Home | Technical Responses to 
Multilingual Issues (Summary)
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SCOPE

Issues dealt with in this guideline include:
Services to immigrants
Staffing
Multilingual thesauri
Multilingual websites
Fonts and keyboards
Transliteration and transcription
Machine translation
Voice to voice translation

POLICY ISSUES.

Linguistic matters in a multilingual international community like the EU are a central issues. 2001 was the European Year of Languages, the aims of which were to encourage the learning and teaching of languages.

Within the EU there is also concern with the status of minority indigenous or autochthonous languages and there is a European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL) see www.eblul.org. About 40m EU citizens are estimated to speak a different language to the majority language of the state they live in and modern social conditions are hostile to the continued use and survival of minority languages. EBLUL supports addition of a clause to the European Fundamental Rights Charter giving all EU citizens “the right to develop their own language and culture in community with other members of their group as an expression of the cultural and linguistic diversity that is a common heritage of Europe”. There is also a European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages which enjoins on signatories “the need for resolute action to promote regional or minority languages in order to safeguard them”. See also Mercator at www.mercator-central.org

• The term “official language” is defined by EBLUL as a language that can be used in dealings with public authorities and in official documents, including commercial documents. The official and working languages of the EU are Spanish, Danish, German, Greek, English, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Finnish and Swedish. This means that a citizen may write to an EU institution in any of these languages and receive a reply in the same language. Theoretically they are all equal but the de facto drafting languages of the Commission are English and French.

• Minority indigenous languages (heritage languages) afforded some sort of recognition in Europe (not including languages which may be a minority in one state but a majority language in another state) are Aragonese, Asturian, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Franco-Provençal, Frisian, Friulian, Gaelic, Gagauz, Irish, Ladin, Macedonian, Mirandese, Occitan, Saami, Sardinian, Sorbian, Vlach and Welsh. This is not an exhaustive list.

• No protection is afforded the languages of immigrants speaking non-indigenous languages (community languages) in Europe.

In practice organisations have faced a number of difficulties in creating and maintaining multi-lingual digital content and pan-European products and services for the global networks. Some of these difficulties are technical and some relate to the costs and difficulties of translation. In recognition of this the EC has created an action line under the strategically important e-Content programme to address multilingual issues.

Services to immigrants
The provision of services to recent immigrants presents problems to a public library service and certain factors have to be assessed in advance:

• The size and permanence of the immigrant community and their age, sex, marital status and educational level.

• Their knowledge of the majority language of the society.

• Their familiarity with the concept of a public library and what it can do for them.

Immigrants are often preoccupied by basic economic, legal and other exigencies and it is important that they realise that the library can help with these matters among others. Librarians must know their communities and their ethnic composition and in some large cities with shifting populations this may involve some systematic monitoring. It may be necessary to conduct surveys using questionnaires to ascertain in detail what the needs of a community are. Immigrant organisations can be contacted. The library may be able to provide venues for language classes and cultural events. An immigrant community can be converted into loyal supporters and useful allies of the library service if they are approached generously and tactfully. The provision of materials in immigrant languages may well present problems which will involve the appointment of specialist staff to catalogue and process them and advise readers.

Typically the material provided will include:

• Material which aids cultural adjustment, majority language acquisition and material about the home culture.

• Bilingual and children’s material.

• Information about legal matters and local services.

• Audio-visual material. See music & diverse cultural content.

• Word-processing in non-Roman scripts.

See also social inclusion & lifelong learning.

Home | Technical Responses to 
Multilingual Issues (Summary)
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