Dear friends of Alsace: please find attached an interesting initiative to
save the Alsatian Language

"Friejohr fer unsri Sproch" ? "Springtime for Our Language" ? in New York
City

In April 2002 the program "Friejohr fer unsri Sproch" was launched in
Alsace to revive the Alsatian language which (according to a 1993 study) is
now spoken by fewer than 10 per cent of Alsatian children under the age of
10. According to the latest census, 548,000 people still speak the
language, out of a total population of 1,700,000. This program aims at
mobilizing the energies of citizens, associations and organizations to
promote and expand the use of our language. Since its inception early this
year, the initiative has generated more than 300 exhibitions and other
events in Alsace.

The creation of an American Foundation to further this objective has
been proposed as the most effective contribution by Americans living abroad
(particularly in the United States). Its major goal will be to raise funds
to provide facilities for the first Alsatian-language Kindergarten and to
offer access to a bilingual education to students who would otherwise be
denied such an opportunity. Every year, lack of facilities means that
hundreds of students are denied access to bilingual education.

Today, Alsace is France's only region not providing total-immersion
Kindergarten instruction in its own language. Yet Alsatian, a language
with two distinct variants, "Alemannic" and "Frankish", is spoken in six
countries: in Germany (Baden Wurtemberg and Bavaria); in Switzerland (where
it is spoken throughout the Confederation's Alemannic area); in Austria
(Vorarlberg); in Liechtenstein; in Italy (South Tyrol); and in France
(north of Strasbourg), whose Frankish variant is close to the national
language of Luxembourg.

However, according to many recent statements by regional elected
officials, France's national education system is failing to deliver what is
expected of it on the issue of promoting bilingual education in the
country. In 2002 Education Minister Jack Lang signed into law a decree
mandating the development by the French Republic of 40 new bilingual
Kindergartens each year. Last year only five such establishments were
opened instead of the promised 40 (20 of them planned for North Alsace and
20 for Upper Alsace). Responding to angry protests from Alsatian
officials, the local representative of the Education Ministry said
"bilingual education is not binding in Alsace." We feel that the best way
of circumventing this supine demonstration of official cowardice will be
the creation of facilities to which parents may send their children.

We also believe that the most effective response from us, Alsatians
of America and Sons of the Statue of Liberty, will be a struggle to
preserve what we recognize to be the most enduring component of our
identity: our mother tongue, our language, the language of Lady Liberty.

The present cost of a mobile classroom is around $10,000. That sum
would provide access for 20 or 30 children to what makes our Alsatian
spirit what it is ? the anchor holding us fast in the troubled seas pf
globalization, the landmark that keeps us strong in the jungle of New
York's diversity. Of course we can be Alsatian without speaking Alsatian,
just as one can be French without speaking French. But in our heart of
hearts we know that the Alsatian language is the bearer of our national DNA

A phrase that recurs in many legal documents designed to promote
linguistic diversity in France illustrates the difficulties faced by
efforts to revive bilingualism and the Alsatian language: "To be sure, the
war against France's minority languages no longer takes the form of visible
repression or humiliating punishment: nonetheless, it continues to be
waged. Although assuming subtler forms than in the past, the campaign to
track down, run to earth and finally to strangle Breton, Occitanian,
Basque, Corsican and other languages is still in full swing, as their
exclusion from the curricula of the vast majority of schools makes clear."

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Pro ou perso, toutes les adresses et numéros de tél que vous cherchez
http://g.msn.fr/FR1000/9491