A multidisciplinary effort to revitalize minority language, vehicular language and language maintenance studies

The European linguistic landscape is experiencing a profound transformation. Innovations and changes in language policies, education, migration patterns etc. challenge and change the roles and functions of languages within and between states, ethnic groups and nations. ELDIA (European Language Diversity for All) is an interdisciplinary research project for reconceptualizing, promoting and re-evaluating individual and societal multilingualism. Experts on applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, law, social studies and statistics, drawn from eight universities in six European countries, work together to contribute to a better understanding of how local, “national” and “international” (vehicular) languages interact in contemporary Europe. The empirical research will be conducted with a selected sample of multilingual communities, which is to cover practically the whole spectrum of different political and socioeconomic circumstances of linguistic minorities in Europe (smaller and more numerous, autochthonous or migrant communities, vigorous and endangered, highly or weakly standardized languages etc.). All these minority languages belong to the Finno-Ugric language family which is seriously underrepresented in internationally accessible sociolinguistic literature. The results of the research project, however, will be generalizable: they will contribute to the study of multilingualism and the development of language policies in other multilingual contexts as well, in and outside Europe.