Language policy in the long nineteenth century: Catalonia and Schleswig

The period between the French Revolution and World War One has been identified by many scholars (notably Hobsbawm 1990) as a time of great importance in the development of Western European nationalism. Hobsbawm (1990: 104) further specifies that language and ethnicity are the "decisive or even only criteria of potential nationhood" within this period. This chapter examines the role played by de jure governmental language policies and related de facto language ideologies, and focuses on the Western European regions of Catalonia and Schleswig. These two regions are characterized by varying degrees of societal multilingualism,and a complex relationship with larger European nations (Spain for Catalonia, Germany and Denmark for Schleswig). This chapter compares these two case studies, in order to allow for a deeper understanding of the role of language policies in the creation of historical and present-day European nationalisms.