Europe's Expansion Sparks Fear of Linguistic Domination ; as the EU Widens over the Next Decade, Another 10 Official Languages Will Be Added, Which Will Raise Costs

Farnam, Arie, The Christian Science Monitor

At the beginning of the 19th century, Czech scholar Josef Dobrovsky sat down to write the first dictionary in his dying language. The Czech lands were then occupied by the Austrian Empire, and the Czech language was quickly giving way before politically powerful German.

Mr. Dobrovsky's research sparked a movement to resurrect his language and liberate the Czechs, and today Czech is the national language of an independent country of 10 million. Linguists call it a miracle.

Now, 200 years after Dobrovsky's writing, the Czech Republic is poised to join another supernational European government, the European Union. The old question remains: What will happen to …

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Publication information: Article title: Europe's Expansion Sparks Fear of Linguistic Domination ; as the EU Widens over the Next Decade, Another 10 Official Languages Will Be Added, Which Will Raise Costs. Contributors: Farnam, Arie - Author. Newspaper title: The Christian Science Monitor. Publication date: August 2, 2002. Page number: 8. © 2009 The Christian Science Publishing Society. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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