About forcing a language on someone

[Eduard Selleslagh]

----- Original Message -----
From: <JoatSimeon at aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 2:16 AM

>> edsel at glo.be wrote:

>> Changing the language of a whole population - not just the upper class that
>> can be enticed easily - seems to necessitate hurtful interventions. Maybe we
>> should be more aware of that when thinking of the spread of PIE e.g.

> -- people learn languages because they're useful.  In most contexts, there
> seems to be fairly limited emotional investment in them -- modern linguistic
> nationalism being an exception, of course.

[Ed]

That's a complete misunderstanding. There is huge difference between learning
another language for practical reasons (or in more modern times: out of
interest in other cultures, religion or what have you) and being forced to
abandon one's own language (and inevitably:culture). The latter invariably
involves a transition period of being second-class (or worse) citizens.

There is hardly anything people are so attached to as their own language and
culture. It is something that defines them. Recent studies have even shown that
this has an influence on how the brain gets 'wired' during early infancy.
Mother tongue affects the deepest levels of the way we perceive the world. Ask
those who study cognitive linguistics; there are several of them on this list.

> Even there, it's mostly political militants and bureaucrats who agitate such
> matters.

[Ed]

That's the theory of the linguistic majorities (social, numerical, political,
etc...). The fact is that ordinary people resent very much being treated as
somebody who can't speak properly.

> Eg., the continuing inexorable decline of Gaelic in Ireland has
> been completely unaffected by political intervention since the emergence of
> the Irish Free State, with its policy of promoting Gaelic by all possible
> means.

[Ed]

That's what happens when the original language loses its critical mass and
becomes the language of a minority: it is then beyond salvation in most cases.

Another case of this kind is Basque: only 25% of the Basque population (which
itself is 5% of the Spanish population) can speak it, and not many more
understand it. It happens after very long periods (centuries e.g.) of
domination by a powerful language community, during which active measures may
be taken to ban, eradicate, or degrade in status, etc. the original language.
The original population becomes 'barbarian natives' (a.Grk. barbaroi: those who
speak like "bar bar bar...", an unintelligible language of the uncivilized)

> Ordinary people seem to switch languages when circumstances make such change
> (a) possible and (b) a useful means of 'getting ahead'.

[Ed]

That is true, but it doesn't mean they like it. They do it because the
circumstances are not favorable to the use of their own language. Your (b) is a
typical case: underlying is social discrimination, unless...('If you can't beat
them, join them'). The 'glass ceiling' is not only a gender matter: it can also
be linguistically determined and has often been so throughout history. It is
absolutely not a modern invention. It has existed as long as peoples have
conquered or dominated in some way other peoples' lands and/or economies, but
we only know that for sure since writing was invented.

Ed. selleslagh