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An important branch of linguistics, namely, sociolinguistics, considers “languages” as normative social constructs and not as fixed communication tools characterised by an identifiable set of core features. The latter position was defended in the early sociolinguistic studies of Joshua Fishman on language decline and maintenance in the second half of the twentieth century and in the influential work on generative grammar of Noam Chomsky. In contradiction or contrast to this position, today’s sociolinguistics, which I will refer to as “mainstream sociolinguistics” in this chapter, claims that, in the default case, languages have no fixed boundaries and that they are, in fact, “fluid”. The main argument which mainstream sociolinguistics puts forward to support this claim is that the output of speech production, i.e., referred to as “languaging”, taps from linguistic resources and not from identifiable languages. This chapter argues against this theory. Firstly, multilingual phenomena, including hybrid varieties of global English and hybrid expressions in linguistic landscapes, including that of the Dutch city of Utrecht which claimed to support the languaging-approach, are, in fact, traditional cases of code-switching and code-mixing involving identifiable languages. Secondly, the languaging-approach, in contrast to the languages-approach, makes the wrong predictions. The absence of identifiable languages predicts the “flattening” of linguistic power relations. However, it will be argued that, even in a linguistically highly diverse context, a re-arrangement of power relations between languages takes place and that language hierarchies pop up. Hence, the theory which recognises individual languages makes the correct predictions. Thus, there is no reason to abandon the language concept of early sociolinguistics or Chomskyan linguistics that languages, or at least some modules of language, especially in the domain of semantics and pragmatics, are socially constructed, but that, at the same time, they are characterised by a prototypical grammatical and lexical basic core.

This is a thematic issue on the relation between multilingualism and social inclusion. Due to globalization, Europeanization, supranational and transnational regulations linguistic diversity and multilingualism are on the rise. Migration and old and new forms of mobility play an important role in these processes. As a consequence, English as the only global language is spreading around the world, including Europe and the European Union. Social and linguistic inclusion was accounted for in the pre-globalization age by the nation-state ideology implementing the 'one nation-one people-one language' doctrine into practice. This lead to forced linguistic assimilation and the elimination of cultural and linguistic heritage. Now, in the present age of globalization, linguistic diversity at the national state level has been recognized and multilingual states have been developing where all types of languages can be used in governance and daily life protected by a legal framework. This does not mean that there is full equality of languages. This carries over to the fair and just social inclusion of the speakers of these weaker, dominated languages as well. There is always a power question related to multilingualism. The ten case studies in this thematic issue elaborate on the relation between multilingualism and social inclusion. The articles in this issue refer to this topic in connection with different spaces, including the city, the island, and the globe; in connection with different groups, like Roma in the former Soviet-Union and ethnic Albanians in Macedonia; in connection with migration and mobility of Nordic pensioners to the south of Europe, and language education in Scotland; and finally in connection with bilingual education in Austria and Estonia as examples of successful practices including multilingualism under one and the same school roof. Keywords

Territorial arrangements for managing interethnic relations within states are far from consensual. Although self-governance for minorities is commonly advocated, international documents are ambiguously formulated. Conflicting pairs of principles, territoriality vs. personality, and self-determination vs. territorial integrity, along with diverging state interests account for this gap. Together, the articles in this special section address the territoriality principle and its hardly operative practice on the ground, with particular attention to European cases. An additional theme reveals itself in the articles: the ambiguity of minority recognition politics. This introductory article briefly presents these two common themes, followed by an outline of three recent proposals discussed especially in Eastern Europe that seek to bypass the controversial territorial autonomy model: cultural rights in municipalities with a “substantial” proportion of minority members; the cultural autonomy model; and European regionalism and multi-level governance.

This article analyses two options the Hungarian ethno-linguistic community in the Transylvanian region of Romania has in order to preserve its ethno-linguistic identity. Firstly, there is the option of unrestricted language use in the public domain. At present the Romanian legal framework assigns members of the Hungarian speaking community in Transylvania individual linguistic and cultural rights only. The Romanian language policy is further restricted by a threshold rule. The ratio of minority must number 20 per cent of the total inhabitants of a certain administrative-territorial unit in order to have their language recognised officially. The second possibility is that historical territories where Transylvanian Hungarians statistically form a dominant majority (i.e. Szeklerland) are granted territorial autonomy. The territoriality principle would secure linguistic minority rights. We will conclude that the prospects for Hungarian as a regional language in Romania are more realistic than the recognition of Szeklerland’s territorial autonomy.