Taking Oslo online: minority language policy and the Internet

The basic premise of this chapter is that ‘language’ is more than a category of analysis used by social scientists. It is first and foremost a set of lived practices, now increasingly performed online. Language per se constitutes social relationships, and is in turn shaped and conditioned by social relationships.1 The context in which language operates is an ‘intersubjective construct’ embedded in specific practices of production, distribution and reception as well as in wider cultural, social, political, and economic practices.2 As this chapter will demonstrate, technology is a crucial component of context precisely because it facilitates language production, distribution and reception. For this reason, technology matters for minority language rights. When technologies change, language practices change, and public policies directed at minority language speakers must respond accordingly. This chapter will examine how new digital technologies have affected minority language speakers. Are persons belonging to minorities able to fully engage with the Internet using their minority languages? What, if any, obstacles may prevent the use of minority languages online? And how should states translate the The Oslo Recommendations regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities (Oslo Recommendations or Oslo) into policies that support digital language diversity in cyberspace?