[lg policy] Linguistic Life Support: What Governments Should Do About Dying Languages

Thu Dec 21 19:38:58 UTC 2017

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upport: What Governments Should Do About Dying Languages
<http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/2017/12/linguistic-life-support-governments-dying-languages/>
BPR Magazine <http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/category/mag/>World
<http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/category/world/>
Linguistic Life Support: What Governments Should Do About Dying Languages
Pieter Brower <http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/author/pbrower/>December
14, 2017
<http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/2017/12/linguistic-life-support-governments-dying-languages/>

If, like Ludwig Wittgenstein, you believe that “the limits of my language
are the limits of my world,” then your world is getting smaller. Experts
estimate that over half of the six to seven thousand spoken languages will
become extinct by the year 2100, and the vast majority of languages have
fewer than 10,000 native speakers left. Language death is hardly a new
phenomenon. Throughout history, some languages have evolved while others
have fallen out of use. At times, these losses can be attributed to
processes of assimilation in an increasingly interconnected globe. Scottish
Gaelic, for example, was gradually replaced without a conscious policy. But
in many cases, language death results from direct action, not natural
deterioration. Colonialism and globalization have hastened the endangerment
of many tongues throughout the world. Government policies often privilege
one language over another, sometimes leading to oppression so severe that
it can be considered a sort of linguicide. In recent years, interest in
protecting endangered languages has surged, and governments across the
world have attempted to stem those language’s decline.

Even when languages fade from use through uncoerced processes of
assimilation, they are still worth protecting. Only one third of current
languages are accounted for by a writing system, so the demise of a
language often implies the loss of a culture’s entire oral tradition and
body of knowledge. Furthermore, language diversity is of enormous
scientific interest, offering a window into myriad ways of seeing and
processing the world around us. In the words of Columbia University
linguist John McWhorter, languages “are variations on a cross-cultural
perception of this thing called life… surely that is something worth caring
about.”

Undoubtedly, languages are inextricably linked to cultural identity. While
culture exists beyond language, language is a powerful conduit for
connection and community. Because it implies internal unity and separation
from an outside other, a common language has often been weaponized by
nationalist movements across the globe. As a result, even establishing what
counts as a language is often an exercise more political than scientific.
Linguists joke that a language is just a dialect with an army and a navy.
The official language of the Valencian Community in Spain, for example, is
Valencian, even though it is indistinguishable from Catalan. Similarly,
citizens of Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro all speak closely
related but legally distinct varieties of the same language. This leads to
curious arrangements: In some Bosnian towns, children at the same school
head to separate classrooms to be taught in languages that differ in little
more than their names.

Even establishing what counts as a language is often an exercise more
political than scientific. Linguists joke that a language is just a dialect
with an army and a navy.

Given language’s power to unite, it is hardly surprising that regimes
throughout history have depended on oppressive linguistic homogenization
policies to suppress dissent. Often, homogenization efforts went hand in
hand with the spread of public education—the classroom is a perfect place
to impose the dominant language. In 19th-century Wales, children were
punished for speaking Welsh rather than English in schools, a common policy
in countries dealing with linguistic diversity. Indigenous children in the
United States and Canada were forced into residential schools where they
were forbidden from speaking in their native tongues and were physically
and sexually abused when caught doing so. For the modern nation-state and
its growing administrative apparatus, a common language was both a tool of
cohesion and a matter of expediency. The states that emerged from these
policies were stable and efficient, but the costs involved were immense.

The rise of colonialism also opened a particularly ugly chapter in the
history of linguistic hegemony. Admittedly, the imposition of language onto
the conquered has existed throughout history, from the Inca of South
America to the aboriginal peoples of Oceania. But through their bureaucracy
and education systems, European colonizers imposed their languages with
ruthless efficacy. Local languages were banned, or at the very least
systematically depreciated. Illogical colonial geography, that confined
many disparate peoples within arbitrary borders, meant that even when
indigenous languages were accorded some recognition, one local tongue was
privileged, often controversially, over others. British rulers in northern
India, for instance, worsened a long-running political dispute over the
relationship between Urdu and Hindi, distinct standardized versions of the
same Hindustani continuum, by granting privileged administrative status to
Urdu over Hindi.

Decolonization only underscored the importance of language as a political
tool. In many former colonies, government affairs and education are
conducted in the languages of past colonizers, even when few citizens speak
them as a first language. English is the sole official language of Namibia,
for example, even though less than three percent of the population uses it
at home. In other instances, it was too controversial to anoint one of the
many local languages over the others, leaving the colonial language in
place. According to India’s 1949 constitution, English was to be phased out
as an administrative language, but efforts to impose Hindi as a national
language faced resistance from speakers of other languages, so the use of
English persists.

On the other hand, decolonization has finally given governments across the
world the opportunity to salvage their local languages. Often, this means
finally teaching them in schools; Haiti has recently allowed Haitian Creole
as a medium of instruction rather than the rarely-spoken French, a policy
that could help quell exclusiveness in education. New Zealand has
officially recognized the Maori language since 1987 and the government has
spearheaded efforts to save it. Australia and Mexico have implemented
similar programs for indigenous languages. Meanwhile, the European Charter
for Regional or Minority Languages commits its 33 signatory states to
protect and promote the use of such languages.

While renewed interest in promoting minority languages is preferable to the
homogenizing goals of the past, new government programs can be just as
harmful. Promotion of local languages can substitute one form of linguistic
hegemony for another. After the end of the Francoist dictatorship in Spain,
which suppressed all local languages other than Castilian Spanish,
provinces began to promote the use of other historical languages, sometimes
with excessive zeal. Pupils in Catalonia, for example, are educated almost
exclusively in Catalan, even if they are among the 55 percent of the
population that consider Spanish their mother tongue. This linguistic
nationalism has been used to fuel the region’s recent secessionist stance
and stands in stark contrast to the model employed by other Spanish
Autonomous Communities. The Basque country, for example, allows parents to
opt for a bilingual education or one in the tongue of their choosing for
their children. Worse, ethno-linguistic fervor can at times lead to
policies that are completely out of sync with the people’s lived reality.
In Mumbai, for instance, local leaders have mandated that all shops display
signs written in Marathi, even though most residents cannot read the
language. English is a prerequisite for any high-paying job as well as all
higher education in India, yet many public schools use only native
languages for instruction. Nationalist politicians defend this system, but
often send their own children to English-language private schools.

Complicating the political calculus is that keeping languages alive can be
enormously expensive, requiring money that could be spent on other
programs. The European Union’s commitment to supporting linguistic
diversity has caused its translation and interpretation budget to top 1
billion euros per year. Yet those who speak minority languages in places
like Ireland, Luxembourg, and other EU countries most often also speak
another more common one, meaning that all the money and labor used to
translate countless EU documents doesn’t much improve government
accessibility.

Even when significant money and energy are devoted to protecting a
language, success can be elusive. The case of the Irish language is
instructive. Study of the language has long been compulsory in Ireland, yet
the policy has done little to revive its social use. Even in areas of the
country where Irish remains the main community language—known as the
Gaeltacht—fluency is declining, and despite government efforts, only 25
percent of households in those areas were fluent in 2003. These statistics
offer a cautionary tale—any efforts aimed at reviving languages may
ultimately prove ineffective. Few studies have evaluated approaches to
minority language policies, but it seems that any policy that does not
impose language use by decree will likely fall short.

Some of the most successful revitalization policies have replaced one
oppressive policy with another, creating winners and losers while trampling
on the rights of the speakers of certain languages. If we value the
preservation of languages for reasons of cultural diversity, such an
approach seems counterintuitive at best. Governments should instead turn to
policies that support local languages without the excesses of linguistic
fanaticism. One promising approach is to make government services and
education in these languages available, but not compulsory. Such a model
underscores the importance of protecting regional and historical languages,
but does so without coercion of any kind. In the face of the inexorable
forces of globalization, this strategy faces an uphill battle, but it is
one worth fighting.

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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