are missing. Language groups are often small. The social life of group members is claimed to be driven by 'tradition'. However 'tradition' is socially constructed in that if two things exist in the same place, at the same moment in time both are equally modern!

Examples: Occitan; Breton; minority language groups in Greece other than Turkish.

Needs: The task is difficult. Policies linking the family, the community and education are needed, perhaps with a focus on community-oriented learning. Wherever relevant, trans-frontier integration should be pursued. There will usually be a need for corpus planning.

The New Economy

The central argument here is that any social group which does not enter the New Economy is in danger of becoming the source of displaced labour for that economy, thus weakening its prospects of surviving. Given that the core of the NE focuses on the hardware activities in southern Sweden and Finland, and the software belt that extends from Dublin to Milan, the rest of Europe is striving to enter the New Economy by other means – biotechnology, optoelectronics, multimedia or knowledge intensive business services, etc. This invariably means that path dependency operates, with regions which already have some relevant activities such as media production extending these into New Economy operations, e.g. multimedia and content production.

The ATLANTIS project investigated the readiness of minority language groups to take this crucial step. The key variables are the capacity of the language to be used in information and communication technology (ICT), and the use of the language in the new workflows and working practices. The study was limited to stateless languages, because the New Economy will increasingly operate across state boundaries, and hence languages which transcend states will integrate by reference to their functioning within the NE. We detected two clusters:

CLUSTER B1: These language groups are moving towards developing the tools, structures and competencies relevant for the NE.

Examples: Catalan, Basque, Welsh.

Needs: Some of these groups need to develop and extend their human language technology so that the respective language can be used for on-line working across languages and cultures. There is also the need to digitise cultural content and offer it to content producers in order to expand the existing content industry.

CLUSTER B2: These language groups are only taking small steps towards the New Economy. While all states will conform to the principles and recommendations of Europe, not all will accommodate minority languages and language groups.

Examples: Sardinian, Sorbian, Occitan.

Needs: The fundamental principles of integrating the language with the new technology and to prepare members of the language group to operate with the tools and architectures must be taken. This can be done through partnerships with language groups from cluster 1.

The needs detected thanks to this document of any given language group may be served by an EU programme. These are listed and described on this website. You can now click on the left if you wish to look for a suitable programme.