SV: About forcing a language on someone

Lars Martin Fosse lmfosse at online.no
Thu Mar 23 10:55:25 UTC 2000


Vidhyanath Rao [SMTP:rao.3 at osu.edu] skrev 17. mars 2000 11:34:

> The whole thread seemed to me to be pointless. The examples given in the
> last 15 years for the spread have been cases of slow absorption via
> client-patron relation into an open hierarchical society, not forceful
> imposition via the sword (which seems to have been limited to religion
> before 1500 CE).

There are obviously a large number of ways that a language may spread. The
relationship you mention is just one of several possible models. But I think
that it would be unfair to say that languages are spread through the sword
alone. If anything, that would only be the first part of the process: get
political control of an area. After that, the language of the dominating group
might more or less force itself upon the conquered. Example: English in North
America, Spanish or Portuguese in Latin America. Sometimes, a language or
culture is targeted for extinction by the political authorities: Basque in
Spain (now in revival), the Sami language of Norway (now in revival, the Sami
people having received a public excuse from the prime minister for the
Norwegianization policies of yesterday), Breton in France (perhaps in revival),
Welsh in Wales (aggressively in revival, I believe), Irish in Ireland.

There do not seem to be any ironclad rules about how languages spread. What we
can observe are certain trends, but we need empirical or historical data to say
with any degree of exactitude how such shifts actually occur and why they
occur. Sometimes, the conqueror gives up his language: Mongols in China,
French-speaking Norsemen in England. So for every example, there is a
counter-example. We cannot not used observed data an extrapolate to other less
well known situations with any degree of certainty. Until empirical data are
available, there will always be an element of uncertainty involved.

Best regards,
Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone/Fax: +47 22 32 12 19
Email: lmfosse at online.no



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