Does language prestige correlate with community size?

[John Ekaju]

Readers,

I should like to join the debate by making an observation that Kiswahili (originally spoken in the coastal areas of East Africa), is an  example of a language shift where people have opted to learn a minority language  for national cohesion in the linguistically fragmented societies where tribal tensions are dangerously high. Most East African governments and beyond are actively encouraging Kiswahili, the de facto lingua franca, to the status of national language (eg Tanzania, Kenya and loosely in Uganda with English the language of former colonial power remaining as the official language).

The huge advantage of kiswahili is that unlike most African languages, it transcends the ethnic tag in the real sense, moreover, it is not identified to any threatening group.

John Ekaju

Stan & Sandy Anonby <stan-sandy_anonby at sil.org> wrote:
Thank you for all those interesting points and examples! They clearly show
there are various situations where people learn minority languages.

I see that my observations do not hold universally, but I still think they
may apply to the sociolinguistic stance I've seen in Canada, Brazil and
Africa; language shift is from smaller, less prestigious languages to
larger, more prestigious ones. People belonging to the larger, more
prestigious groups, rarely learn the languages of the smaller, less
prestigious groups. The languages you mention are very interesting, but
their sociolinguistic millieu is different than the one I had in mind.

Re the examples you give of the imperial elites, I don't think those reasons
exist anymore, and they don't lead to shift, displacing the language of the
hearth and home.

The languages you mention that, though they have fewer speakers, are higher
prestige, include:
Greek, Hebrew (both still prestige languages today in some circles)
Persian
Chinese in Japan
French (Jews in Morocco today speak French for prestige reasons; many
Anglo-Saxons under the Normans did the same; but anglophones in Canada
rarely learn French, because in Canada French has lower prestige than
English)
English

The examples you gave of Irish, Greek outside of Greece, Hebrew outside of
Israel, Chinese in Japan, Welsh, and Irish, well, I don't see them having
that strong of an impact. In a few years, the learners will forget these
languages, just like I've forgotten most of my Hebrew, because this language
learning has almost no effect on the communities in which they live.

Re Guarani in Paraguay, I don't think it's a case of the majority Spanish
speakers switching to the minority Guarani language. It's more like most
Paraguayos learn Guarani in the home, and Guarani remains a hearth and home
language - a diglossia situation, as almost nobody is literate in Guarani.
I think that rule of crass materialism in Paraguay holds that Guarani
speakers are bilingual in Spanish, not vice versa.

Stan Anonby

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicholas Ostler"
To:
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 7:21 PM
Subject: Does language prestige correlate with community size?


> At 12:02 pm -0400 1/4/04, Stan & Sandy Anonby wrote:
> >I guess "lesser languages" isn't a good term. I'm open to suggestions...
>
> In Europe, it's common to use the term "lesser used languages", as in
> European Bureau for Lesser used Languages. "Minority languages" too
> seems fairly objective.
>
> >I've only worked for SIL for 2 1/2 years, so I can't say my views are
> >representative of the organization. I've traveled quite a bit, though,
and
> >I've noticed the less prestigious groups learn the language of the more
> >prestigious ones.
>
> This may be analytic, since the term "prestige" characterizes the
> tendency of the favoured group to attract others to assimilate to it.
> But greater population is not a universal feature of such prestige
> groups. And even dominant groups can look outside themselves for the
> source of the "true class".
>
> >I haven't seen any examples to the contrary. I've seen
> >isolated individuals who learn smaller languages, but it's pretty
uncommon,
> >I think. Do you have any examples of larger, dominant groups learning
the
> >language of the smaller groups?
>
> Assyrians/Babylonians giving up Akkadian for Aramaic, from 8th
> century BC; as a result, Akkadian, the traditional language of the
> ruling class, died out.
> Romans using Greek throughout their Eastern Mediterranean empire,
> from 2nd century BC on
> Turkic conquerors in central Asia learning Persian from 10th century,
> indeed later transmitting it (as elite language) to India (e.g. in
> Mughal Empire)
> Japanese courtiers affecting Chinese in 8th-11th centuries (in
> writing at least).
> Elite learners of Greek in Western Europe since the Renaissance.
> Christian clerics learning Hebrew
> Russian elite speakers affecting French in 17th-19th centuries
> Past language-switch by Ethiopian groups when they have changed
> habitat/way of life (reported by Dick Hayward)
> Deliberate learning of Guarani by Spanish-speakers in Paraguay
> Afrikaans-speakers learning English in South Africa
> English immigrants to Wales (esp. their children in schools,
> obligatorily) learning Welsh.
> Most modern learners of Irish (including many Americans).
>
> And there are many examples of imperial elites learning the language
> of lower-class communities (not necessarily indigenous languages):
>
> British army officers in 18th-20th centuries learning Urdu in India,
> Swahili in Africa etc.
> Dutch administrators in 17th-18th century Ceylon, learning Portuguese
> creole (widespread among servant class);
> Dutch administrators in 17th-20th century Java and East Indies
> generally, learning Malay
> Portuguese (especially Jesuits) in Brazil 16th-18th centuries,
> learning Tupinamba
>
> In general, it is a remarkable fact that the Dutch never passed on
> their language in their colonies (except for Cape Colony in Africa),
> although they held the East Indies as long as Britain did India.
> There may be a particular sociolinguistic stance evinced here,
> revealed also by the rather low profile of Dutch among the modern
> European languages, despite its high population.
>
> >I don't like crass materialism either - that's one reason why I live in
> >Brazil and don't eat at McDonalds - but it would seem to me that whether
we
> >like it or not, this world is highly motivated by materialism. It may be
> >noble to fight these world wide trends, but what's wrong with admitting
they
> >exist?
> >
> >Stan Anonby
>
> Nothing at all, up to a point. But remember always that apparent
> "universal trends" may just be passing phases of the current era.
>
> Nick Ostler
>


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