President Andrzej Duda vetoed the amendment of the Act on National and cultural Minorities and Regional Language. The amendment was to consider the Etnolekt Wilamowski as a regional language in accordance with the provisions of the Act of 2005.
Wilamowski's language is utilized as an autochtonic native local language in the town of Wilamowice in Bielskie County, Silesian Voivodeship. In his justification for his decision, the president pointed out doubts about the basis of the regulation.
Doubts as to the substantive basis
Duda stressed that there was uncertainty that "the proposed regulation was based on substantive grounds alternatively than simply on symbolic or political grounds." He added that nonsubjective verification based on technological data is required.
The president assessed that expert positions were not uniform. "Some linguists say that the conventional language of the oldest inhabitants of Wilamowice is simply a separate language, while by another scientists this ethnolect is attributed to the western group of Germanic languages" - he noted.
Arguments of linguists
Professor Maria Katarzyna Lasatowicz points to the analogy of the ethnolect of Wilamowski with various German dialects. Her findings show that "language islands in Silesia, including Wilamowice, represent the “Silesian colonization dialect and consist of dialects of residents representing medium-, advanced and lower German dialectical groups”.
Lasatowicz emphasizes the importance of actions to reconstruct ethnolect to social use, but points out that "these are further attempts to save from the disappearance of forms of dialect, presented alternatively in the form of styling with trace consideration for possible language reconstructions". prof. Tomasz Wicherkiewicz presents a different view.
Wicherkiewicz claims that "there are so many Polishisms in Wilamów, so many extraordinary artifacts, even medieval and dialectical Polish, that it only creates a separate Wilamów language system". According to him, "it is an island micro-language of ethnolect of a local character", whose uniqueness consists in the absence of another akin micro-languages.
The president has made a request for the Sejm to reconsider the bill.
Sources used: "PAP" Note: This article has been edited with the aid of Artificial Intelligence.
