Camille C. O'Reilly (ed.), Language, ethnicity and the state. Vol. 1, Minority languages in the European Union. Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001. Pp. v–x, 183; and Camille C. O'Reilly (ed.), Language, ethnicity and the state. Vol. 2, Minority languages in Eastern Europe post-1989. Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001. Pp. v–xii, 228.

Abstract

This is an exceptionally interesting collective work put together by Camille C. O'Reilly in two volumes, the first focusing on minority languages and problems of nation and ethnicity in western Europe, and particularly in the European Union (EU), and the second taking as its main focus languages and nationalizing discourses in eastern Europe. A large part of the discussion in vol. 2 concentrates on issues related to the fate and ongoing processes of nation formation, citizenship, linguistic ideologies, and minority languages in the successor states of the former Soviet Union. In both volumes, some chapters focus more narrowly on language, whereas others give emphasis to macro processes of a political nature. And, of course, no article in the collection is indifferent to the politics of minoritization, ethnic-national boundaries, and the restructuring of the European national map as a whole. Thus, variation in theme and method of analysis should be considered as a positive element of this endeavor, even though the overall treatment is neither exhaustive nor radically critical, as I will argue below.