Zimbabwe Rule of Law Journal |67
The second level of official language status is what Vieytez calls ‘full officiality and non-dominant
language.’ In this case, a language is afforded full official language status but it is not dominant
because of social limitations. The language is still an identity element of the state although it evokes
a colonial past (Malta) and it is an element of a more symbolic nature generally based on historical
or geographical explanations. Examples include Irish Gaelic in Ireland, Swedish in Finland, English in
Malta, Russian in Belarus or French in Luxembourg.
The third level of official language status is what Vieytez calls ‘partial or limited officiality and dominant
language.’ This level comes with two variations. The first variation is called ‘exclusive officiality’ where
the territorial principle is strictly adopted and different languages are given official language status in
the areas where they are dominantly spoken. This is the case of French or German in Switzerland or
Belgium and the Swedish of the Aaland Islands. The second variation is called ‘shared officiality’ where
official language status is shared by two or more languages within a territory, municipality, province
or region. These are the cases of Feroese in the Feroe Islands, Greenlandish in Greenland, German
in the South Tyrol, Russian in Transnistria or Crimea, Albanian in Kosovo or Catalan in Catalonia or
the Balearic Islands.
The fourth and final level of official language status is what Vieytez calls ‘partial or limited officiality
and non-dominant language.’ Again, this has two variations. The first variation is called ‘officiality
in the institutional sphere of political autonomy.’ This refers to cases where a language, although
giving way socially to the state language with which it shares officiality, benefits from some symbolic
institutional presence in a sub state organised sphere. The second variation is called ‘officiality in
the local institutional sphere without its own political power.’ In this case, official language status is
largely limited in the institutional, geographical or population spheres. Examples include Slovenian in
Italy, Serbian languages in Germany, Hungarian in Slovenia or Sami in Norway.
Vieytez’s observations and classification of official language status therefore reveal a need to clarify
Select target paragraph3
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