Hm, let's see...

1. A (print) article referencing a (French) study titled "The decline of the Alsatian dialect" or something,
   
2. a (German) documentary I saw,
   
3. an article by an Alsatian I read a few months ago on the web,
   
4. my own admittedly very limited experience of not having heard a single German(ic) word when I was in Strasbourg for one day.

3. I do'nt see how it is suppressed.

Sorry, maybe not the best word I chose. I didn't mean suppression by force, I meant being eclipsed by the presence and use of the others. What you mention that many people learn Hochdeutsch rather than Alsatian is part of this (and parallels what happened and happens to some German dialects in Germany proper, BTW).

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

And I'll ask you a simple question.

What, if any, reason is there for Alsace to not call for self rule and independence if they can retaing the economic adavantages of being French by staying in the EU.

This is the problem that the growth of the EU creates. That post 1914 state system is being challenged from below by national minorities and above by European regulations.  Who needs France when you can get the same things from the EU?

We matter more than pounds and pence/ Your economic theory makes no sense "We work the Black Seam"-Sting

This could be a reaction to Puerto Rica's always smoldering independence movement.  Of course, the solution is a dose of reality as one PR native told us:  "We don't want to starve to death."

http://www.topuertorico.org/government.shtml

won't wonders never cease? _ Snuffy Smith

And independence referendum would shut the PNV and CiU up, however what happens if they win.  Or turning to the Basque county, it passes with 65% of the vote in Vizacaya and Guizpoca, is rejected by 65% in Alava, and is narrowly defeated with a a 51% no vote?

That will create all sorts of problems.

We matter more than pounds and pence/ Your economic theory makes no sense "We work the Black Seam"-Sting

Good point.  Which made the relative non-violence of the break-up (at least, what appeared to be non-violent to me) all the more remarkable, and consequently encouraged my belief that these independence movements can succeed peacefully.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

That's exactly the very popular western point of view which will never be accepted in the modern Russia because it shows the extreme level of hypocrisy and  dishonesty i.e. what we call triple standards of Yer Ole Bitch Europe. The USA you lot so like bitching about has double standards. Quelle horreur! And you - have triple!

What about Russia? Didn't Stalin (being a Georgian-born and grown and  somehow educated) had his ugly paws all over Russia first and foremost? Did  that one of my parents who was born in Gulag or my numerous relatives who died there really asked for the bloody revolution, for being ruled by the international bunch of murderers? How about the Polish twat Felix Dzerzhinsky, the notorious founder of CheKa (KGB) who is personally responsible for the death of the best of the old Russian elite?  How about other two Georgians at the top of communistic power - sexual maniac and murderer Lavrenty Beria and Sergo Ordzhonikidse? They all started as revolutianaries in Tsarist Russia which was oh so cruel that sometimes sent them to Siberia (just the cosy conditions they had lived in were in no way comparable with those nightmarish ones which the millions of RUSSIAN people experienced there later) so guess which nation had the better chances to die in the very beginning of the massacre, 1917-1920 or as you put it for starters??? Georgians during the Stalin's era were the most priviledged nation, in fact they so got used to be  the superior bullies that still may think we have to thankful them for him and his cronies.

Yes, later the rest of the countries which were under the Russian Empire protectorate experienced the same - Gulags, torture, agony and death - first it was their elites, less numerous than the Russian one and  even more later - in 30s when the simple folk irrespectively of their nationality  all over USSR realised at last that somehow they live much worse that it'd been in the previous era with Russian Tsar and nobility then the big chistka (cleansing) started. And again, why it is so difficult to understand that it wasn't the ethnic cleansing but quite international (with a big tormenting bias towards the ex-ruling russian nation) - those who didn't manage to demonstrate enough belief in the beautiful communistic future were sent to the hell of Gulag or just killed?

I DON'T know a single russian family here in St Petersburg who didn't lose at least one relative in a Siberian Gulag (or what was a prelude to it in early-mid 20s, not so centralised) or wasn't killed by the local CheKa. Do you really expect us to apologise for what the Soviets did to Georgians, Ukrainians, Latvians (quite a lot of them joined the Red Army and  CheKa and with such ardour confiscated the nobility's property her in St Pete and killed and tortuted its ex-owners)?

I have to admit I am surprised, I always had the impression that you are rather well-informed about every region of the Earth and in particular Europe.

I am flattered, but at the same time embarrassed, by that impression, because my own ignorance is all too obvious to myself -- and grows the more so the longer I spend on EuroTrib.

On the contrary, that's one of the things I am really appreciative of on ET: it's a forum where you can learn a lot through dialectic, where assumptions, presumptions and expectations can be altered, corrected, enriched, etc., if you are open to that.  In particular, I am grateful to people like you and Miguel and so many others who are patient enough to inform and educate on matters which may seem elementary.  It's like getting admitted into a club full of PhD's and post-docs with only a (barely obtaine) undergrad degree.

So if you haven't heard of them, I must supplement my and Migeru's information in that most of the mentioned conflicts were armed conflicts at some stage or the other, and none were truly settled.

I'm not sure if other people who lived in the U.S. during the break-up of the Soviet Union would agree, but my impression from the public presentation in the U.S. of these independence movements was that they occurred with little significant violence.  I don't know if that is my own mistaken impression or if the U.S. mainstream media had an agenda in portraying things that way.  So it does come as a bit of surprise to learn about the extent of the violence of these secessions (though I guess in retrospect the bigger surprise -- mistaken, it turns out -- had been that so many countries could become independent in such a short period of time so peacefully.)

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

Even though these instances still seem to be relatively few

By what standard of 'few'? They include all the break-up products, and affects tens of millions of people.

I obviously have to do more reading on this, which may force me to retract that "relatively few".  But in a quick listing of post-Soviet countries --

• Ukraine
  
• Moldova
  
• Azerbaijan
  
• Georgia
  
• Armenia
  
• Transdnistria
  
• Chechnya

• Latvia
  
• Lithuania
  
• Russia
  
• Belarus
  
• Kazakhstan
  
• Kyrgyzstan
  
• Uzbekistan
  
• Tajikistan
  
• Estonia
  
• Turkmenistan

-- I believe only the top five countries, plus the ambivalent cases of Chechnya and Transdnistria -- involved significant (i.e. large-scale and prolonged) violence that was due to ethnic disagreements and/or border disputes.  I understand that in Lithuania, Gorbachev caused the deaths of 19 Lithuanian civilians when he tried to stop the indendence movement, and in Latvia there was a tense stand-off that ended peacefully.  However, while tragic and scary, I see these as historically relatively small incidents of violence in light of the potential of much broader and protracted violence that the independence of those two countries might have entailed.

Also, as Miguel pointed out in a parallel comment, Stalin had caused mass removals and replacements of populations internally in the Soviet Union; it is conceivable that had populations been left in place, there would have been even less conflict and violence in the eventual emergence of these independent countries.  (Obviously pure speculation.)

Nevertheless, I take your two broader points: (1) each historical situation is unique and (the putative break-up of European countries into smaller ones) should ultimately be evaluated on its own terms and not primarily by analogy to a previous, in some ways similar situation (like the break-up of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe); (2) there was plenty enough violence and disenfranchisement and/or potential for them in the break-up of the Soviet Union and Easter Bloc that even that historical case is not a good example for the argument that many countries can decompose into smaller countries within a short time frame peacefully.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.