Language

and Nation
Israel Yelovich
Sofa Lacoste
3A

 Many individuals are either multilingual or bilingual:

they can speak more than one language with a fair
degree of proficiency.
This is a consequence of the fact that the society in
which they live is a multilingual society.
There are multilingual societies where speakers never
become bilingual to any significant degree, and
individual bilingualism is by no means universal.
But societal multilingualism is a very widespread
phenomenon.
The vast majority of the nation-states of the world have
more than one language spoken indigenously within
their frontiers.

Multilingual nations exist in all

parts of the world. In fact,
difficulties arise when one
attempts to locate a country that
is genuinely monolingual.
Nearly in all European countries
contain linguistic minorities:
groups of speakers who have
as their native variety a
language other than which is
the official, dominant or major
language in the country where
they live.
In some cases, where the
minorities are relatively large,
the nation-state usually has
more than one official language.

 For example:
Belgium
Switzerland
Romansch
Czecholosvakia

Dutch and French

German, French, Italian and
Czech and Slovak

 Where the minority is smaller or less influential, the

minority language or languages are unlikely to have
official status, and their speakers will tend to be
bilingual.
The United Kingdom gives the impression of being
monolingual. However, there are today sizeable
groups of speakers of language from the northern
Indian subcontinent, such as Punjabi, living in the
country.

 Nearly all European nations are multilingual to a

certain extent.
For example: In Rumania, about 85% of the
population have Rumanian as their mother tongue,
but a least fourteen other languages are natively
spoken in the country.

 For instance, Welsh is the first language of about a

fifth of the population of Wales and Scots Gaelic is
spoken natively by about 90,000 people largely in
the West Highlands, and Hebridean Islands of
Scotland. Irish Gaelic is still spoken by small
numbers of speakers in parts of Northern Ireland.

In 1956, the relative proportions of the different language

groups were approximately the following:
Rumanian 15.080.600
Hungarian 1.652.700
German 395.400
Ukrainian 68.300
Romany 66.900
Russian 45.000
Serbo-Croat 43.100
Yiddish 34.300
Tartar 20.600
Slovak 18.900
Turkish 14.200
Bulgarian 13.200
Czech 6.200
Greek, Armenian, others and "not known" 29.000

 Multilingualism on this scale clearly brings problems

for governments and others concerned with national
organizations of various kinds.
However, multilingualism on any scale brings
problems for individuals and groups of individuals,
especially those who are members of linguistic
minorities.
They have to acquire proficiency in at least two
languages before they can function as full members
of the national community in which they live.
The biggest problem they have to face is educational.

 The educational problems that may be encountered

by children who have to learn to read and write in a
dialect which is radically different from their own.
In some cases the problem may not be too severe,
because two languages involved may not be
particularly different.

 It may be that the educational policy of the country

concerned is reasonably sophisticated linguistically,
and the children learn to read and write in and are
taught through the medium of their native language
in the initial stages of schooling, with the majority
language being introduced later on.
This approach has been adopted in Wales,
Rumania and many other places. Its aims are that
the children should acquire an ability to read, write
and speak both their native language and the
majority language.
Regarding this approach, both linguistic varieties are
considered as respectable linguistic systems in
themselves, and the child is encouraged to use both.

 In other cases, the minority child may be faced with

very considerable difficulty. This may occur where
the two languages involved are not closely related
and where the educational policy of a particular
nation-state is to discourage, or simply to ignore or
not to encourage, minority languages.
In extreme cases the minority language may be
forbidden or disapproved of in school, and children
punished or actively discouraged from using it there.
This was formerly true both of Welsh in Wales and
Gaelic in Scotland. (At one time, a law in force
actually made the speaking of Gaelic illegal)

 The language variety to be eliminated or

discouraged is regarded as inferior. The
psychological, social and pedagogical consequences
are serious.
The effects of the attempted imposition of an alien
standard such as English, may be much more
serious. The attempted replacement of one language
by another entails an effort to obliterate whole
cultures; it is indicative of illogical ethnic attitudes,
and it can very seriously impair the educational
progress of a child who has to learn a new language
before he can understand what the teacher is saying,
let alone read and write.

 This approach was for many years official policy in

the US, where it may have been at least partly
responsible, together with the broader social
attitudes to minority languages that went with it, for
the widespread and rapid assimilation of minority
language groups to the English-speaking majority.
Children of parents born outside US who spoke
languages such as Chinese, Italian, Greek, Polish,
Swedish and many more, have not retained more
than a passive knowledge of their parents
languages.

 Today considerable provision is made for some

minority groups, notably Spanish-speakers and
American Indians, to be educated in their own
language, and certain other steps have also been
taken:
public notices in NY are posted in Spanish as well as
English.

However, even the larger, more rural linguistic

minorities such as those consisting of speakers of
French and Dutch, are rapidly declining in size.

 This approach and the attitude associated with it

have almost disappeared from the educational scene
in the UK too, although there are many Welsh and
Gaelic speakers who are very unhappy about the
status of their languages in this country.
Gaelic has been allowed in schools in Gaelicspeaking Scottish areas since 1918.
Welsh has far more speakers, and fairly
considerable amounts of time are given to radio and
TV broadcasts in Welsh.
However, the effects of older educational approach
linger on.

 Many older people today, while being fluent

speakers of Welsh have never learned to write it.
They have to write even the most intimate of letters
in a foreign language, English, and very often find it
difficult to read standard Welsh.

This bilingual policy has been widely adopted

today.
The teaching of minority languages is obviously of
benefit to minority-group children, not only in the
learning of reading and writing but in other subjects
as well.

 It has the effect of recognizing the childs social and

cultural identity and integrity and encourages the
development and growth of minority cultures. It does
not deny the child the access to the majority
language which is likely to be essential for upward
social mobility.

 The third approach: the appreciation of dialect

differences:
This view states that theres no need for a child to learn
a new dialect because theres nothing wrong with the
one he already has.
Where language is a defining characteristic of a
minority ethnic group wanting independence,
particularly where other characteristics are not
significant linguistic factors are likely to play an
important role in any separatist movement they might
undertake.

Language Planning
Some ethnic and linguistic minorities have suffered
the political intervention of states who have chosen
oppression as a way to discourage political or ethnic
loyalty.
This has been the case of Scots Gaelic in Britain,
and of Macedonian in Greece, for instance.

Political oppression through language

This has also been the case of Catalan in Spain

Catalan
A romance language closely
related to French and
Spanish
Mainly spoken in Catalonia,
Valencia, the Balearic Islands
and in Roussillon and
Sardinia (France)
In 1768, Spanish was
introduced in formerly
Catalan schools
In 1856, Spanish law
decreed all documents and
legal contracts were to be in
Spanish

Catalan
In 1931 the Spanish
Republic restated Catalan as
an officially taught language
in Spain
Nevertheless, during the
Franco dictatorship of 1939,
Spain experienced a period
of Castilian-centeredness,
linguistically speaking, that
banished Catalan again and
imposed Spanish in Catalanspeaking areas
From 1970 onwards and in
democracy, Spain has again
move towards a Catalan
instruction in those areas.

Political oppression through language

Other examples of
policies of linguistic
imposition have occurred
in USSR (through the
imposition of Cyrillic
Russian Standard in
heterogeneous zones),
and in South-Africa (were
English and Bantu
languages have been
used as social identifiers
(in a divide-and-conquer
policy).

Lingua franca
A language which is used
as a means of
communication among
people who have no native
language in common.
Originally meaning
French language, it was
formerly a way of provenal
used by crusaders as
lingua franca.
It has been used in new
nations, as a way to
impose an official
language.

Lingua franca
In the case of an extremely multilingual nation as Malaysia, the
imposition of an official lingua
franca has been problematic, as
many dialects and languages are
daily spoken.
Malaysia has been using Chinese,
Malay (with many different
variations), English, and Hindu
languages, among others, for
educational, economic, and
governmental purposes.

Official languages in Norway

Norway is a perfect and peculiar
example of linguistic policy.
After obtaining its independence from
Denmark, the problem of imposing an
official and somewhat vernacular
Norwegian language has troubled the
government in the country.
After decades of political and social
struggles, Norway has an atypical
linguistic configuration, in which two
official variations of Norwegian are
spoken: Nynorsk (Blue regions) and
Bokmal (Red regions). (Grey regions
being neutral areas).

Las invasiones inglesas