Multilingualism and European Minority Languages: The Case of Basque

Abstract

This chapter provides a discussion of the significant changes for the Basque language in Spain and in France, in particular in multilingual education. The sociolinguistic situation underwent an important development based on a robust language policy in the Basque Autonomous Community. The revival of the minority language was much less in the province of Navarre and Northern Basque Country in France. The education policy faces the challenges of transforming a basically bilingual system into a multilingual system, with English as a third language at school and increasing number of home languages. The results for the achievement in the three languages taught, Basque, Spanish and English, are compared and an outline of some future directions is given.