Gender neutrality and language

[Jeff Gross]

Jason's question, 'How often is religion invoked in discussions of
language policy across the world?' is a disarmingly important one.
Historically, there have to be few factors greater than religion in
shaping the growth and spread of languages and the complex role
language plays in people's lives. Obvious examples are Hebrew as the
official language of the state of Israel or Arabic as the dominant
language of an educated and priestly caste throughout the Muslim umma.
Another place to look is the role of missionaries in education and the
promotion of a written standard -- whether by St. Cyril in the 5th
century or Spanish Jesuits in the 16th or Christian evangelicals in
the 20th. To the extent that a particular language, scriptural or
otherwise, is associated with a religious faith, and that faith shapes
a country or region's social and political life, the implications of
religion on language policy will always be deep and complex.

Harold Schiffman's Linguistic Culture and Language Policy devotes some
interesting pages to this issue, as does Bernard Spolsky's Language
Policy. Spolsky cites Charles Ferguson's 1982 article, 'Religious
Factors in Language Spread', as the standard scholarly discussion on
the subject.

Jeff Gross



On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 8:21 PM, Siegel, Jason F. <siegeljf at indiana.edu> wrote:
>
> In an effort to redirect the discussion back to language policy and
> away from a topic that could easily be argued about with no end in
> sight, I would like to take the opportunity to pose a question to the
> list (and this is the genuine inquiry of a relative newcomer to the
> field): How often is religion invoked in discussions of language policy
> across the world? I've heard the old quote in support of Official
> English in the U.S. "If it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough
> for me." (attributed to various people). In the research I've done on
> French policy, however, religion seems to be completely absent from the
> public discourse on language policy. So again, how frequently do
> religious concerns form a part of the discussion of language policy? Do
> we see it more often in certain types of language policy (e.g.
> feminization) than in others (e.g. acquisition planning)?
>
> --Jason
>
>
> --
> Jason F. Siegel
> Ph.D. Student, Linguistics & French Linguistics
> Department of French & Italian
> Ballantine Hall 642
> 1020 East Kirkwood Avenue
> Indiana University
> Bloomington, IN 47405-7103
> USA
> siegeljf at indiana.edu
>
>
>
> Quoting L Pierce <ldpierce at yahoo.com>:
>
> > It's recorded in the BIble.  You can read the history
> > for yourself, as you can read the histories of the
> > previously quoted men (quoted by an earlier
> > contributor) in other recorded histories; I gather
> > that is the empirical evidence you have for them.  I
> > don't really know why you want to change the issue,
> > but I am happy to answer your question.
> >
> > Lisa
> >
> > --- Ronald Kephart <rkephart at unf.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> On 2/29/08 7:13 PM, "L Pierce" <ldpierce at yahoo.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> > What some ignorant men wrote hundreds of years ago
> >> did
> >> > not create the order, God did...
> >>
> >>  We have empirical evidence that men wrote those
> >> rules. Do you have the same
> >> quality evidence for your assertion?
> >>
> >> Ron
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ____________________________________________________________________________________
> > Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page.
> > http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
> >
> >
>
>
>