[lg policy] Re: lgpolicy-list Digest, Vol 51, Issue 33

Mon Jul 29 22:28:52 UTC 2013

Dave, 

Perhaps you should add Dante's decision to write the Divine Comedy in Italian rather than Latin. I see this as slightly more than LP as I have written in Language Problems and Language Policy because prior to writing the Comedy Dante had produced a work of language planning theory, De Vulgari Eloqentia, usually seen only as poetics and reflections on the effects of eloquence.  In fact it is also and quite explicitly about how a language can serve national functions, and if such a language doesn't exist how it can be created.  Dante makes specific proposal for how to produce or create such a language and what functions and effects its creation can have.  DVE was written in Latin in the first decade of the 14th century, and has had a great effect on thinking about vernacular languages, I read it as having something to say about diglossia, about language invention and language nationalism.  Abandoning this project of speculation Dante then wrote hs master work in the language h!
 e was arguing should be invented, therefore putting his theory into practice. More than a precurser in my view. Cheers, Joe

Joseph Lo Bianco
Professor of Language and Literacy Education
University of Melbourne
j.lobianco at unimelb.edu.au

Sent from my iPad

On 30/07/2013, at 2:04 AM, "lgpolicy-list-request at groups.sas.upenn.edu" <lgpolicy-list-request at groups.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: The prehistory of language policy (Dave Sayers)
>   2. Hong Kong: Reform call as students stumble at language    bar
>      (Harold Schiffman)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 12:06:41 +0300
> From: Dave Sayers <D.Sayers at swansea.ac.uk>
> Subject: [lg policy] Re: The prehistory of language policy
> To: Language Policy List <lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu>
> Message-ID: <51F630A1.4020906 at swansea.ac.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
> 
> Thanks all for your responses to this. From your responses and my reading around, I 
> now have the following list of historical precursors to what we now refer to as 
> language policy:
> 
> 1) Tower of Babel (obviously)
> 
> 2) An early example of language testing (!), the battle between the Gileadites and 
> the Ephraimites c.1370?1070 BC, after which the Gileadites blocked the Ephraimites? 
> route home over the Jordan, and tested each person trying to cross:
> 
> ?Whenever Ephraimite fugitives said, 'Let me cross,' the men of Gilead would ask, 
> 'Are you an Ephraimite?' If he said, 'No,' they then said, 'Very well, say 
> ?Shibboleth?. If anyone said ?Sibboleth? because he could not pronounce it, then they 
> would seize him and kill him by the fords of the Jordan."
> Judges 12:5?6
> 
> 3) The centuries-old imperative to memorize Vedic hymns etc. in "pure" Sanskrit
> 
> 4) The control of biblical translation to protect Latin in the Christian bible, which 
> spilled over into secular and semi-secular spheres, resulting in the use of Latin in 
> European universities long after the Reformation (Latin was needed for admission to 
> Cambridge well into C20)
> 
> 5) The Talmud's views for and against use of Greek, and mostly against Aramaic (which 
> it nevertheless uses freely!), in favour of Hebrew.
> 
> 6) King Alfred of Wessex?s literacy programme of 878-92 AD, setting up schools, and 
> translating from Latin to Old English a series of books he deemed ?most necessary for 
> all men to know?, as he put it in the preface letter. (In C9, English was already 
> widely used for administration.)
> 
> 7) Swedish King Magnus Erikson?s National Law of 1347, establishing Swedish as the 
> language of the Swedish kingdom
> 
> 8) France's Ordonnance of Villers-Cotter?ts, 1539 (Fran?ois I). This is the most 
> recent one. We're well into the Reformation by this point, and the influence of 
> vernacularisation is a factor here.
> 
> I also considered mentioning the tale of The Egyptian Pharaoh Psammetichus, and his 
> experiment raising children in isolation to see which 'word' they would come out with 
> first, as an indication of which was the first language (and therefore the world's 
> oldest people). But this doesn't really seem to bear any hallmarks of language policy 
> really. Or does it?
> 
> After all these examples, I move into the Reformation, the formation of language 
> academies around Europe, Herderian linguistic nationalism, the French Revolution and 
> the modern era of nation-states, that sort of thing.
> 
> Further thoughts are certainly welcome!
> 
> Dave
> 
> --
> Dr. Dave Sayers
> Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University, UK
> Visiting Lecturer (2013-14), Dept English, University of Turku, Finland
> dave.sayers at cantab.net
> http://swansea.academia.edu/DaveSayers
> 
> 
> 
> On 26/07/2013 15:59, Dave Sayers wrote:
>> Hello assembled folks who are not currently on holiday...
>> 
>> Can anyone recommend a concise reading covering examples of 'language policy' from
>> ancient times up to the French Revolution? (Or maybe up to the Reformation?) I'm
>> doing an intro lecture for an LPP course I'm designing, with an overview of such
>> historical precursors, and I'm hoping to find a short reading to go with it.
>> 
>> There is an excellent historical review of such precursors in France and India
>> provided by our benevolent mailing list overlord Hal Schiffman, in 'Linguistic
>> Culture and Language Policy'  -- http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0415184061/. Similarly,
>> the various contributors to 'Language Policy and National Unity',
>> http://goo.gl/0iZ2mj, give some good historical reviews for their respective countries.
>> 
>> However, these aren't really framed as a review of the prehistory of language policy
>> as such, more the prehistory of language policies in these particular polities.
>> They're also not really a concise type of summary.
>> 
>> Bernard Spolsky's 'Language Policy' http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0521011752 has some
>> mention of historical precursors in various contexts, mostly in ch.2-3, but these are
>> sort of peppered throughout the chapters -- again, a little too dispersed for what
>> I'm after.
>> 
>> There are some pertinent points in Vivien Law's 'The History of Linguistics in
>> Europe: From Plato to 1600', e.g. p.155
>> http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4QOTTpX2NTMC&pg=PA115, but that's more about the
>> study of language, not really language policies.
>> 
>> I was hoping for something shorter, ideally a chapter in a textbook about these sorts
>> of historical precursors to what we now call language policy.
>> 
>> Any thoughts, folks?
>> 
>> Dave
>> 
>> --
>> Dr. Dave Sayers
>> Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University, UK
>> Visiting Lecturer (2013-14), Dept English, University of Turku, Finland
>> dave.sayers at cantab.net
>> http://swansea.academia.edu/DaveSayers
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:52:50 -0400
> From: Harold Schiffman <hfsclpp at gmail.com>
> Subject: [lg policy] Hong Kong: Reform call as students stumble at
>    language    bar
> To: lp <lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <CAB7VSRBVwuGN-tA+5M2=FeyRjAAbjQhZziM=NmtJSxasc_N_Hg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> *Reform call as students stumble at language bar *
> 
> Ashley Wu
> 
> *Monday, July 29, 2013*
> 
> Concern groups are calling for education policy reform to allow children
> from ethnic minorities to learn Chinese as a second language.
> 
> The call comes from Hong Kong Unison, an organization advocating policy
> reform geared toward ethnic minority residents, and lawmaker Fernando
> Cheung Chiu-hung. They say the current policy fails to offer equal
> opportunities.
> 
> Unison executive director Fermi Wong Wai-fun said there is a lack of a
> Chinese-speaking environment in the 31 designated schools for ethnic
> minorities.
> 
> "In eight of those schools, more than 90 percent of students are from
> ethnic minorities, thereby causing racial segregation," she told City Forum.
> 
> ADVERTISEMENT
> <http://203.80.0.221/www/delivery/ck.php?oaparams=2__bannerid=33__zoneid=4__cb=2448022397__oadest=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.finance.thestandard.com.hk%2F>
> Wong said the curriculum of these schools is designed for the General
> Certificate of Secondary Education (Chinese) examination where grade A* is
> roughly equal to Primary 2 level, which is not helpful while seeking jobs.
> 
> Cheung, also a social worker, pointed to discrimination in the education
> system, where the well-off can send their children to international schools
> that require students to master either Chinese or English plus another
> language.
> 
> "It is like a glass ceiling the ethnic minorities can never surmount," he
> said. Delia Memorial School principal Chan Kui-pui said mainstream schools
> should deal with the Chinese-language discrepancy and foster ethnic
> integration.
> 
> One parent, Tahir Khan, said the Chinese curriculum of a mainstream
> secondary school proved "mission impossible" for his 15-year-old daughter.
> 
> "I invested a lot on tutors but we failed, and the struggle to catch up
> seriously affected her other studies," he said. "She switched to a special
> Chinese curriculum, yet the school has no idea what to do next."
> 
> Wong said the bureau should implement a "Chinese as a second language"
> policy to provide another exam paper for non-native speakers.
> 
> Meanwhile, a Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong survey found more than 50 percent of
> ethnic minority secondary students feel they are treated differently
> because of their race.
> 
> Also, of 390 students polled from December to March, more than 40 percent
> said they had little or no confidence in dealing with racial discrimination
> in workplaces and schools.
> 
> The Chinese YMCA urged employers to actively create a diversified
> workplace.
> 
> http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=135969&sid=40020187&con_type=1&d_str=20130729&fc=10
> 
> 
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