Family language policies among Albanian immigrants in Greece

Abstract

This article reports on an investigation of family language policies among 37 Albanian immigrant families in Northern Greece within the framework of Spolsky's language policy model. Data collection was based on semi-directed interviews with parents which were analysed using both content and discourse analysis. According to our findings, three groups of families were observed in our sample. A small number of families (n=4) did not transmit the ethnic language to their children and showed no interest in maintaining ties with the homeland. In another group of families (n=12) positive attitudes towards ethnic language maintenance were accompanied by specific language management efforts and language practices in support of the ethnic language. However, the majority of our informants (n=21) did not engage in such efforts, even though they, too, expressed positive attitudes towards Albanian language maintenance. We argue that although most immigrant parents may share positive attitudes towards ethnic language maintenance, they may differ as to whether they embrace bilingualism as an asset or accept the dominant ideology according to which the simultaneous development of two languages may hinder the development of the majority language.

Keywords:

• language policy
• language ideologies
• language maintenance
• Albanian
• Greek

Notes

1. The 2011 census data have not been made public yet.

2. Greece is one of the few European countries which have not yet signed the European Charter for Minority and Regional Languages (http://www.coe.int). The Charter ensures certain language rights for minority languages with a long-standing presence within the borders of particular states. The ‘languages of migrants’ (such as Arabic, Turkish, but also Albanian in our case) are explicitly excluded from such provisions, because they are not considered part of Europe's cultural heritage. Moreover, as Albania is not yet part of the EU, Greece is under no obligation to provide mother-tongue courses to Albanian citizens residing in its territory.