German or Not German: That Is the Question! On the Status of the Autochthonous Dialects in East Lorraine (France)

The European language world is characterized by an ideology of monolingualism and national languages. This language-related view interacts with social debates definitions about linguistic autonomy, diversity, variation. For the description border minorities their sociolinguistic situation, however, this reaches its limits. In article, conceptual difficulties a area that crosses borders are examined. It deals minority in East Lorraine (France) particular. On language-historical level, closely related to (big) neighbor Germany. At same time, it looks back on conflictive history country, has never filled (subordinated) political–administrative unit, experienced very little public support. We want address questions how speakers themselves reflect situation what concepts argumentative figures they bring up relation (Germanic) variety. To end, we look at statements from guideline-based interviews. paper, present first observations gained through qualitative content analysis.