Conference on the Minorities between standard language and dialects
The Minorities between Standard Language and Dialects/Minoranze tra lingua standard e dialetti conference took place on Friday, 3 September 2021 in San Pietro al Natisone (Špeter, San Pieri), the unofficial centre of the Natisone Valleys, and was organised by the Institute for Slovenian Culture. As part of the activities marking the 20th anniversary of the 1999 National Law for the Protection of Linguistic Minorities, the conference was accompanied by a series of meetings dedicated to multilingualism in Friuli Venezia Giulia, which, unfortunately, were somewhat curtailed due to the pandemic.
After the opening address by Giorgio Banchigo, President of the Institute for Slovenian Culture, the event was then set by Dr Matejka Grgič (Slovenian Research Institute, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana) with her contribution “The Ideology of Genre and its Consequences on Language in Minority Situations: Slovenian in Italy”. The Friulian and German linguistic situation was outlined by Dr Gabriele Zanella (University of Udine) and by Velia Plozner, teacher and cultural worker. A good part of the discussion was devoted to the Slovene languages of the former province of Udine: Dr Nataša Gliha Komac (ZRC SAZU, Fran Ramovš Institute for the Slovene Language) presented the efforts made so far and the current challenges of Slovene in the Canal Valley, Dr Han Steenwijk (University of Padua) talked about the geographical position of the Resia valley as reflected in the dialectal verb forms, Dr Janoš Ježovnik (ZRC SAZU, Fran Ramovš Institute for the Slovenian Language; member of the Heritage on the Margins Programme Group) presented the internal division of the Tersko dialect, and Dr Roberto Dapit (University of Udine) presented the characteristics of Resian and Venetian grammar since the adoption of the Protective Law.
The review was rounded off by a presentation by the Central Office for the Slovene Language of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region, which is part of the Government Office for Slovenians Abroad, a fruitful discussion, and a multilingual publication of the Proceedings circulated as part of the conference.
