Is the matter of preservation of dialects a right wing or a left wing issue in your country?

13 comments

1. It not really a political issue, and definitely not polarized between left and right wing.

2. Don’t know if it’s quite a subject actually. But basically preservation of traditions, maintenance of cultural and origin related manners and stuff surely is a right wing, conservative issue.

3. FYI what Italians call dialects, most of us would call languages. You guys have a serious problem over there.

4. It is a non issue, neither left or right care about it.

5. It’s not really debated nor discussed in Wallonia. Endemic languages, in Wallonia, enjoy some protection and get funds but it’s mostly seen as a cultural/folklore heritage rather than a tool to communicate. At the federal level, only the 3 national languages matter (FR, DE and NL) and Flanders would probably block any initiative to recognise such regional languages. Pretty much like they did block Belgium from signing the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

   Back in the days, when Walloon nationalism was created as a response to Flemish nationalism, one of the goal was to make the French language part of the Walloon identity (as well as French republicanism, laïcité, etc). Only a small minority advocated for Walloon/French bilingualism and the Walloon movement was clearly left-wing. Walloon nationalism, clearly left-wing, is dead though.

6. In the UK, the regional parties that promote the interests of Wales and Scotland (Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party) are left-wing parties.

   However, promoting the Welsh language is a fairly cross-party thing in Wales. It’s not really politicised, most people want Welsh to succeed.

   As for dialects of English, that’s not really a political issue. Strong local dialects are generally weakening and disappearing, and some older people are making efforts to preserve them, like writing dialect poetry or preserving oral histories. But it’s a niche thing. There’s not really political voices shouting about dialects.

7. This is a good question! In Norway I think it’s more of a city/rural issue than a left/right issue, though preservation of dialects per se is pretty much a holy cow here. As you may or may not know, we have 2 written standards i Norway, where one is based on the norwegianization of danish, and the other is created on the basis of (mostly western) dialects. Each municipality chooses their main standard, but teaching the other standard is mandatory and officials also have to correspond in the standard they are referred with. The question of wether these practices should continue to be mandatory has sometimes come up, and that has usually been by the right (both moderate and populistic).

8. I do not think any particular party advocates for the preservation / abandonment of dialect. Dialect preservation is rather a matter of private organisations that cannot usually be attributed to any political spectrum.

   However, one funny thing I have noticed. In Baden-Württemberg it is often perceived as unprofessional to talk in dialect. I am currently doing my Master’s in Bavaria and at least from what I gathered people embrace it much more there to talk in dialect in professional contexts. Maybe it is just my perception but one time we actually talked about dialect usage in a seminar and many of the Bavarian students said they were also told not to speak in dialect in school. However, according to the lecturer the Bavarian government actually encourages the use of dialect in schools nowadays.

9. I haven’t really heard any politician discuss dialect preservation at all. Minority language, sure, but not dialect.

10. most people consider daily use of dialects as low-class, rural, backwards and uneducated

    politicians who pretend to care about heritage including dialects want to preserve it like phenomenon, or relict, not as an everyday part of the culture

    there is very low toleration of dialects among the intelectuals and artists, too

11. I think the politicians are not interested in that. Right or left.
    There was a policy in the 90s by the right wing to differentiate Croatian from Serbian, but on the standard level. It is funny, because that would have been so much easier if they included the dialects, since they are much more different to Serbian, lol. But they didn’t.

    But I do think it is much more acceptable to speak in public in a dialect now then it was before..

12. Preservation/proliferation of the Irish language is definitely a political issue here, but I wouldn’t say it’s a polarised one. Most political parties would be officially in favour of it (if not terribly active), and the parties with the biggest claim on it I would consider centrist.

13. Preserving minority languages is neither left nor right wing here. We just allow administration to be done in sorbian, frisian, saterfrisian and danish in some regions. I feel like except danish and maybe sorbian there aren’t that big of preserving attempts.

    Dialects, at least partially are going strongly and I dont think anyone would really think about them being a political orientation thing.