The emergence of separate nationalities often entails standardisation of the language and an attempt to prove its multifunctional nature, while codification as such becomes one of the basic demands of ethnic movements striving to-wards emancipation. In her paper, the author analyses the process of emanci-pation of Silesian in the context of linguistic ideologies, studying above all the ideologies shared by Silesian ethnic leaders. The conclusions presented in the paper are based on analyses of numerous in-depth interviews conducted with Silesian ethnic leaders. This approach makes it possible to take into account, in the analysis of linguistic processes, the point of view of the users of the specific language and their linguistic awareness, and also makes it possible to seek relationships between linguistic awareness, language structure and social phenomena.