Suggesting a New European Language Policy

Conflict is the most intriguing aspect of contact linguistics. Throughout history ever since the Tower of Bable was left unfinished, contacts between speakers of different languages have unavoidably resulted in conflicts between speakers of those languages. Without any doubt, the European Union (EU) – above all after the decision to enlarge the community – has accepted the multidisciplinary symbolic function of language and culture as a basis for European political unification. Accordingly, European Union policy makers have had to analyze conflicts caused by monolingualism and multilingualism, all aspects of contact linguistics. Can these conflicts be solved, minimized or neutralized by strategies of language planning, language policies and language politics? Initial results of European language policy strategies permit at least a cautious measure of optimism and open broad perspectives for the future of a New Multilingualism which will be discussed in our contribution