Pianificare l’uso della lingua in un’ottica di empowerment delle comunità minoritarie nell’era dell’intelligenza artificiale / Planning the use of language for the empowerment of minority communities in the age of artificial intelligence

Nel presente contributo ci soffermiamo sulle azioni e misure di politica linguistica relative all’introduzione e allo sviluppo di risorse, strumenti e tecnologie digitali a beneficio della comunità slovenofona in Italia. Il quesito di fondo è quali siano gli obiettivi che la politica linguistica di una comunità minoritaria e la comunità stessa devono perseguire in fase di transizione dall’ambiente digitale a quello dell’intelligenza artificiale al fine di garantire a lungo termine, nel proprio territorio di insediamento, l’uso della lingua minoritaria. Nel definire tali obiettivi facciamo riferimento in modo preponderante a conclusioni e raccomandazioni formulate dall’Unione europea in materia di lingue minoritarie e tecnologie linguistiche: le mutate circostanze sociali che hanno accompagnato il volgere del nuovo millennio, unitamente alla trasposizione digitale di buona parte della vita sociale, hanno reso cruciale per le lingue minoritarie, regionali e le rispettive varietà locali dotarsi quanto prima di strumenti digitali e assicurarsi una presenza nel mondo digitale, perché solo così possono scongiurare il rischio di un’estinzione digitale. Per procedere in tale direzione, tuttavia, hanno bisogno di politiche linguistiche efficaci.

In this chapter, we discuss language policy measures in the field of introducing and developing digital resources, tools and technologies for the community of Slovene speakers in Italy. We start by asking about the goals that the minority language policy and the community must pursue in the transition from a digital to an artificial intelligence environment in order to ensure the long-term use of the minority language in their settlement area. In defining these goals, we mainly refer to the findings and recommendations of the European Union regarding minority languages and language technologies: due to the changed social circumstances at the turn of the new millennium and the transfer of much of social life to a virtual environment, it has become crucial for minority and regional languages and local language variants to be equipped with digital tools as quickly as possible and become established in the digital world, as this is the only way their (digital) extinction can be prevented. But in order to do that, effective language policies are needed. In the analytical part of the chapter, we examine their presence concretely in the case of Slovene as a national minority cross-border language. By analyzing the documents that form the basis for the language policy for Slovene in Italy and regulate the field of planning technologies and infrastructures for the development of Slovene in the digital environment, we show that questions related to the development of language technologies and digital coverage, at least for Slovene as a minority language, are not properly addressed or implemented systematically. For a long time, language policy measures for Slovene in Italy were focused on ensuring rights to use the minority language in contact with the authorities and public administration, while its importance in meeting daily basic needs and the emergence of new elite environments, such as new media and entertainment, were completely overlooked.