[Corpora-List] Re: Minor(ity) Language

[Briony Williams]

Somers, Harold wrote:
>>Actually, there *is* a possible reason for not using the word 
>>"minority" in relation to either the people group or the 
>>language.  In the case of Urdu, Arabic, Mandarin, etc. as 
>>spoken in London, these are certainly minority languages 
>>within the context of the UK, but not within a global context. 
> 
> But by the same token, Muslims and Chinese are both ethnic minorities in
> the UK, but the term would not be appropriate to describe the situation
> world-wide. By your argument, we should not talk about *ethnic*
> minorities either.

That's strictly true, of course, but in Britain whenever the term "ethnic 
minorities" is used in public discourse (usually by a politician or other 
public figure) it's usually understood that this means "minority" only within 
the UK context.  That is not necessarily the case when the term "minority 
language" is used in public discourse.

Regards

Briony Williams