Resumen de Kashubian choices, Kashubian prospects: a minority language Situation in northern Poland
At least 20 groups, currently living in Poland or having lived there from World War II until quite recently, can definitely be classified äs ethnic minorities. All of them have some language characteristic that distinguishes their respective ethnic identity and marks their separateness from others.
Kashubs, inhabiting the Pomerania (mainly Gdansk and Slupsk Provinces) region, constitute one of the most populous of these groups (about 250,000-300,000), and they use an ethnolect officially claimed to be a dialect of Polish "most distant from the literary Standard." Although the group is predominantly rural, the ethnolect is not restricted to everyday conversations in family situations but is becoming more and more extensively used in media (print and radio and TV broadcasts), education, and religious activities.
Due to the drastic sociopolitical changes the last decade has seen in Europe, a strong cultural and national revival movement is taking place among them. This includes the social phenomenon, composed of a fierce campaign to Upgrade the Status of their ethnolect (to that of the officially recognized separate language), unique in the whole country.
This paper presents the linguistic Situation of the Kashubians and its prospects, with afocus on the most recent developments.
