Diglossie dans l'espace et dans le temps
La diglossie est une situation linguistique universellement répandue dans laquelle une ou plusieurs langues locales, qu'elles soient minoritaires ou minorées sont dominées par une langue plus prestigieuse et douée d'autorité. Une langue douée d'autorité se surimpose à d'autres langues locales en situation d'infériorité. La position dominante ou minoritaire d'une langue résulte soit du tracé dans l'espace des frontières politiques ou religieuses soit d'une histoire partagée dans laquelle les langues sont en concurrence.
La diglossie est une relation, spatiale ou diachronique:
Michael CRONIN, Translation and Globalization (London, Routledge, 2003), Chapter 5, Translation and minority languages in a global setting, p. 144:
It is important to stress that the concept of 'minority' with respect to language is dynamic rather than static. 'Minority' is the expression of a relation, not an essence. The relation can assume two forms: diachronic and spatial. The diachronic relation that defines a minority language is a historical experience that destabilizes the linguistic relations in one country so that languages find themselves in an asymmetrical relationship. In the case of Ireland, English was a minority language for centuries. The ascendancy of the English language did not begin until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with Tudor and Cromwellian expansionist policies which sought not only the military but also the cultural and linguistic submission of the native Irish. Military, social and economic forces, notably the Great Famine of the 1840s where Ireland lost half its mainly Irish-speaking population through starvation and emigration, led to the erosion of the Irish language and the massive language-shift to English in the nineteenth century. Therefore, the position of the Irish language changed from majority to minority status as a result of political developments over time.
The spatial relationship is intimately bound up with diachronic relationships but it is important to make a distinction between those languages that find themselves in a minority position because of a redrawing of national boundaries and those such as Irish which occupy the same territory but are no longer in a dominant position. Russian has now become a minority language in most of the Baltic Republics with the break-up of the Soviet Union. The change in borders left Russian speakers outside the state where Russian is the majority language.
The spatial/diachronic distinction is useful in evaluating the radically different contexts in which minority languages operate from the perspective of translation. Languages that derive their minority status from spatial realignments find themselves in close proximity to countries where the language has majority status. Thus, in terms of opportunities for translators, publishing outlets for translations, readers for translated works and the proper development of translation studies, the situation is markedly different from the position of languages whose status is diachronically determined and which do not have a larger linguistic hinterland that provides a source of patronage for translation activity.
Quelques lectures
Patrick CHAMOISEAU, Écrire en pays dominé, Paris, Gallimard, 1997.
Pierre ENCREVÉ, La langue de la république, Pouvoirs, n° 100 (1er trimestre 2002): 123-136 (encreve_republique.pdf dans le dossier Communautés linguistiques).
Guus EXTRA & Durk GORTER, Eds., The Other Languages of Europe. Demographic, Sociolinguistic and Educational Perspectives, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, 2001.
Charles A. FERGUSON, "Diglossia," Word. Journal of the Linguistic Circle of New York, Vol. 15, n° 2, August 1959, pp. 325-340.
Antoine MEILLET, Les Langues dans l'Europe nouvelle, avec un appendice de L. Tesnière sur la Statistique des langues de l'Europe, Paris, Payot, 1928. Document historique et source de réflexion sur les concepts, certes entachés de l'idéologie d'époque, de "langues de substrat" et "langues de civilisation".
Pierre PASQUINI, Les Pays des parlers perdus, Montpellier, Les Presses du Languedoc, 1994.
Odile REDON (Entretien avec), "Autour des Langues de l'Italie médiévale. Textes d'histoire et de littérature, Xe-XIVe siècle," Médiévales 42 (Printemps 2002), pp. 101–116.
Abram de SWAAN, Words of the World. The Global Language System, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2001.
Charte des langues minoritaires (5.XI.1992) et documents de l'Union européenne:
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/FR/Treaties/Html/148.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/archive/languages/langmin/langmin_en.html