<h1 class="entry-title">Language Policy and Development: Lost in Translation</h1>
<div class="entry-meta">
<a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/author/seth/" title="Posts by Seth Kaplan" rel="author">Seth Kaplan</a> | July 4, 2012
</div>
<br>
<p><a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Literacy-Africa.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2074" title="Language Literacy Development Africa" src="http://www.fragilestates.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Literacy-Africa-e1341428109942.jpg" alt="Language Literacy Development Africa" height="237" width="360"></a></p>
<p>Language is one of the most neglected areas in the development field.
It barely registers on any agenda to help poor countries despite its
importance to a number of crucial areas and it being a barrier to
progress in many fragile states. Why is this?<span id="more-2071"></span></p>
<p>Language is how individuals communicate, acquire knowledge, and work
with others. It is how societies pass on culture and institutions,
import new ideas and technology, and forge links among members. It can
unite as well as divide, act as an instrument of empowerment as well as a
barrier to advancement, and influence how societies evolve.</p>
<p><strong>Language Policy in Less Developed Countries</strong></p>
<p>In the least developed countries, language policy should have two basic aims:</p>
<p>1) Maximize the ability of a population to acquire knowledge so as to increase education levels and productivity;</p>
<p>2) Maximize the cohesion of a population so as to increase its ability to cooperate to promote national development.</p>
<p>These are among the <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/about/articles-and-publications/topics/causes-and-characteristics/">most important issues</a> facing fragile states, which are typically plagued by <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/2012/03/12/horizontal-versus-vertical-social-cohesion-why-the-differences-matter/">social divisions</a> and low education levels.</p>
<p>Yet, many countries have policies that work against both these aims.
By using a national—European—language as the basis of education and
government, they entrench elites in power, and reduce the ability of the
general population to acquire knowledge. Half a century after
colonialism ended in Africa, for instance, English, French, and
Portuguese still matter much more than African languages in most
countries even though they are not well spoken by the rural population
and urban underclass, which consists of the majority of people. The
disadvantages the poor face directly contribute to the <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/2012/04/16/inequality-fragile-states-and-the-new-mdgs/">stark inequities</a> and <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/2012/06/03/differentiating-between-fragile-states-and-transition-countries/">social divisions</a> that plague such countries.</p>
<p><strong>The Disconnect Between Language and People</strong></p>
<p>Such policies hold back whole countries by undermining indigenous
cultures and knowledge, and forcing people to become dependent on
imported institutions, language, and concepts that they are unfamiliar
with. As <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwesi_Kwaa_Prah">Kwesi Kwaa Prah</a>, Director of the <a href="http://www.casas.co.za/Default.aspx">Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society</a> in Cape Town, argued in a <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2004/papers/HDR2004_Kwesi_Kwaa_Prah.pdf">Background Paper for the 2004 Human Development Report</a>, it is in local languages that</p>
<blockquote><p>Africans display their core abilities and creativity
within their environments. . . . These languages represent the
socio-cultural and historical repositories of the overall cultural
patterns and usages of African people. In other words, African languages
are today possibly the most crucial factor in the propagation and
development of culture, science and technology based on known and
historical foundations rooted in the practices of the people. . . .
African development projects and efforts have the greatest chance of
success if innovative ideas and their communication are couched in
indigenous languages, which reach the rural masses more immediately and
more directly.</p></blockquote>
<p>The disconnect between language and people is not unique to Africa.
Many postcolonial states that have elites who see the poor not as a
brethren to be uplifted but undesirables meant to be kept down and who
see the maintenance of European institutions as crucial to preserving
their rule have had similar problems. Few Latin America countries
promoted indigenous languages until recently. The <a href="http://lughat.blogspot.com/2012/06/inability-to-read-or-write-in-your.html">Pakistan elite</a> prefers English (and Urdu) to Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, and Baluchi. Minorities—such as the Berbers and Kurds in <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/category/region/middle-east/">North Africa and the Middle East</a>—are disadvantaged whenever the dominant ethnic group suppresses their language.</p>
<p><strong>A Language Strategy to Promote Development</strong></p>
<p>Of course not all languages have enough speakers to be made a
priority. But those with millions of speakers—such as Hausa and
Punjabi—ought to play a crucial role in education and government. And an
effort to harmonize languages which enjoy a high level of mutual
intelligibility into a common standard (something many European
countries did in the 19<sup>th</sup> century) will increase their potential for wider usage and provide economies of scale for writers, publishers, and translators.</p>
<p>Investing in translating and circulating important foreign books will
increase the attractiveness of local languages and allow a larger
number of people to access knowledge. The Arab world, for instance, <a href="http://www.arab-hdr.org/contents/index.aspx?rid=2">needs to invest far greater resources in Arabic translations</a> of science, technology, and literature translation.</p>
<p>More inclusiveness with language will create more inclusive regimes,
open to more citizens, and more geared to the needs of the general
population (rather than just the elites). If handled properly, it will
promote <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/about/articles-and-publications/topics/social-cohesion/">social cohesion</a> and engender greater state legitimacy. It might even improve governance by <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/2012/02/14/ghana-hybrid-legal-systems-work-best/">making state institutions more accessible</a>.</p>
<p>In the short term, governments should make far greater use of the
most important local languages. They could, for instance, use them for
primary education and introduce a plan to adopt them for greater use at
the regional level. In the long term, policies should seek to realize
the use of these important languages at all levels of education, within
parts of government, and in all areas of social life. In divided
countries, there may continue to be a role for colonial languages at the
national level and in some universities. But such languages should not
be the dominant force in society.</p>
<p>India, for instance, has emphasized the <a href="http://www.languageinindia.com/dec2002/karnatakaeducationpolicy.html">use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction in schools</a>, leading to <a href="http://www.elda.org/en/proj/scalla/SCALLA2004/mallikarjunv3.pdf">41 languages being used in the classroom</a>
in one place or another. States are organized according to language to
maximize the use of the largest tongues. The most widely spoken local
language—Hindi—has the same status as English at the national level.
Media of all types—from newspapers to books to movies—proliferate in
local languages. Although English plays an important role at the top of
society—both advantaging the country in international competition while
disadvantaging lower classes who don’t have easy access to education in
it—it is not alone.</p>
<p>In contrast, in most of <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/category/region/africa/">Africa</a> (and places such as <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/tag/pakistan/">Pakistan</a>*)
it is hard to imagine a non-fluent speaker of the colonial tongue
rising to an elite position in government. There are few successful
novels, few advanced education opportunities, and few newspapers in
African languages.</p>
<p>As I wrote in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Fragile-States-Paradigm-Development/dp/0275998282/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203617241&sr=8-14">Fixing Fragile States</a></em>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Instead of forcing whole populations to learn foreign
languages, much greater effort should be made to translate world
knowledge into major indigenous tongues such as Arabic, Hausa, and
Punjabi. . . . Certainly, no society that has successfully developed has
depended as heavily on foreign resources, foreign political models,
foreign languages, and foreign laws as fragile states typically do
today.</p></blockquote>
<p>All successful developing countries have depended on their own
language and sociocultural base for development, importing Western ideas
and technology as needed, and integrating these with local institutions
in a <a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/2012/02/14/ghana-hybrid-legal-systems-work-best/">hybrid manner</a>.</p>
<p>Many in Africa (and elsewhere) understand this, but in contrast to places such as Indonesia, where <a href="http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/cls/s2009v5n1/Paauw.pdf">language policy has planned a prominent role in nation building and education</a> from early on, few countries have sought to use language policy to promote inclusive development.</p>
<p><strong>Elites Stand in the Way</strong></p>
<p>Elites have often stood in the way of such change, seeing it as both a
practical threat to their positions in society as well as a
psychological threat to their own self-image as replacements for their
former colonizers. As <a href="http://transnationalstudies.buffalo.edu/faculty/ekeh.shtml">Dr. Peter P. Ekeh</a>, professor at the University of Buffalo, explained in his oft cited 1975 article on “<a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/2012/07/04/language-policy-and-development-lost-in-translation/users.polisci.wisc.edu/schatzberg/ps855/Ekeh1975.pdf">Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa</a>”:</p>
<blockquote><p>The Japanese do not strive to speak English or French as
well as an Englishman and an American or as a Frenchman. They see
themselves as different from them. The African bourgeois, born out of
the colonial experience, is very uncomfortable with the idea of being
different from his former colonizers in matters regarding education,
administration, or technology. One suspects that he is unconsciously
afraid that he may not be qualified to be an effective replacer of the
former colonizers.</p></blockquote>
<p>Although ethnic and religious divisions often plague postcolonial
states, the gap between elites and their populations can be worse. As
long as elites use their control over language policy and state
institutions to entrench their position at the expense of the
population, their countries are unlikely to reduce their great
inequities and social divisions, unlikely to improve their governance,
and unlikely to inclusively develop.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>* It is worth asking whether Bangladesh’s much better record in
promoting social development when compared to Pakistan has anything to
do with its far greater use of a local language that is widely
understood. Certainly, the greater social cohesion this has spawned has
something to do with it.</p><p><a href="http://www.fragilestates.org/2012/07/04/language-policy-and-development-lost-in-translation/#print">http://www.fragilestates.org/2012/07/04/language-policy-and-development-lost-in-translation/#print</a><br>
</p><p><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br>
<br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************<br>