Language Research

The Federal Government in March of 2000 announced its plan to cut financial support for the Foundation for the Sorbian people (Stiftung für das sorbische Volk) by over 12 %. This amounts to one million DM in the year 2001 and by another 500,000 DM in each of the years 2002 and 2003. Due to the considerable economic difficulties already facing them, it cannot be expected that the states of Saxony and Brandenburg, will be able to cover the loss of this financial support. There is the danger that in the near future a substantial proportion of the cultural and scientific activities by and on behalf of the Sorbian people will have to be abandoned due to a lack of funds.

There have been complaints to the authorities in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein over cutbacks in Frisian-language education. The Schleswig-Holstein department of education has presented new examination regulations, which will lead to serious disadvantages for the Frisian minority.

Frisian can now only be chosen as an elective to the two required major subjects. The examination can only be taken in an additional supplemental examination and the requirements correspond to only half of those required for the major subjects. This means that:

• Students who, despite the obstacles mentioned, decide to study the elective subject Frisian, must take upon themselves a considerably longer time of independent study
• The quality of the studies remains unsatisfactory as the examination requirements are only half of those of the major two subjects
• There will be no teachers education in the Frisian language at the university level, because the requirement for that part of the teachers education will be met in the two major subjects (of which Frisian can no longer be one, because it can only be studied as a secondary subject)

With the new examination regulations this means that not only the conditions to study the subject Frisian have become much worse, but also it has become impossible to meet the requirements in the second part of the teachers education.

Minorities in the northernmost German state of Schleswig-Holstein have created increased media presence for their languages and issues in state elections of February 2000. There are four indigenous linguistic minorities in Schleswig-Holstein: Danish; North Frisian, Romany and Lower German. As the election campaign intensified, all four groups increased their demands for greater media coverage. Frequent reference has been made to the aims of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which came into force in Germany last year. At the present time, the broadcasting and media situation for Schleswig-Holstein's minorities is far from the stated ideal. Only the Danish minority has a bilingual Danish-German daily newspaper, Flensborg Avis. Danish-speakers also have about two minutes of radio news each weekday on the private radio station RSH. Issues about the Frisian minority are – to a certain extent – covered by the Danish daily, but not in the Frisian language. Apart from that, the Frisians have three minutes of Frisian radio a week in the regional public service radio station NDR. The Romany community in Schleswig-Holstein has no media outlet whatsoever for its language. Lower German has a larger presence in broadcasting time. According to a report by the Independent Broadcasting Council, ULR, there are about 40 hours per month in the language on public service radio.

ANIMAL LITTER CASE MAY GO TO COURT IN LOWER GERMAN

(Brussels August 8, 2000, by Katy Redgrave & Brigitte Alfter )

An application for a patent for a new type of environmentally friendly animal litter was rejected because it was submitted in Lower German to the patenting office. Lower German is recognized as a regional language of northern Germany, while the federal patent authorities are based in the south in Munich.

A local Member of the Federal Parliament, Wolfgang Börnsen, recently addressed the Minister of Justice regarding this matter, and met with a negative response.

A statement from the Ministry says that under the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, Germany's obligations regarding Lower German apply to the northern regions where it is spoken, and are irrelevant to the workings of the Munich based federal office.

The claim that the rejection of the application, because of the use of Lower German, belittles the millions of speakers of this minority language, is also refuted: ‘The life of a regional minority language does not depend on whether or not it can be used in communications with the administrative authorities.’

A patent lawyer from Bremen in northern Germany earlier announced that he wanted to take the case to the federal court. He charged that the rejection contravened above-mentioned Charter, ratified by Germany, reports the Institute of Lower German based at Bremen.

If the case goes all the way to the Constitutional Court as the Bremen lawyer intends, this would be the first court case in Germany to test the European Charter of Minority and Regional Languages.

The background to the case is to be found at a farm in Lower Saxony. Patent lawyer Klaus Göken applied for patenting rights for an idea for cattle and pig bedding, using materials such as flax, hemp and straw, thought up by an animal litter manufacturer. The application was written in Lower German, and despite being accompanied by a High German translation, was rejected. A second version sent in High German only was accepted.

In its defense the office reasoned that had the Lower German version been accepted, a precedent would have been set, leading to an unavoidable abundance of applications in other dialects and minority languages; this would make official procedures incomprehensible.

The office reiterated that the administrative language and that of the court must be "an understandable form of German, that is High German". However, Göken is planning to address the jury in Lower German.

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Updated (March 2001)

In March, UN Human Rights Committee on Racism criticized German Government for not treating all minorities on the same basis (every group has different degrees of special protection). They also asked government for investigation of the reasons for the rise in xenophobic and right-wing attacks.

In Munich, the Federal German Court for Patents concluded that Lower German has to be considered a foreign language comparable to English or French. However, Lower German is recognized as a regional language according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority languages. The case has been initiated after submitting the application for a patent of an animal litter in Lower German to the Federal Patent Authorities. The company which has already achieved recognition for its product by applying in German, intends to carry on the case to the Federal High Court.

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Updated (August 2001)

The Federal Court of Patents in Munich ruled that in the future, Lower German, a regional language in the northern part of the Federal Republic of Germany, has to be accepted by the Federal Office for Patents. The case led to the decision that applications, as well as negotiations about the patent, have to be done in the minority language if the applicant wishes so. The registration of the patent however will still be in German.

SORBIAN

The Sorbians protested against the closure of a Sorbian school class at the secondary school in Crostwitz. Fifth grade students have for almost two weeks since the closure on August 9, 2001 received education in Sorbian classes in their school by retired Sorbian teachers, even though the class in the village school was officially closed and teachers were waiting for them in another school in a neighbouring village. However, the childrens' parents intended to continue this protest, reported regional media. The leader of the province of Saxony, Kurt Biedenkopf, announced that the Ministry of Education would reinvestigate the issue, whether the special protection of the Sorbian minority allows special conditions in the question of schools.

The closure was based on a decision by the Ministry of Education and Arts in Saxony, saying that there are not enough students to fulfil the requirements. According to the recent reform in Saxony, each secondary school is required to establish at least two parallel classes with 25 students in each - or 20 students in rural areas in each grade.

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Updated (September 2001)

SORBIAN

Parents of pupils who are thought in the Sorbian language and organizations defending the rights of the Sorbian minority in Germany are still expecting a response from the state government on the demand not to interrupt the Sorbian courses. The fact that so far this initiative has not managed to carry on leads to reopening the discussion on the need to enlarge the recognition of minority's rights. According to a Chancellor Schroeder's recent statement, the reinforcement of the protection for minorities at the federal level is not a state's priority. However, the Sorbian language is on the UNESCO's Red Book list of Europe's endangered languages.

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Updated (December 2001)

SORBIAN

The Sorbian speakers still keep protesting against the closure of a Sorbian school class.

Hans Modrow, MEP of the Party for Democratic Socialism in Germany, submitted a written question on the issue to the European Commission. The politician, who belongs to the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, points out that "this measure of the Free State of Saxony would violate the right of the Sorbian people to promote their Slavic language and to protect their identity." Representatives of the Sorbian minority were shocked by António Vitorino's (Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs) reply on behalf of the European Commission. The answer showed that the Commission did not examine the Sorbian situation in detail. In the case of closed school, Commission states, "no one disputes the right of the Domowina to set up Sorbian schools but according to the second paragraph of Article 14 of the framework convention, the State is required to manage these schools only where there is ‘sufficient demand’ from pupils."

The question of ‘sufficient demand’ is crucial in this debate. According to a school reform in Saxony, each secondary school has to have at least two parallel classes with 25 students in each grade. After protests in fear of school closures in the whole region, the authorities lowered the requirements to 20 children in rural areas. But still, it is not enough for the Sorbian minority as there are only 17 students in the fifth grade in Crostwitz, a Sorbian community with 1.200 inhabitants close to the city of Bautzen. The Sorbs protested several weeks by maintaining the original school schedule on a voluntary and unpaid basis. Now the students are forced to go to neighboring schools.

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