Positive ideologies ain’t enough! (Dis)junctions and paradoxes in minority language protection
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3987
Nel 2018 ho condotto una ricerca sull’applicazione delle misure di tutela per due gruppi linguistici minoritari (cimbro e mocheno) nelle scuole dell’Italia settentrionale. Lo studio aveva la finalità di descrivere i programmi di apprendimento linguistico ma si è lentamente trasformato in qualcosa di più. La prospettiva olistica dell’antropologia ha svelato profonde contraddizioni e paradossi nell’attuazione delle politiche linguistiche delle minoranze. Tali discrepanze suggeriscono che il diritto possa essere letto al contempo come un attore sociale “presente e assente” che influenza la realtà in modi non immediatamente percepibili. Da un lato, gli scopi di un dettato legislativo possono essere inibiti silenziosamente dall’inerzia deliberata o dalla mancanza di competenza dei burocrati. Dall’altro, un testo normativo, pur inibito, produce comunque effetti non rilevabili e impatta ontologicamente sugli individui. Di conseguenza, le ideologie positive non bastano se si sa poco di ciò che accade in termini operativi quotidiani e ciò non può essere ignorato, soprattutto dai sinceri sostenitori dei diritti linguistici ed educativi. Questo articolo sostiene una critica della “giustizia possibile attraverso il diritto” sostenuta dalle prime ricerche su diritto e società.
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Giorgia Decarli
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Positive ideologies ain’t enough! (Dis)junctions and paradoxes in minority language protection
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Positive ideologies ain’t enough! (Dis)junctions and paradoxes in minority language protection
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                                            2020 | ANUAC. VOL. 9, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2020: 97-120




Positive ideologies ain’t enough!
(Dis)junctions and paradoxes in minority language protection
Giorgia DECARLI
Università di Verona



ABSTRACT: In 2018, I conducted research on the application of protection measures for
two minority language groups (Cimbrian and Mochéno) in Northern Italian schools. The
study aimed at describing linguistic learning programs but it slowly turned into
something more. The anthropological holistic perspective unveiled profound
contradictions and paradoxes in the implementation of minority language policies.
Such discrepancies suggest that law can be both a “present and absent” social actor that
influences reality in non-immediately perceptible ways. On the one side, purposes of a
legislative manifesto can be soundlessly inhibited by bureaucrats’ deliberate inaction or
lack of competence. On the other side, an inhibited legislative text still produces
undetectable effects and ontologically impacts on individuals. Consequently, positive
ideologies ain’t enough if little is known about what happens in everyday operational
terms and this cannot be ignored, especially by those who are sincere in their support
for linguistic and educational rights. This article endorses a critique of “the justice
possible through law” upheld by early law and society research.

KEYWORDS: MINORITY LANGUAGE PROTECTION; LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES; LEGAL PARADOXES; ETHNOGRAPHY;
TRENTINO MINORITIES.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Giorgia Decarli
Positive ideologies ain’t enough! (Dis)junctions and paradoxes in minority language protection
2020 | ANUAC. VOL. 9, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2020: 97-120.
ISSN: 2239-625X – DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3987
98                                                                        GIORGIA DECARLI




   Trento province is predominantly Italophone with the exception of three
language groups whose communication includes – along with Italian and
Trentino vernaculars – a distinct minority language 1. Cimbrian, spoken by
villagers in Lusérn, and Mochéno, spoken by people from Valle del Fersina
(in the municipalities of Vlarotz, Garait and Palai-en-Bernstol), both have
German roots although they resulted from colonial expansions with different
origins and patterns. Ladin, spoken by inhabitants in Valle di Fassa, despite
its many local varieties, holds an autonomous seat among Romance
languages.
   Based on applying State and local regulations which, by echoing a
nationalist ideology, identify minorities through two exclusive criteria –
namely “language” and historical “presence on a territory” 2 – the three
groups are officially recognized under Italian law as “linguistic minorities”.
This implies that Cimbrian, Mochéno and Ladin are formally safeguarded by
a solid multi-layered legislative system, which makes them “super protected
languages”3. This system includes (inter)national and regional provisions
which, beside recognizing their existence, attempt to fight against the
extinction of the three languages.
   By complying with European recommendations and national law, Trento
provincial legislation seems keen to embrace a genuine approach to
preserving the three minority languages4. In particular, a promotional (ideal)
model was chosen that acknowledges linguistic differences, provides them
with rights and removes obstacles that prevent them from reaching
substantial equality (Toniatti 1994). This approach is also reflected in the
local educational system since language protection is conceived (at all legal
levels) as including, among other things, equal rights to education in school.
Owing to the risk of educational ghettoization and, above all, to the
excessive financial burden compared to the small number of pupils to be
protected, Trento province administration rejected school separatism
(adopted towards its own linguistic minorities by the neighboring Bolzano

1. I would like to thank Anuac reviewers for their positive and instructive comments that
helped me to develop this article.
2. See in particular Decree Law 592/1993 and Italian Law 482/1999.
3. Cimbrian and Mochéno languages on the one side, and Ladin on the other, reached their
status through different political-historical trajectories.
4. See the articulated but fragmentary soft law with which, in 2018, the European
Commission (with the Minority SafePack) aimed at harmonization by creating an organic EU
legal framework. See also article 6 of the Italian Constitution and Italian Law 482/1999.


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POSITIVE IDEOLOGIES AIN’T ENOUGH!                                                            99


province) and opted for a more socially and economically sustainable model.
Therefore, in public schools situated within the traditional settlement areas of
the three language groups, education is mainly given in Italian, but minority
languages and cultures are taught if explicitly requested by interested
parties (Palermo, Woelk 2011).
   In the last decade, this configuration has been implemented towards
Cimbrian and Mochéno speaking pupils who were the focus of my study.
   My analysis particularly focuses on the micro level of classrooms and
families but with a view to understanding both the (non)impact of legislation
issued at a macro level and what role administrative organization plays at
the meso level. The ethnographic data resulted from almost a year’s
fieldwork in schools and in the children’s after school lives 5. I rejected the
use of questionnaires in order to seek long-term interaction with the groups
of people being studied. My aim was to produce “on-site, contextualized,
cross-cutting findings that are intended to account for the ‘actor’s point of
view’, for ordinary representations, for usual practices and their
autochthonous meanings” (De Sardan 2009: 29). Without this participation,
I would not have been able to witness what pupils learned in their minority
languages, nor measure the time devoted to these languages, regardless of
the formal school agenda. I would not have been able to capture forms and
practices of communication. I could not have answered such questions as
“who is talking to who, how and when? How many and what languages
children and adults use peer-to-peer, with teachers, with younger and older
people, inside the school and on the street”? I could not have accessed the
manifold (evident and subconscious) language beliefs and ideologies that
exist in both language groups and public institutions.
   I scientifically chose them on the grounds of several (geo)political
considerations. Although existing legislation, as well as the speakers them-
selves, generally show positive ideologies towards their cultural and
linguistic heritage, the two minority languages enjoy a de facto low status.
There is a palpable shortage of any institutional support in terms of

5. The fellowship lasted one year and the ethnography covered almost a whole school term
(from February to mid-June on the Cimbrian Plateau and from September to mid-December
2018 in Valle dei Mochéni). The study was carried out in four (pre and primary) schools and
included ordinary scholastic activities, linguistic labs and modules, educational planning
meetings as well as playtime with pupils, coffee breaks with teachers, school excursions and
parties in which families were also involved. The fieldwork extended to cover after-school
life and included afternoons at playgrounds with children and caregivers, coffees at the bar
with parents as well as walks in the woods with teachers. The tools I resorted to were
participant observation (with diary notes), ordinary conversations and two focus groups
with parents. A collection of oral histories and a partial linguistic mapping of the territories
were also compiled.

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visibility, of plans for strengthening local economies and, more generally, of
investments in the development of “micronational consciousness” (Coluzzi
2005: 251). On the contrary, economic power, along with the increasing
equation of language and cultural survival, might explain why Ladins in the
South Tyrol Province (as well as other minorities) have been more successful
in their political struggle for attention, recognition and involvement.
Furthermore, the sparse Cimbrian and Mochéno populations6 have determined
lesser critical masses compared to Ladin speakers who form a larger group
that, once again, has had greater success in increasing its guarantees and
achieving a qualitative mutation. Basically, I regarded Cimbrian and
Mochéno as “minor minority languages” which is why I deemed a closer look
at the preservation dynamics of their cultural specificities in school and at
the language policies usage level all the more interesting.
   My study found that although teaching, revitalization and awareness-
raising processes are underway in the observed schools, they are,
nevertheless, fragile. The amount of time actually spent on these projects is
very little and teachers appear to have an over-timid approach, which results
from endogenous as well as exogenous causes. In fact, on the one hand,
schools are overburdened with a wide variety of disciplines and activities,
which leaves little room for new projects. On the other, events taking place
outside educational establishments, in the wider communities, affect the
relative tentativeness of these activities – something I realized by widening
my fieldwork to include people’s collective life. This holistic approach
uncovered profound contradictions that are liable to affect safeguarding
minority languages in school but, to this day, no meaningful public
discussion has taken place.

Minority language protection both in and out of Trentino Schools
  Spolsky describes domains as “identifiable sectors of a speech community
[…] made up of role-determined participants, social describable locations,
and appropriate topics” (2014: 409). Certain rhetoric (rooted in the Euro-
American cultural model and often affecting its scientific disciplinary
approach) is prone to describing each domain as a resistant, airtight entity.
However, domains often reveal shady boundaries which are, at times,
deliberately related: see the Educative Covenant of Co-Responsibility jointly
sealed by schools and families, which aims at promoting a common
educative action and at strengthening respectful and collaborative relation-


6. In 2011 General Census, 1,072 people claimed they are Cimbrian; 1,660 claimed they are
Mochéni; 18,550 claimed they are Ladin.


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POSITIVE IDEOLOGIES AIN’T ENOUGH!                                                     101


ships. One would expect the bond between domains to result in some degree
of participant coherence, especially among those who simultaneously belong
to more than one domain (like a mother who is also a teacher), and vice
versa. However, beliefs and practices are only supposed to inalterably flow
from one domain to another as a result of their connection through
individuals. In fact, since everyone plays diverse roles within multiple
domains, potentially conflicting attitudes may occur.
   Interpreting domains may, therefore, become a challenging activity.
When dealing with minority language protection in school, one might be
surprised by some unexpected disjunctions between domains that are
regarded as tightly intertwined, such as law, school and home. Ethnography,
as a (rather invasive) research method, deserves credit for disclosing such –
otherwise undetected – disconnections: disconnections that may evolve into
actual contradictions. As a result, it enables enacting policies that can no
longer escape their responsibilities and that must be closer to the grassroots
level.

(Dis)connection law-school
   The fieldwork disclosed an initial disjunction that involved the
(non)relation between educational and legal domains. There were ongoing
language protection projects in the four schools, developed within a glocal
trend which, since the 1980s has been attempting to resist language shift 7 in
diverse communities and in multiple domains of daily life. These projects
also developed within a solid (inter)national and regional legal framework of
undeniable strategic importance. This virtuous scenario, however, shows
vulnerabilities that cannot be underestimated. This particularly applies to a
significant mismatch between the abstract legislative level and the
pragmatic educational level. A mismatch that risks making law appear no
longer as a problem-solving tool but rather as a problem-hiding tool.
   The Alpine schools under observation, attended by Cimbrian and
Mochéno pupils, face enormous practical obstacles. The Mayor of Lusérn’s
pleas for obtaining statutory recognition and effective implementation of a
0-6 school model, have been hitting bureaucratic deadlocks (or worse,
indifference) for the last 5 years. In Lusérn, this educational strategy (which
might be a mere option elsewhere) is the only way to ensure the survival of
the pre-school structure which risks closure every year due to a low birth
rate within the Cimbrian community. This school not only improves
livability within an impervious mountain area, it is currently the only place

7. In sociolinguistics, language shift is described as the abandonment of one language for
another.

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where children can be immersed in the minority language on a daily basis.
Keeping the school open, however, would not solve all the problems. The
institutional diplomacy of silence has also been the answer to bottom up
demands for receiving the financial resources required for multiple
necessities, such as school supplies: infants are having to sit on adult-sized
chairs at high tables because child-friendly facilities are lacking; they also
have to negotiate three flights of stairs to move from one classroom to
another because the logistics had to adapt to the internal layout of the
building which is an old family house donated by a Swiss couple.
   Keeping the Vlaroz pre-school open is not at stake but the school still
faces economic issues for things that matter, such as drafting and editing
pedagogical material in the minority language. Teachers borrow books from
the primary school but these are not always suited to the abilities of the
younger children. Moreover, this educational equipment is often provided by
the primary school teachers themselves, who, on a voluntary basis, have
created and published ad hoc books, organized into levels and disciplines, in
their spare time.
   Further to issues affecting each school individually, there is a crosscutting
difficulty in staff recruitment, employment, administrative arrangement and
substitution (from teachers to special-ed-teachers, from linguistic mediators
to auxiliaries) as well as in training new skills, such as multilingual teaching.
This is symptomatic of an administrative inertia that affects education as a
whole but more so frail projects, like those concerning endangered
languages. According to teachers, these projects are given hardly any room
within the curricula and would need (at least) continuity and specific skills.
   My fieldwork showed that, whereas linguistic ecology, namely “the
interactions between any given language and its environment” (Haugen
2001: 57), reacted to stimulations and challenges by changing and adapting
(albeit with unpredictable outcomes), local administrative ecology regarding
school seemed to have remained unaltered in the face of introducing a
legislative framework to protect minority languages.

The children’s after-school life
   The same inflexibility also seems to extend to the children’s after-school
life, and this provocatively leads to wondering about the sense of the
province’s protection law.
   There is a greater sense of localism in both Cimbrian and Mochéno
communities and a strong connection with the territory (with the relative
customs and practices and a sense of fulfillment for having dominated the
hostile land where peace has since reigned). Localism seems to be a valid


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POSITIVE IDEOLOGIES AIN’T ENOUGH!                                                    103


emic representation of their identities (although it is not the only one). The
fact that a mother portrayed the concept of “protection” as the possibility
“to stay in the valley”8 is meaningful in this regard. However, it is likely that
the beliefs and practices that these groups developed in relation to their
territories, nurtured the dissemination of ethic beliefs (i.e. assumptions
made by outsiders) which do not fully coincide. In their discourses, urban
élites often treat these communities’ sense of localism as the desire for
isolation. And, from being only ideally displaced, they have ultimately
become segregated owing to a process of marginalization originating from a
lack of legal provisions and remedies that, if they had existed, might have
soundly facilitated connections and mutual knowledge. Public transport is
an example. At the beginning of 2018, Lusérn and Trento (the province
capital), which are about 25 miles apart, were connected by four daily buses,
all arranged according to a metropolitan-centric requirement. Two buses left
Lusérn early in the morning and two buses returned in the evening. Lusérn
was not perceived as a place where an individual might want to travel to in
the morning and stay all day (either for work or pleasure). In order to work in
the village, non-resident, unlicensed educators have no other choice but to
move there and spend their salaries on rented accommodation (since the
apartment historically reserved for the teacher is no longer available). This
may be one of the reasons why, when teachers are requested to indicate the
institutes they would most like to be employed at, or temporarily assigned
to, from a list of provincial schools, Lusérn pre-school is among the last
choices9.
   According to timetables, there are a few more buses from and to Vlarotz
connecting it to the closest urban center (not Trento, which can only be
reached by an additional train ride). Here, when someone asks for directions
to Val dei Mochéni, people indicate the main road, adding a couple of words
with a reiterated wave of the hand suggesting a distant destination. As in the
past (when local people used to travel by wagon), Mochéno speaking people
are still seen as those living “way over there”, while they are actually only 15
miles away. In November 2017, the Alderman for Infrastructure described
the introduction of three additional buses running on holy days as “a real
revolution”10.
   Isolation eventually affected life within the two communities too. In
Vlarotz, apart from school, children have hardly any recreational space
where congregating opportunities can be generated or reinforced and where

8. Focus group, 22 January 2019.
9. Private conversation with teachers, 15 June 2018.
10. Trentino Today, 3 November 2017, http://www.trentotoday.it/cronaca/autobus-domenica-
val-mocheni-orari.html, accessed on 10 January 2019.

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social and linguistic interchange is possible 11. There are no soccer, volleyball
or tennis fields, no library, no parish. The latter was replaced by the pre-
school (the municipality was faced with a choice). A couple of years ago, a
multifunctional center was built but is still waiting to be officially opened
due to bureaucratic issues. In the meantime, the community is wondering
what will happen to it: if public administration decides to charge people for
using it, hardly anyone will be able to pay because one consequence of
“small numbers” is often excessive costs that everyone has to bear.
   In recent years, a summer camp – Zumberclub – has received funds from
local administration but only enough for five afternoon encounters
throughout the season during which children play together for no more than
a couple of hours. The Zumerclub is not exclusively open to children but
rather to families, who cannot join because of work commitments. The kind
of work that interviewed mothers referred to was not part of the high-
income tourist business that other valleys in this rich region benefit from
but those silent activities (making hay, clearing forests and chopping wood,
collecting dung for vegetable gardens, looking after the few remaining
animals) that bond individuals to the territory but which are no longer
lucrative enough for survival. This work is therefore done during breaks from
primary jobs and businesses that are normally carried out in major urban
centers outside the valley. Because of that, community members have
increasingly less chance to meet. In summertime, even the local choir
suspends practice because its members are working in the fields until late.
According to one interviewed mother
      The future of the Mochéno child… and, therefore, of his minority language… is
      with one foot in the valley… doing agriculture, pastoralism, carpentry,
      beekeeping… and the other foot outside his territory. This valley will have a
      future only if its children do two jobs because they cannot survive with only a
      few cows… and this is exhausting12.

  Existing legislation seems to rely on a positive ideology in terms of the
two minority languages and on a major interest in their preservation.
However, the intervention needed to make protection effective (i.e. the
enactment, by local authorities, of regulatory acts able to impact and
concretely modifying subjective situations) is all but absent. The apparent
genuine willingness to value minority languages clashes with a substantive
abandonment of schools and municipalities where the two linguistic

11. This is especially true for children living in the most remote heff (housing common to
the area).
12. Focus group, 22 January 2019.


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POSITIVE IDEOLOGIES AIN’T ENOUGH!                                                     105


minorities spend their lives. This leads to a paradox: while there is an
apparent desire to preserve a language, the survival of its potential speakers
is disregarded as if the two things were not inextricably linked. As in graffiti
artwork by Banksy, the legislative framework appears to be realistic but,
when you look closely, instead of seeing principles governing language
protection concretely operating in all possible articulations, you come up
against a brick wall: it does not produce a real system metamorphosis and is
only an illusion.

(Dis)connection home-school
   The second disconnection affects educational and domestic domains and
involves parents belonging to the protected linguistic groups. There seems
to be a disjointedness between how parents use the minority language with
offspring at home and in social networking and the way they speak about its
protection in school.
   Discourses on safeguarding their respective languages were conducted in
different moods (fiery in Lusérn and pondered in Vlarotz) but all interviewed
parents appeared to have a high ethnic sense and an interest in protecting
their languages. They showed a positive and strong ideology towards what,
in local rhetoric, is presented (and often perceived) as the mother-tongue,
i.e. the primary language of socialization. However, the school-children said
that they almost never spoke the minority language at home 13. Whether data
collected in pre-schools is less reliable (due to children’s potential inability
to analytically discern between different language codes), the information
from the primary school children seemed to be more trustworthy. Intrigued
by this study, they themselves often diverted the conversation towards
language use, showing their ability to identify the difference in language.
The more skilled of them turned it into a game, asking the researcher
different questions in different languages, much to their amusement.
   Both in Lusérn and Vlaroz, linguistic uses in families include widespread
bilingualism as well as radical Italianization. In Vlarotz, Italian is almost
entirely replaced by Trentino vernacular. According to social actors this is
the result of a language shift process, developed within families over three
generations, which has led to the near-extinction of minority languages as
linguistic vehicles. The same transformation, incidentally, also seems to
have spread outside the domestic domain into socialization areas and places
providing basic commodities (playgrounds, markets, pubs, restaurants, to
name a few). Administrative language also prioritizes the national language:

13. Conversation with pupils at Vlarotz Primary School, 18 October 2018.

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bilingualism in safety instructions, public notices, obituaries, etc. is almost
inexistent. Opinions in favor of there being more measures in this sense so
that children might have more chance to appreciate the minority language
(after all, language planning should be pursued on the assumption that
belief and ideologies can change) were derided (see, for example, Hadji-
demetriou 2014 and Räisänen 2014).
   Parents’ responses (almost exclusively mothers) when asked about this
disjunction, were vague but sincere. Most of them openly acknowledged
their own shortcomings in minority language use. Some mothers see the
increasing language shift within their own families as a result of
intermarriage, i.e. marriages between native speakers and non. Interestingly,
however, the shift did not appear to be the result of a hegemonic linguistic
relationship where the (alleged) strongest language prevailed. It was more of
a consequence of applying a communicative rule that exists in both minority
languages. Languages are embedded in a wider culture of communication
that, among other things, influences ways of managing the conversation. By
agreeing that it is “ill-mannered”14 to use a language that other people
included in the conversation do not speak, these mothers unconsciously
made a praxis explicit. Within these marital unions, therefore, having
renounced minority language as a means, does not mean renouncing it as a
practice.
   Other mothers claimed that they feel uncomfortable with the language
because they could not speak it correctly. They therefore informally
delegated grandparents or fathers who were regarded as “indigenous” to the
place. According to the schoolchildren, however, their fathers did not gladly
speak the minority language and, in some cases, spoke incorrectly. Being
native to a place where a minority language is (one among those) used for
socialization purposes, does not automatically make an individual an active
or fluent speaker, nor even a good teacher. According to Medgyes (1992),
what sometimes makes a teacher able to teach a language is having gone
through a formal learning process of that language himself.
   An interesting fact is that not even all native-speaking teachers of
Cimbrian and Mochéno, use these languages on a day-to-day basis, or
transmit them to offspring and grandchildren. The young granddaughter of a
native-speaking teacher stated that “she will learn Mochéno when she grows
up”15. Another woman openly acknowledged that, although she regarded
herself as a native Mochéno-speaking teacher, she had spoken Italian to her

14. Focus group, 22 January 2019 and Focus group 23 May 2018.
15. Conversation with pupils at Vlarotz Pre-School, 1st October 2018.


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POSITIVE IDEOLOGIES AIN’T ENOUGH!                                                            107


kids since when they were born because “it came naturally” 16. According to
Marquis and Sallabank (2014), being a minority language teacher valorizes
the self-image of those who suffered negative attitudes by affirming their
linguistic skills and outweighing the guilt of not having transmitted that
language to their descendants. There could be “a blurred line between
language revitalization and personal revitalization” (ibidem: 158). A further
aspect, however, is employment opportunities and economic gain. Some of
the teachers and mediators interviewed had held a number of temporary jobs
before they considered capitalizing on their linguistic knowledge through
teaching.
   According to other mothers, especially in Vlarotz, the language shift was
the result of being obliged to go to major urban centers for work on a daily
basis. They perceived Ladin people as having more chances of remaining in
the valley17. In these mothers’view, by working and studying within their
own territory, Ladins were more inclined to keep speaking their own
minority language throughout the day, with no need to use other language
media. Two mothers who complained of this, however, worked in the local
public administration office and did, therefore, spend their days within the
territory but they still only occasionally used the minority language.

Latent answers to the disconnection home-school
   Rindstedt and Aronsson (2002:724) coined the expression “paradox of
ethnic revitalization” when referring to discrepancies between uses-of and
discourses-about minority languages by would-be speakers. In Cimbrian and
Mochéno groups, such a paradox seems to result from a combination of
factors, some of which have been explicitly set out by would-be speakers
themselves. Others, however, take the form of latent beliefs. Most
interlocutors appear to have been influenced by what Silverstein (1996: 284)
refers to as a “monoglot standard”. Monoglossia dominates in the European
West, where linguistic and cultural homogeneity is perceived as normal
(Jaffe 1999). Such ideology lies at the root of language standardization,
which designated specific names, precise norms and national boundaries for
each language, therefore turning it into part of a national identity (Silverstain
1996). According to Jaffe (1999), monoglossia can also be naturalized by
minority language speakers thus increasing their linguistic uncertainty and

16. Private conversation with a primary school teacher, 7 November 2018.
17. The economy of Ladinia is closely related to the natural environment. The combination
of mountain scenery and aspects of the Ladin culture (architecture, local cuisine, fairy tales
and legends) has led the tourism industry to develop considerably over the years. Most local
families are involved in activities for visitors and are therefore rooted to their own territory.

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desires to silence other languages. In fact, although they are polyglot (i.e.
able to use multiple linguistic systems) almost all the members of the two
language groups lean more towards either Italian or a Trentino vernacular.
They argue that it is easier to use only one register and that Italian is better
suited to modern-day life.
    The idea that Italian is a means to modernity might be strengthened by
the (un)conscious celebration of a naïf rhetoric of the two minority
languages, whether in school or in cultural manifestations, to the potential
detriment of their value in current non-rural use. This seems to particularly
disturb activists within the two communities, who appear to perceive
minority languages in terms of “use”. Cimbrian is often presented and
taught as the language “of the elders”, of ancient traditions and historical
heritage, while Mochéno is associated to the jargon of “farms and forests”.
Although genuinely true, such recurring references are likely to develop the
perception that these languages are of limited use and unable to adapt to
today’s multiple domains. Teachers openly admit that they find it difficult to
teach certain topics (like geo-history or astronomy) without revised
vocabularies that provide suitable jargons, contemporary words and proper
grammatical and phonological elements. But they do not endeavor to
overcome this deficiency and at least attempt multilingual teaching, finding
it easier to resort to Italian. According to one teacher,
      There is no point in addressing all topics using the minority language. On the
      one hand, [such topics] must also be known in Italian; on the other, so many
      neologisms are required that understanding by a linguistically heterogeneous
      group becomes too difficult18.

   This can also happen when teaching sociocultural aspects related to the
minority languages themselves. In fact, “identity is not all about assimilating
a language, it is also about “knowing who we are” and that purpose can be
created and transmitted in many languages”19.
   There is a kind of resistance, especially among older teachers, in
addressing the local academic excellence of linguistics, although, either
through individual scientific commitment or training courses, it could
provide the best linguistic remedies and methodologies for extending the
usage of minority languages in school. According to some interlocutors,
although there is a need for linguistic adaptation, words that emerge from
linguists’ efforts (albeit their extraordinary commitment) do not reflect “the
soul of people”. This is particularly evident in some terminological options

18. Conversation with a primary school teacher in Vlarotz, 19 September 2018.
19. Ibidem.


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POSITIVE IDEOLOGIES AIN’T ENOUGH!                                                     109


used by local TV news channels and also promoted in school, which are
perceived as too sophisticated by some Cimbrian and Mochéno speakers. A
dominant static perspective of minority languages is likely to reduce any
opportunities where a dynamic vision of said languages might otherwise be
encouraged: to some extent this is true. However, figuring out a way to
bridge linguistic gaps and find methods that everyone agrees with appears to
be extremely difficult. It is especially not clear yet whether, and to what
extent, the two language groups themselves actually want this adaptation to
occur. In fact, to this day, no ethnographic study has been carried out on
their emic ideas concerning the nature and models of linguistic change and
the meaning of past linguistic usages in their current identity.
   The two groups’ monoglot practice may also result from a previous
diglossic phase. Although Hudson (2002) and Marquis and Sallabank (2014)
maintain that low level diglossia does not mean an inferior status, it is
possible that younger members of the two communities have inherited the
idea that the national language (and its speakers) are allegedly superior. The
rarely mentioned memory of a past, when their native languages were
vilified in favor of Italian (the latter being used in the highest domains and
as the official written language), is still fresh in the minds of adults.
Moreover, Cimbrian and Mochéno speakers were stigmatized as half-human
and half-beasts due to their strange languages and lifestyles associated with
woods and animals. The elderly in Lusérn recall being called “bears” 20 by
inhabitants from the neighboring suburbs. Several villagers in Vlarotz had
experienced insults because of their origins: “We were told: I want to see
what a Mochéno looks like!”21. Not only did the prevalent ideology depict non-
national languages as (alleged) proof of sociocultural and economic
backwardness but, at a time when human and linguistic rights were basically
ignored, those who continued to speak minority languages could sometimes
incur serious abuse. A pre-school teacher’s memories of being bullied at
school due to her cultural origins were so painful that she still could not bear
to share them.

Cimbrian and Mochéno languages in a transformed family model
   Monoglossia and diglossia are both appropriate justifications for language
shift in the two groups. However, they may not be sufficient and are likely to
reinforce a colonialist portrait of inert societies which passively underwent
historical and cultural mutations. On the contrary, native language
abandonment could also be seen as the result of a conscious, culturally

20. Among other, conversation with two elderly women in Lusérn, 7 May 2018.
21. Among other, conversation with pre-school teachers in Vlarotz, 8 October 2018.

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110                                                                     GIORGIA DECARLI


agentive action by would-be speakers themselves. If so, a further factor that
may underlie the home/school disjunction, regards responsibility. It might
be easier for parents to support a campaign for introducing the minority
language into the school curricula rather than change daily domestic
communicative habits and resume speaking the language at home. This
could be seen as shelving the responsibility and delegating custody of the
language to the school (King 2001). A Mochéno-speaking teacher described
the linguistic approach adopted with older scholars as “calibrated, due to
greater linguistic articulation of disciplines”22. At the same time, she
ironically described the method used with younger pupils as “a bombshell
that the school has taken over, since most of them do not speak [the
minority language] at home”23.
   This would be consistent with a relatively recent anthropological study on
educational responsibility in Northern Italy according to which, the
sociocultural framework in which parents now play their roles has
significantly changed over time (Biscaldi 2013). On the one hand, a
patriarchal system has now become a democratic one, where democracy has
also been extended vertically to include children, whose rights proliferate
indefinitely. Family has been expropriated of several functions (economic,
educational, formative, etc.) along with authority (on this, see also
Meyrowitz 1985) to become an exclusive affectivity space. On the other
hand, from a solid construction built on lasting and stable relationships,
family has now become a fluid entity where everything rapidly changes and
where contents have been replaced by negotiations (on this, see also Beck
1986). In this new model, parents are always in a hurry and have less time for
letting their children deal with every-day life practices. What is broken
(whether an item or a relationship) is replaced: the care dimension has
almost disappeared. Parents have lost their role-model in politics and faiths
and indifference towards social commitment spreads. Children’s skills,
experiences and autonomies seem to have replaced individual and social
responsibilities. Parental responsibility appears to have lost its previous
sense of daily integration in the social and relational dimension of individual
identity. References to community and to shared social projectualities are
almost absent (on this, see also Han 2010). One wonders whether, and
where, transmitting values and practices, including minority language, and
being aware of them, might fit within this screenshot of a transformed
sociocultural parenting model.

22. Conversation with a primary school teacher in Vlarotz, 19 September 2018. The same
concept was reaffirmed in the conversation of 12 November 2018.
23. Conversations with a primary school teacher in Vlarotz, 19 September 2018.


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POSITIVE IDEOLOGIES AIN’T ENOUGH!                                                111


   There were only one or two children in each of the two observed
communities who spoke Cimbrian or Mochéno fluently and they were only
prone to use the minority language with adults and solely when previously
addressed in that language. The same children instinctively used Trentino
vernaculars or Italian with peers and siblings, even when the latter were also
minority language speakers, in fact, sometimes they used it to speak with
one brother but not with another. All the other children could be defined as
semi-speakers in that they did not regularly speak the minority language in
their daily lives and their receptive abilities were higher than their
productive ones (Grinevald and Bert 2011). Most of the children in both
communities had a good understanding of Cimbrian and Mochéno insofar as
messages were formulaic (on this, see also Marquis and Sallabank 2013), well
contextualized and never exclusively verbal. Given the general absence or
limited use of the minority language within the home, it is likely that the
children improved their receptive skills thanks to hearing the language at
school. According to King, however, no scientific evidence shows that
children who learn a minority language in school will speak it outside and
will realize why they learned it thus developing language consciousness
(King 2014). If minority language usage is not reinforced within the domestic
domain, it will likely remain as an “additional language”, i.e. an alien
language compared to the linguistic repertoire and practices of the speech
community. Lave and Wenger (1991) associate learning with social
participation: learning is not just a cognitive process of acquiring a set of
skills and knowledge but part of participation in practices performed in
communities where the latter are intended as both local, tangible, accessible
communities and non-immediate social networks, namely, “imagined
communities” (Anderson 1991; Wenger 1998). This clearly also applies to
language learning. The question is: what communities do these parents
envision for their children’s present and future?

Conclusions
   The two disjunctions that emerged from the school ethnography reveal a
complex situation wherein law plays a controversial role despite not being
the only engine that regulates everyday practices. Law clearly intertwines
with the geopolitical situation that characterizes the context in which the
two communities live their daily lives and it is hard to establish “who
influences whom”, without running the risk of coming up against an excess
of determinism. In regard to these two groups, law is either a present or
absent social actor that influences reality in non-immediately perceptible


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112                                                              GIORGIA DECARLI


ways. Consequently, positive ideologies ain’t enough if little is known about
what happens in everyday operational terms and this cannot be ignored,
especially by those who are sincere in their support for linguistic and
educational rights.
   On the one hand, the positive ideology underlying current national and
local legislation on minority language protection is of major importance but,
to a certain extent, it is only words in the wind. The only way a political
promise is ever fulfilled is through bureaucracy. According to Handelman
(1998), no political system can exist without bureaucracy inasmuch as order
is not only created by means but also by actions. However, people seem
either to have forgotten that or not been informed of it. Dazzled by the
transcendental, formalistic and (allegedly) neutral State personality and its
formalized performances, they tend to ignore that implementing the law
necessarily requires the action and performative capacity of real people,
namely bureaucrats. They are the ones to whom action is delegated and, as
such, they become what Herzfeld (2001: 267) defines as “the locus of the
arbitrariness” towards citizens (whether positive or negative).
   Pervasive State perspectives of social order, mechanistic top-down
formulations and formal languages of classification, conceal the actual
formative power that bureaucrats have (even when they invoke “the
system”) in shaping, altering and controlling change and its effects, which
are sometimes in the people’s interests, sometimes for personal interest or
in the interests of the overlords (Herzfeld 2001). As is often the case, a
protection policy suffers this fate. Unless it goes hand in hand with the
bureaucrats’ interstitial regulatory activity (one that fits between the
legislative manifesto and people’s everyday lives and accommodates all
domains of existence), it is likely to become merely aesthetic: a facade
behind which things evolve differently or do not evolve at all. In the latter
case, citizens may be unconscious victims of an operation of mimesis under
which law exists but does not produce effects.
   An initial question therefore arises as to whether or not bureaucrats, who
silently play such a fundamental intermediary role, share the same positive
ideology contained in current legislation and are serious about pursuing it.
Their inaction, in fact, could be interpreted as a way to inhibit the multiple
effects on the existing legislative framework by shutting that positive
ideology into an invisible metal box.
   The same inertia, however, could also result from an (less monstrous but
no less significant) inability to deal with the topic. Therefore, a second
question arises as to whether bureaucrats know anything about language


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POSITIVE IDEOLOGIES AIN’T ENOUGH!                                                            113


itself or about language policies, the politics of language use and its
interaction with the complex dynamics of minority language group
survival24. The juridical world does not seem to provide guidance on this for
at least two reasons.
   The first is that it epistemologically and methodologically conceives law
as consisting of, and proceeding by, typified aspects of human life, i.e. by
reducing certain objective characters into a type (Asaro 2012). This produces
a greater sense of order and harmony but often leads to excessive
abstraction: a rift between legal and real worlds. The second reason is that
legal scholarship anchors State law to essentialist assumptions about culture
and language. Methodological essentialism mirrors the broader Euro-
American nationalist model, according to which “cultural unity is created
through a shared language that expresses the essential spirit of a group”
(Freeland, Gómez 2014: 174). On that basis, juridical and legal actors deal
with (to be) protected communities “as though they were discrete and
homogeneous nation-like entities, identified by, and identifying with,
equally discrete, homogeneous languages” (ivi. See also Jaffe 1999 and
Freeland, Patrick 2004). As a consequence, they avoid taking into account
some key aspects of such a complex phenomenon as language. What about
“the beliefs […] that a speech community has about language… in general
and its language in particular”? (Schiffman 1996: 5). How do individuals
customize political ideas and language ideologies? What power dynamics
and local socio-cultural conditions have an impact on maintaining and
transmitting a language? How much can economic struggle for survival
influence the politics of language use? By never seriously questioning the
myth of cultural and linguistic unity, Western juridical discipline maintains,
and is itself affected by, a “linguicentric approach” (Spolsky 2004: 104). It
continues to focus on “what happens to languages rather than what happens
to the people who speak them” (ivi). Duranti (2000) points out that
grammarians adopt a perspective that sees speakers as representatives of an
abstract human species. Legal scholarship does the same although the
consequences are different. In fact, while grammar develops and remains on
an abstract level, law has a concrete impact on people’s lives.
   As a result, bureaucrats may feel confused when they come face-to-face
with language in its own fundamental reality, i.e. “a resource to be used in
social interaction as well as the outcome of social interaction itself” (ibidem:
17). They realize that language group boundaries are constantly redefined
and renegotiated through multiple linguistic acts and cannot be exclusively

24. I particularly refer here to “political economy of language” (Grillo 1988: 8; Hetcher 1975).

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114                                                               GIORGIA DECARLI


and prejudicially designated as having one single set of sufficient and
necessary (and immediately visible) traits. Members of a language group may
identify with the use of the same linguistic medium/a; with a perception of
speaking the same language; with a historical-linguistic memory (a past of
persecutions, for example); with political use (recognition strategies); with
prestige; with an idea of authenticity; with alliance; etc. They may regard
none of these traits (and perhaps even others) as essential and sufficient and
resort to them in multiple ways, all relevant for self-definition.
   Furthermore, language groups vary considerably in their own inter-
pretations of the relationship between the multiple languages they use and
in their decisions about whether or not to engage in revitalization efforts.
This results from feelings and (sub)conscious beliefs that, although treated
as general predispositions, vary enormously from one group to another and,
above all, differ greatly within the group itself.
   The rule is variability rather than homogeneity. Confronted with this,
even the bureaucrat who sincerely supports language protection can get lost
and be susceptible to lobbying from authorities or from community members
who presume to speak for the group and decide what should be done.
   It might be worth adopting a fluid cognitive and methodological approach,
which Piasere refers to as a “polyvalent logic” (1998: 4). A nuanced attitude
may better describe pluri-linguistic realities and the inner heterogeneity of
linguistic practices and ideologies in particular. The latter often result from
the interaction of two (equally powerful but potentially contradictory)
forces: the individual inclination to coherence and a social proclivity to
conformism (Spolsky 2009). By rejecting objective truths and describing
cultural processes as liquid and dialogical dimensions, fuzzy logic makes it
possible to see them more realistically but the question is: is this what law
really wants?
   In fact, there is another side of the coin. The legal operation of mimesis
can also move in the opposite direction and result in undetectable effects
silently produced by law: in other words, law exists but its presence is not
perceived. A legislation advocating minority language protection is able to
exert indirect forms of influence from a backdrop of general unawareness,
even though it is not concretely implemented. The mere existence of a
legislative text has the power to shape the interested groups: the legislative
manifesto ontologically impacts on individuals who respond to the input
they receive. As such, law must be seen as one of the many living forces that
influence people’s lives.



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POSITIVE IDEOLOGIES AIN’T ENOUGH!                                                115


   The anthropological holistic perspective is based on the assumption that
there is no absolute distinction between society and individuals. More
profoundly, there is no clear separation between collective and personal
ideas or practices – although the individual retains a certain leeway in
exercising human agency (namely, freedom of interpretation, understanding
and purposing). Legal ideologies and practices are no exception. As such, the
monoglot ideology behind existing legislation can influence minority
language speakers who eventually act as if linguistic and cultural
homogeneity were normal (Jaffe 1999). According to Jaffe (1999) this can
encourage individuals to abandon other languages in favor of the national
one. This, however, can also encourage them to prioritize (if not
pragmatically, at least ideally) their endangered language so that a language
group which, according to ethnographic data, shares a repertoire of idioms
and variants, can present itself (and often perceive itself) as a group of
people who only speak the (to be) protected language. At times, this process
can take the form of strategic essentialism, in other words, a conscious
“essentialization” of the self that allows the minority group to interface with
the majority, which holds political and legislative power (Spivak 1996). By
forwarding a simplified or static image of group identity (one that better
suits the majority categories), the minority believes it has a greater chance of
being understood and of achieving certain goals, such as equality. This might
be true for some economically weak and substantially forgotten communities
(like the ones in this study) who can see protecting their language as a way
to gain attention and support to improve their general condition.
   Strategic essentialism, however, is a (not always satisfactory) way-out
from a greater truth: State (and by extension autonomous regions) is a
political, ideological and administrative project that, whether through
repression, consensus, symbols or frontiers, is constantly dealing with the
problem of retaining its sovereignty. A piece of legislation that preserves
minority language groups sets out how (and with what features), where and
when said groups can exist. While this unambiguity facilitates legal
recognition, it mainly aids control. This also happens in the democratic State
where, it should be remembered, law is in any event “created by the
dominant users” (Nader 1984: 951) and supports power structures.
According to international standards, every State is entitled to determine its
own linguistic regime and to discretionally name languages. The assumption
is that defining languages and vernaculars is a fundamental factor in
preserving identity (Palermo, Woelk 2011). The whole point, however, is:
whose identity? The individuals’ or the nation’s?


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116                                                             GIORGIA DECARLI


   What State law establishes can either be a framework for the existence of
a cultural identity or a straight-jacket that prevents that identity from
evolving and diverging from a given model, on pain of exclusion from the
catalogue of fundamental rights. This might result in individuals (even when
applying strategic essentialism) turning out to be what State law,
prejudicially, decided they ought to be. Like pets, they might be coddled,
cared for and deemed to be part of the family (at times they may even be
“super-protected”), yet still kept on a leash in order to monitor and limit
their movements. In the latter case, the Trentino school might turn out to be
a concrete bureaucratic ramification of State ideology… that, under the guise
of ideally safeguarding minority languages and cultural pluralism, conceals
the actual intent to create “Italian citizens” and delegates bureaucrats’
human agency with the more or less conscious task of preserving a “mono-
cultural” context for the pupils’ lives.




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 Giorgia DECARLI holds a PhD in Anthropology, History and Theories of Culture from
 the Italian Institute of Human Sciences. She has carried out legal-anthropological
 research in both Europe and Africa. Her present research interests include human
 rights and cultural diversity, cultures and societies of Europe, legal pluralism,
 Gypsy law and anti-Gypsyism. Her previous studies dealt with law in African
 societies.
 giorgia.decarli@univr.it




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Giorgia Decarli
Positive ideologies ain’t enough! (Dis)junctions and paradoxes in minority language protection
2020 | ANUAC. VOL. 9, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2020: 97-120.
ISSN: 2239-625X – DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3987
