of which have received positive reviews in Italian newspapers (Tierç lion ‘The Third Lion’ and Lidrîs cuadrade di trê ‘Three squared’ a horror movie).
There is also an official translation of the entire Bible (1984), which was completed by two Catholic priests: Francesco Placereani and Antonio Bellina (pre Checo Placerean and pre Toni Biline).
In addition, some local brands use Friulian in their advertisements.
In many of Friuli’s municipalities, road signs are in both Friulian and Italian. However, only the Italian toponym is official and used in official documentation, although it is widely expected that the Friulian versions will receive partial acknowledgement in the near future.
There are almost four Friulian dialect groups, all of which are mutually intelligible. They are usually distinguished by the last vowel of many parts of speech, including nouns, adjectives and adverbs.
A challenge that Friulian shares with other minorities is to create a standard language and a unique writing system. The above-mentioned regional law no. 15 approved a standard orthography, which represents the basis of a common variety and should be used in toponyms, official acts, written documents, etc. This standard is based on Central Friulian, which was the language traditionally used in literature in the sixteenth century and even later, but with some changes.
However, there have been several critics about the standardisation of Friulian, mainly from speakers of local variants, which can differ from it a lot; they also claim that this standard could eventually kill local dialects. This has caused some negative reaction and it could impede the implementation of protection policies.
Moving on to conclusions. If compared with the language planning that has been carried out in other European countries (Catalonia, Wales, Belgium, Friesland, etc.), what has been implemented in Friuli has not been remarkable. Therefore, we hope that the situation will begin to improve when the measures and resources provided by Law no. 482 are fully available and some major delays on behalf of the institutions are completely overcome. However, while Law no. 482 can only help to slow down the decline of Friulian, it is not sufficient to guarantee its survival.
About the Komi Language
Nikolay Kuznetsov
Tartu University, Estonian Literary Museum
The national elation and boost of national self-esteem of the 1990s raised the Komi language to a high status in the Komi Republic. Over the past two decades, specific measures have been taken to reinforce the position of the Komi language, to promote its usage in various spheres of life and to popularise it among young people by means of modern culture and information technology. The priority areas of the preservation and development of the Komi language are the use of information technology and support for children and youth projects. As of today, some electronic language learning tools and games have been developed, children’s fairy tales on an audio CD have been published, etc. Language competitions, intellectual games, song festivals, comedy shows, etc. are organised in order to promote the Komi language. One of the most significant achievements is, to my mind, the Komi people’s radio Коми йöзкостса радио’ (see: http://radio.krtk.ru/http://radio.krtk.ru/), which was launched in 2007 and is also accessible on the Internet. A recently launched online dictionary and other online language resources (see: http://giellatekno.uit.no/cgi/index.kom.eng.htmlhttp://giellatekno.uit.no/cgi/index.kom.eng.html) are also worth noting. One of the most delightful recent events was the campaign “We speak in Komi” on International Mother Language Day – the places where personnel could be addressed in Komi were marked with special stickers.
For all that, the prestige of the Komi language continues to be low and the number of speakers is falling. According to the 2010 Russian census data, 228,235 people identified themselves as Komi (293,406 in 2002) and three quarters of them said they spoke Komi.
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