Basque and Occitan in New Aquitaine schools: Philosophical arguments underlying linguistic diversity

Abstract

This article focuses on Basque and Occitan in schools in New Aquitaine, France, and analyses the philosophical arguments underlying its constitution. The school model in New Aquitaine depends on the central education system, which protects and promotes French as the majority language, although there are some schools in which the minority languages Basque and Occitan are taught. The article describes the situation of Basque and Occitan in New Aquitaine and seeks to understand, from a philosophical perspective, the ideologies and arguments underlying their linguistic and educational situation. Thus, arguments in favour of both monolingualism and linguistic diversity, as well as the relationships between identity, diversity and linguistic rights are presented. The article concludes with some implications for New Aquitaine’s Basque and Occitan speakers, who lack real opportunities to build a strong linguistic group through the educational system and are therefore disadvantaged in comparison with monolingual speakers of the majority language.