Ministers Approve Language Advancement Strategy
In its meeting on November 25, the cabinet approved the Estonian language advancement roadmap for 2011-2017, drafted by the Ministry of Education and the Estonian Language Council.
The roadmap defines 13 measures of language development, each intended to assure the functionality of Estonian in all spheres of life, its vitality, and its role as a common language for communication in the country.
The roadmap focuses on language planning, research and databases, technolinguistic support, teaching, dialects and sociolects, the role of Estonian in the multilinguistic world, supervision of compliance with relevant legislation and sharing information about language issues.
Further steps are planned to develop language consulting, databases of terminology, publication of academic overviews and dictionaries as well as language teaching at all school levels. The document also highlights the need to encourage use of dialects, teaching the language abroad and improving the status of people with linguistic disabilities.
The planned cost of implementing the strategy is 61.3 million euros over seven years. The plan also defines specific fields of responsibility for institutions and funding sources for the years 2011 to 2014.