Unique multilingual regions, cities, towns etc
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 2:24 am
After going off topic a little in the thread about Luxembourgish I thought I'd start a new thread as I find this topic intriguing.
Where do you know of/ have lived/ visited/ heard of where the use of more than one language is the norm/required/expected/official? I don't mean areas in which, say the population has a good level of English (eg Netherlands) through education, business and the like. English is likely the exception. I mean those areas a little more unique than that. Statistics are welcome
I'll introduce one to start and give some idea of the kind of 'uniqueness' I guess I find particularly interesting. Still it doesn't have to appeal to my idea of 'unique' feel free to add your own places of linguistic curiousity for whatever reason.
Llívia
It's a 12 square kilometre Spanish exclave just across the border but entirely within France (albeit only by around 4 kms apparently). For historical reasons and due to it's status as a 'town' the area was not included as part of France once the border between France and Spain had been finally settled. It was an exception. The local language is apparently Catalan, but locals reportedly speak French and Castillian as well. Intriguing indeed. There appears to be little information on the area, but I came across these two links which elaborate slightly on the situation (but not so much on the linguistic situation).
English: http://itotd.com/articles/571/llivia/
French: https://ctl1120.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/llivia-une-enclave-espagnole-dans-les-pyrenees-francaises/
Where do you know of/ have lived/ visited/ heard of where the use of more than one language is the norm/required/expected/official? I don't mean areas in which, say the population has a good level of English (eg Netherlands) through education, business and the like. English is likely the exception. I mean those areas a little more unique than that. Statistics are welcome
I'll introduce one to start and give some idea of the kind of 'uniqueness' I guess I find particularly interesting. Still it doesn't have to appeal to my idea of 'unique' feel free to add your own places of linguistic curiousity for whatever reason.
Llívia
It's a 12 square kilometre Spanish exclave just across the border but entirely within France (albeit only by around 4 kms apparently). For historical reasons and due to it's status as a 'town' the area was not included as part of France once the border between France and Spain had been finally settled. It was an exception. The local language is apparently Catalan, but locals reportedly speak French and Castillian as well. Intriguing indeed. There appears to be little information on the area, but I came across these two links which elaborate slightly on the situation (but not so much on the linguistic situation).
English: http://itotd.com/articles/571/llivia/
French: https://ctl1120.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/llivia-une-enclave-espagnole-dans-les-pyrenees-francaises/