Languags of Regional Communication in Europe: Three Case Studies and a Research Agenda

Languages can be classified according to the scope of the communication they enable. It is customary to talk of languages of local or of global communication. In the realm in between we distinguish Languages of Regional Communication (ReLan). We define "regional" here as communication beyond the realm of the local community.

A specific category of ReLan consists of Standard Languages institutionalized by political authorities as the official languages on their territories (the so-called official or national languages). Nevertheless we are particularly interested in ReLan amidst linguistic diversity, either in multilingual regions when different language groups coexist or in transnational communication. The region might be a borderland divided by state or administrative borders or a macro-region composed of multiple states. These transnational ReLan are especially relevant when state borders become porous, making transnational encounters more frequent due to globalization and Europeanization processes.

In addition we can distinguish specific types of ReLan on the basis of the mix of native and non-native speakers involved. When the users are almost exclusively L1-speakers, we speak of a Regional Vernacular Language (ReVer). When the users are almost exclusively L2-speakers with different L1, we talk of a Regional Lingua Franca (ReLF). In the more balanced cases, we speak of a regional vehicular language, for which we might use the acronym ReLoC (Regional Language of Communication as opposed to Regional Languages of Identification).