Modificare l’immagine linguistica: esperanto e piemontese a confronto

For the maintenance and revitalization of regional and minority languages (RML) new challenges are posed by today’s multilingual world. This paper discusses possible strategies to improve the linguistic representation of Piedmontese on the basis of the experiences gained by the Esperanto supporters over the last decades. Recent studies compare RMLs and planned languages from different perspectives. In particular, Piedmontese and Esperanto, which will be under investigation here, show interesting similarities from a sociolinguistic viewpoint. The recent revival of Esperanto is fostered by the intensive use of information and communication technologies, along with a deep ideological self-reflection in order to modify its linguistic representations, both internally and externally. Finally, various ways to implement and use the Esperanto model for a better maintenance and revitalization of Piedmontese, as well as other similar RMLs, will be proposed.