Language Research

Updated (April 2005)

A TV PROGRAM WITHDRAWN BECAUSE OF A MENTION OF MACEDONIAN

The Greek Member State Committee (MSC) of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages was deeply concerned about an incident that took place on the Greek State Television (ERT) on March 20, 2005.

On that Sunday NET, the second channel of ERT, indefinitely postponed broadcasting of the program "Traveling in Greece", which featured the Florina Region of western Macedonia. According to a presenter of the show, the official justification for such a decision was that in the edited (ready-to-air) version some inhabitants of the villages in this region said on camera that their mother tongue was Macedonian, a language that has been banned by the Greek State for decades.

According to the Greek MSC statement, ERT directors must have thought that such public statements could support the claims for the existence of a linguistic minority that Greece does not officially recognize and they decided to ban the broadcast. This step is considered to be a flagrant abuse of the EU principles with respect to diversity and multiculturalism, particularly a few months after Greece hosted the Olympic Games under the motto "Celebrating cultures, celebrating diversity".

Source: Eurolang News, Brussels, March 25, 2005, by Davyth Hicks, http://www.eurolang.net/

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