Etniczne „flagowania” rzeczywistości. Problemy wprowadzania dodatkowych nazw miejscowości w językach mniejszości narodowych w Polsce

Abstract

In the article I try to analyze some problems of institutionalization of additional place names in minority languages in Poland. Regulations concerning these issues didn’t exist in the Polish law until the adoption of the Act on National and Ethnic Minorities and Regional Language in 2005. The implementation of bilingual regulations had been the real and difficult phenomenon for the local administration and the public opinion but 1211 minority place names were established to the end of 2015. It wasn’t a simple adaptation of legal regulations but there was always connected with the history of presence of minority group and its language and culture in the region as well as the memory of Polish – minority relations. Therefore, the “bilingual signs” were often described in terms of “ethnic flagging”, favoring the minority group and defined through the prism of the fulfillment of its “ethnic” expectations. It has also meant the changing perception of the status of these communities in local community, shifting from “marginal” to the status of the “local co-host”.