Disenfranchisement in linguistically diverse societies : the case of the European Union

Abstract

We consider a linguistically diversified society and examine the notion of language disenfran-chisement when some individuals are denied the full access to documents and political process in their native tongues. To calculate the disenfranchisement indices we use the Dyen percentage cognate matrix of linguistic distances between Indo-European languages and apply survey and population data on language proficiency in the European Union. We then determine optimal sets of official languages that depend on society's sensitivity against disenfranchisement and comprehensiveness of the chosen language regime. We also discuss the language situation in the European Union after its last enlargement.