[lg policy] EU: Language Policies & The Translation Business

Sun Oct 7 16:13:06 UTC 2012

Language Policies & The Translation Business

Posted on 10/01/12 in INDUSTRY NEWS, Language, TRANSLATION, 1 Comment

Language policies have been shaped by history and are therefore always
a sensitive topic to discuss. Still, in the language services industry
it is important to keep abreast of changes in language policies as it
can influence trends in customer requirements.

What do languages have to do with politics? Why do languages need to
be supported by officials? And can a government decide in which
language the people speak?

It is interesting to see what has happened throughout Europe during
the recent years and that why we are going to have a closer look at
this topic now.

Let’s start off with a definition. What exactly is a language policy?
A language policy (sometimes also called language planning) includes
anything that a government officially does to determine how languages
are used in public contexts and to establish the rights of individuals
or groups to learn, use and maintain languages. This definition is
taken from a book by James Crawford, an active supporter of
multilingual education. It focusses on the fact that language policies
are made by official, either government bodies or other institutions
such as the European Union.

Language policies are designed to bring about a change in the way
languages are used by people or in an official context. In Francoist
Spain (1936-1975) the Spanish language known as Castilian was declared
the only official language and other languages such as Catalan, Basque
and many more were supressed. Having this in mind, the Spanish
government of today is trying to find new solutions for the language
issue. This is necessary as the share of the population speaking
Catalan (around 11 million), Galician (around 3 million) and Basque
(around 1 million) as a first language is relatively high.

As Catalan, Galician and Basque are not official languages of Spain
they are also not used as official and working languages in the
European Union. However, any citizen of the EU should be able to
address the Union in his own language. Therefore, a new process was
introduced in 2006 that allows Catalan, Galician and Basque speakers
to write letters to the Union in their native language. These letters
are then translated into Spanish and the Spanish reply is translated
back into Catalan, Galician or Basque. It is the Spanish government
that bears for the costs of translation and interpretation. The
procedure is complicated, but it ensures language rights to about 15
million people and in 2008 and 2009 the UK followed the Spanish
example and a similar process was introduced for Scots Gaelic and
Welsh.

While Spain has only one official language, Ireland has two with Irish
being the first official language. The decision for Irish to be the
first official language of the country was implemented as part of the
Official Languages Act in 2003. When arriving at Dublin airport most
travellers will be surprised to see all signs written in both
languages, Irish in a bright green font and English below it. While
Irish is spoken by about 25% of the Irish population (about 4.5
million) the share of people who learn Irish as a first language is
lower than that. But as Irish is one of the official languages of
Ireland it is also an EU language since 2007. All EU legislation is
now translated into Irish which has led to a boom in the translation
business in Ireland. At DCU Language Services, we receive requests to
translate documents into Irish on a daily basis so it is an on-going
requirement and there is an increasing amount of Irish language
translators available.

There are people who disagree with this language policy and there is a
lot of discussion on this topic including recent attempts to review
the Official Languages Act to possibly change parts of it. An example
for this is the simultaneous publication of bills in English and Irish
which leads has now been changed, so bills can be published faster as
the government does not have to wait for the Irish translation.

But it is not only the national governments that are trying to carry
out successful language policies. Since some language groups do not
have a national government to support them, the European Union stands
in in order to protect minorities such as the Roma and Travellers who
are living in several Eastern and Central European countries. As their
language “Romani” has not been taught in any schools so far the
language is in danger of disappearing. The Council of Europe has
therefore published a new framework paper that has to be amended by
the member states. It includes the construction of Romani language
classes so Roma children will be able to attend classes in their own
language.

As you can see, languages and politics are not as far away from each
other as they might seem. Any language policy that is made also
influences the translation and interpreting business in a country. So
watch out for any news in this area – it might be of importance for
your business.

By Lea Spang

For a full Version of the Irish Official Languages Act see:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2003/en/act/pub/0032/index.html

For more information on the EU Curriculum Framework for Romani see:
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/romani_EN.asp

http://dculs.dcu.ie/dcu-language-services-news/language-policies-the-translation-business/

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