Radczenko: Językowa droga donikąd

Meanwhile, the amendment to the State Language Law which upset the Polish minority in Lithuania, fell through. Members of Lithuanian Parliament postponed the project prepared by a group led by Valentinas Stundys (third since the Parliament decided to amend the law passed during the Soviet reign.) 

The project was roundly criticized by the Members of Parliament from , supported by social democrats. ‘Fortunately we’ve managed to convince both the Speaker of the Parliament and the Prime Minister, so the subject has been removed from the agenda indefinitely,’ MP Jarosław Narkiewicz said in one of his interviews. This does not mean that it will not come back before the elections in the fall.

During the debate over the project the MP’s from AWPL and the left appealed for the new project of State Language Law to regulate not only the use of Lithuanian, but also languages of the minorities. As I wrote already, in my opinion regulations concerning the use of minority languages should be included in the Language Law, rather than Ethnic and National Minorities Law (which has yet to be passed, if indeed it ever will be). Or at least the Law should clearly state that it does not regulate the use of minority languages in public life. Otherwise we will have a conflict between two laws which the judges will, per the ruling of the Constitutional Court, be settled in favor of the :Language Law. Unfortunately in the project of Stundys and company there are few provisions regulating the use of minority languages and it is hrd to deem them sufficient compared to the expectations of minorities.

Chiefly – which just about all Lithuanian media have written about – the project was supposed to enable the use of foreign languages (which would also include minority languages) in the names of the streets and other writings displayed in public. According to Article 17 of the project names of the streets for example could be written in two languages for tourism purposes (with the sign in foreign language being smaller than the one in Lithuanian). The rules for putting such signs up would be established by local government after consulting with appropriate, government-appointed authority. Doubtless it is a step towards relaxing the legislation, though a lot would depend on the authority appointed for consultation.

Some Polish media in Lithuania already managed to upset their readers by stating that. after the amendment is passed, all Polish names, even in Polish media, will have to be written in Lithuanian. Meanwhile the project proposes something different altogether. According to Article 15 the official – Lithuanian – names of settlements are to be used in legal acts, official documents, and traffic signs; these regulations are identical as the present ones. At the same time, the project allows for using the unofficial names (theoretically Polish or even Samogitian ones) following the regulations outlined by an appropriate authority

The project does not definitively rule out the original spelling of non-Lithuanian names and surnames (which MP Gintaras Songaila sharply protested during the debate). While Article 14 does state that the names should have Lithuanian spelling in official documents, at the same time it leaves the door open for passing a bill regulating the spelling of names ‘unless other laws state otherwise.’

Respectively, Article 7 of the new State Language Law orders that administrative proceeding be conducted exclusively in Lithuanian, at the same time however it allows the officials to converse with applicants in other languages as well.

On the other hand, there are regulations in the project which restrict the rights minorities enjoyed so far (e. g. that all public events and international conferences be held in two languages) and which as social-democratic MP Vytenis Andriukaitis pointed out during the debate, partially remove the freedom of solving language issues by the minorities, guaranteed to them by Lithuanian constitution.

Lithuania has one of the strictest Language Laws in all European Union, and the amendments prepared by the Parliament are unlikely to change the situation too much. All attempts at approaching the language problem more liberally have so far met with the following retort from language purists: “There are only three millions of us. If we allow the minorities to use their languages in spelling the names of people, settlements, and streets our language will go extinct.” Well, to paraphrase the words of Maxim Kammerer from Prisoner of Power by the Strugatsky Brothers: “There are places where people lead better lives than you; there are places where people lead worse lives than you.  But nowhere do people lead dumber lives than you” since what does one have to do with the other?

Minorities are not parts of Lithuanian people anyway, so what language they use has no bearing on what language is used by Lithuanians. I sincerely doubt that a bilingual name of settlement or street is enough to polonise or russify somebody.

Such restrictions are unlikely to inspire the love of state language in anyone. Luxembourg, a miniscule country inhabited by less than half a million people, established four official languages – Luxembourgish, French, German, Portuguese (despite the Portuguese making up about 13 per cent of all citizens, and being primarily labourers who came to the country in the seventies and eighties, rather than permanent residents). By some miracle not only did Luxembourgish not die out, on the contrary – for several decades now it has been flourishing.

Conservative societies, trying to ensure the survival of their languages and societies, are in retreat. Put quite simply, they gradually vanish.

The future belongs to societies treating ethnic, national and religious issues liberally and solve their problems in the spirit of mutual respect, tolerance, and understanding. It doesn’t matter whether we call it multiculturalism or something else. Survival of the language is thus not dependent upon commands and restrictions but love its users have for it. This love cannot be forced upon people by law. Restrictions lead nowhere. The only way to gain such love is from genuine national pride and understanding for the diversity surrounding us, including ethnic and linguistic diversity.

http://pl.delfi.lt/opinie/opinie/radczenko-jezykowa-droga-donikad.d?id=58893421#ixzz1yQ8CpF5f

Tłumaczenie Andrzej Rola w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Andrzej Rola within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.