Table of Contents

Tables and Figures To the Reader 1. Introduction 2. European Language Vitality Barometer - A Novel Tool for Measuring the Degree of Language Maintenance at Group Level 3. Apples, Oranges, and Cranberries: Finno-Ugric Minorities in Europe and the Diversity of Diversities 4. Analysis 5. Implications and Recommendations: What Should We Do to Maintain Language Diversity in Europe? Afterword About the authors References

About the Author

Johanna Laakso is Professor of Finno-Ugric Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her research interests include Finno-Ugric languages, historical linguistics, language contact and gender linguistics.Anneli Sarhimaa is Professor of Northern European and Baltic languages at the Johannes-Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Germany. She is Vice-President of ELEN (European Language Equality Network). Her research interests include sociolinguistics, contact linguistics and language policies.Sia Spiliopoulou Akermark is Associate Professor of International Law, Director and Head of Research at the The Aland Islands Peace Institute, Finland. Her research interests include international law, diversity, law and politics, and peace and conflict resolution.Reetta Toivanen is Academy of Finland Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor for social and cultural anthropology at the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki, Finland. She is interested in human rights, minorities, power, identity politics and ethnography.

Reviews

This well researched and reasoned book provides the evidence and approaches to enable the human rights advocate to make the arguments for language protection in a clear and convincing manner. This work is an important addition for the advocacy of language protection as part of the human rights agenda. Theodore S. Orlin, Harold T. Clark Professor of Human Rights Advocacy and Scholarship, Emeritus, Utica College, USA This book is a rare gem. Issued from a research project, it clearly demonstrates how not only the research community, but the civil society at large can benefit from the interplay of data, research assumptions and methodology that is at the core of research. The authors go far beyond their duty of presenting their research results: they engage the readers in rediscussing their assumptions and pre-conceptions about multilingualism and language minorities in Europe, and they do it beautifully, involving them in a dialogue that reminds of the ancient Greek dialectical method. Claudia Soria, Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale "A. Zampolli", Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy