<div dir="ltr"><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> <h1 class="entry-title">Linguistic Life Support: What Governments Should Do About Dying Languages</h1>
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<a href="http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/author/pbrower/" title="Posts by Pieter Brower" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Pieter Brower</a><span class="gmail-posted-on"><a href="http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/2017/12/linguistic-life-support-governments-dying-languages/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date gmail-published gmail-updated" datetime="2017-12-14T11:19:44+00:00">December 14, 2017</time></a></span> </div>
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<p><span class="gmail-wpsdc-drop-cap">I</span>f, 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.</p><p>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.”</p><p>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.</p>
<div class="gmail-simplePullQuote gmail-right"><p>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.</p>
</div><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p>
</div>Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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