In this paper, we explore the role of mundane artefacts, namely bank notes, in the construction of language policy. Our case study involves a site of complex language policy and politics, namely the current day territory of Transcarpathia. During the twentieth century the region of Transcarpathia belonged to several different states: to the…

This article deals with the politics of classification in contemporary Sweden. It analyses the language political dispute that has developed over the language political regulation of Övdalsk, a non-standard form of Scandinavian spoken in Älvdalen in northern central Sweden. The analysis focuses on the ways in which a discursive exchange over…

This study demonstrates how a single type of sign can be connected to language policy on a larger scale. Focusing on the relationship between language policy and language ideologies, I investigate the private Linguistic Landscape (LL) of Hungarians living in two villages in Slovakia. Through an examination of "beware of the dog" signs,…

This paper looks into failed attempts by the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) minority government (2000-2008) to alter Taiwan's Mandarin-dominated language regime by drafting law proposals recognizing the languages of all Taiwanese ethnic groups as equal national languages. This paper argues that the failure to enact language regime change in…

As part of the process of nation-state construction, the Republic of Turkey went through a language reform which was comprised of (a) the supplanting of Arabic script with Latin letters adjusted for Turkish phonology and (b) the replacement of Arabic and Persian loanwords with words either derived from known Turkish roots or found in pre-Islamic…