Introduction
Purpose and Scope
The core rationale of Romance Orthographic Reintegrationism (ROR) is that Romance minority languages (RMLs) should be represented orthographically as part of the wider Romance linguistic continuum. Effectively, this means that the orthographies of RMLs should be grounded in the practices of the major Romance orthographies—namely Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Occitan, Catalan and, to a lesser extent, Romanian. This is achieved through etymological justifications for carefully considered spelling choices aimed at achieving orthographic reintegration with the Romance language family. (For a definition of “reintegration”, see below.)
ROR does not seek to create a single orthography for all RMLs. Instead, it provides general guidelines for creating orthographies, leaving room for a diversity of outcomes.
The present proposal is potentially useful for all stakeholders involved in the study of Romance minority or regional languages, such as linguists and philologists (including orthography experts), language planners, policymakers, educators and community activists.
What Does “Reintegration” Mean?
In its only official and established sense, reintegrationism is a linguistic movement which postulates that Galician and Portuguese constitute a single language. As a result, Galician reintegrationism promotes orthographic unification with Portuguese through the implementation of Portuguese spelling conventions (see this link for more). The implementation and adaptation of the spelling conventions of a language or language group by the orthography of another language is here referred to as orthographic reintegration.
While Galician can look to Portuguese for reintegration on both historical and linguistic grounds, the aim of the present proposal is not necessarily to reintegrate a minority language into a dominant one—although ROR guidelines could be used toward that end if desired. In actuality, ROR advocates for orthographic similarity or convergence among minority languages belonging to the same subgroup; conversely, it advises against orthographic convergence with the majority language of the region or state, unless it is consistent with and does not contradict the objective of subgroup cohesion. In this sense, ROR can be said to encourage trans-minority contact and unity.
The kind of orthographic reintegration advocated for by ROR is that of RMLs towards the major Romance languages with an established and continuous orthographic tradition.
Aims and Objectives
Increasing mutual intelligibility with other Romance languages in writing is one of the primary reasons why a given RML should use a Romance reintegrationist orthography. This is achieved thanks to focused etymological considerations. With a more informed, limitedly historical spelling, the lexicon would be more recognisable for speakers of other Romance languages, all the while still maintaining a degree of orthographic complexity that is manageable for native speakers with enough training.
Through the enhanced mutual intelligibility that reintegrationist spellings would provide, ROR aims at breaking the linguistic isolation most minority languages face, creating interconnectedness between minority and majority languages of the Romance family.
Since the creation of these orthographies should require deep etymological and possibly philological understanding, ROR encourages and fosters etymological research and the creation of an active scholarly community.