Ideology of collaterality and its impact on minority language communities: a survey of selected collateral languages in Poland

A collateral language is a variety that is linguistically close to the dominant language and is therefore denied official recognition, irrespective of its level of development. The low prestige of collateral languages and the frequent view that they are not worthy of protection are closely linked to the ideology of collaterality: the perception of these languages and their communities not as distinct and independent, but as “incomplete” and subordinate to the dominant language and language community. This ideology has important consequences, as it shapes people’s language attitudes and the initiatives they undertake on behalf of their communities and languages. This article examines the ideology of collaterality as part of a broader study on linguistic diversity in Poland. Drawing on a large-scale survey and qualitative fieldwork, we examine five collateral language communities: Kashubian, Silesian, Masurian, Podhalanian, and Podlachian. Using a latent-variable approach, we show how the ideology of collaterality varies across regions and how it is related to the political and legal status of these varieties, as well as to patterns of engagement. Our findings demonstrate that official recognition and sustained bottom-up initiatives can weaken the ideology of collaterality, enhance the perceived value of collateral languages, and open up new domains for their use.