Polish–Romanian Bilingualism: An Individual and Social Process
Polish–Romanian Bilingualism: An Individual and Social Process

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to present issues pertaining to Polish–Romanian bilingualism, based on the example of two speakers who can be seen as representative of both the geographical area in focus and of their respective language communities. The interviewees were born in the 1950s and they have lived in Romania, with Romanian as the official language, all their lives. The common denominator of their cases is the family domain and the domain of religion. Both interviewees were born in Polish families in which the home language was Polish. The language experience of the interviewees has been different: one of them played with Romanian and Ukrainian-speaking children, while the other grew up in the environment of the Polish dialect of Bukovinian highlanders in Solonețu Nou (Pol. Nowy Sołoniec). However, neither of them spoke a language other than Polish on a daily basis during their preschool period. Their language repertoire was enriched with Romanian during their school period and the following periods of their lives mainly involved the use of Romanian. Their retirement has been a time of great change, including the rebirth of the life of the Polish minority. One of the interviewees is the leader of the local Polish association while the other is a member of a folk group of Polish Bukovinian highlanders and is involved in the life of the local Polish community and the activities of the Polish Cultural Centre (Dom Polski) in Suceava. In the domestic sphere, one of them still speaks Polish, while in the case of the other the language of the domestic sphere is Romanian. Both informants have a very high sense of Polish identity and appreciate the language codes they use: Polish and Romanian.

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