ABSTRACT
Creating an Einzelsprache is a long and often bitterly contested process, especially if not supported by the state in which a target speech community happens to reside. In Central Europe this is the typical situation of all the speech communities that are not fully recognized as ethnolinguistic nations with a nation-state of their own. In the literature, such communities’ Einzelsprachen (speech varieties, lects) are dubbed “minority languages.” But this category is confusing because, above all, the term is employed for referring to the languages of national minorities, be it Germans in Poland, Hungarians in Slovakia, or Poles in Lithuania. However, the Einzelsprachen of German, Hungarian or Polish are full-fledged national and official languages used in administration, education, and public life in Germany (alongside Austria and Liechtenstein), Hungary, and Poland, respectively. From the perspective of these ethno-linguistic nation-states, none of these languages suffers any minority status, which in this case is the sociopolitical disability of these speakers of the three Einzelsprachen who live outside “their” national polities (kin states).
