El català de l'Alguer, el nou marc legal i l'escola

Resum

The aim of the article is to describe and analyze, from a sociolinguistic viewpoint, the changes that have taken place over recent years in the town of Alguer (Sardinia) in the legal framework with regard to linguistic issues and its effect on schools. Of all areas of the public domain, it is the school system that has benefitted most in this regard, despite the 1994 ruling by the Italian Constitutional Court, reinforcing the State line of linguistic and cultural centralism. The section of the regional law on the protection and valuation of culture and language in Sardinia that dealt with the teaching of Sardinian and the Catalan of Alguer was declared to be unconstitutional. The ambiguity of the Italian legal framework with regard to linguistic minorities and a lack of consensus and decision among the cultural and political forces of Alguer make it extremely difficult to draw up plans for a language policy (which should focus not only on schools but also on creating links between the world of employment and culture and that of young people) that might lead to a real recovery of Alguerese Catalan, a language which is tending towards replacement by Italian and its own internal impoverishment.. However, there is a ministerial circular in existence that fosters respect for the various language minorities within the Italian State, and permits the application in schools, as a measure of exiguous linguistic recovery, of a progressive type of program for Alguerese, based on stepping up its use in certain activities. The circular also allows for a training program for teachers, and this implies the availability of a linguistic model to follow and specific training for the recovery of the language in schools. The Maria Montessori Center for Teaching Resources, which has been working in these two areas since its creation in 1993, has already implemented its priority objectives, with encouraging results.