Chapter#1: Multilingualism WORLD

Diversity and society:

Language is an assembly of social,cultural and historical changes.languages are the signs of
social attachment ,with the help of this, people attached with each other in a community and
understand the language. Languages are the storehouses of history and literary traditions,with the
passage of time language change its grammar,vacabulary and regional accents.
The Russian philosopher of language Mikahail Bikhtin (1895-1975) stated that our own
utterance are made from other’s words so that speech contains both our own- ness and otherness.
This statement shows that the language complicity is a human quality.

MULTILINGUALISM:
Derived from two Latin words “multus” means many and “lingua” means Language.A social
Situation which involves groups, communities and individuals communicate with each other.The
study of Multilingualism is the part of sociology that studies how humans are socialize.The
scope of Multilingualism involves past and present and modes of Language like writing,
speaking and singing.

LANGUAGE IN DAILY LIFE:

The British linguist M.A.K Halliday explain that Language is the creater and creature of human
society ” people changes and adoped the new style in language and alternating their speech
style , language and dialects according to the needs of the society and conversational patterns.

HOW MANY LANGUAGES?

 A reasonable estimation about how Language me n the world is about 6500-7000
languages worldwide.
 60 languages over ten million speakers.

IDENTIFYING DIFFERENTNESS AND SAMENESS IN

LANGUAGE:
Many dialects can be viewed as Languages however many Languages are actually dialects. For
example: the “click ”language of Nguni group in South Africa,Xhosa and Zulu are actually
dialects.

LANGUAGE DISTRIBUTION:
 The language of the world are mosaic , Chinese and Arabic are macro comprise many
languages.
 Arabic has 18 different languages with over one million speakers.
  Chinese has 13 separate languages with atleast one million speakers.
 Some minority languages in India are bigger than of the speaker population of European
countries.
 Indonesia has over 700 languages.
PLURICENTRICISM VS MONOCENTRINISM:
Language have various centres located in different nations. There is mutual intelligibility among
standards which has their own national norms.
The most widespread dialect of Kurdish is Kurmanji in south- eastern in Turkey.
VOICES OF OTHER LANGUAGES:
The Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (c.404) mocked the traditional view of language
acquisition as the mere ability to o name things accurately.language is like a woven cloth with
different fields.We commonly think of a language as a stable and independent thing ,each
language and each speaker is immersed in other languages.

CHAPTER#2:
THE CAUSES OF MULTILINGUALISM:
How language spread?
Languages spread by many ways for example: war, colonization and settlement, needs of trade
and business and the media.

ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE IN GREEK MITH:

According to the ancient Greek myth, in the beginning of the world people spoke one language,
god and goddess created a ‘unispeak’ under the rule of Zues,king of the gods.

MAYAN TRADITION:
According to Mayan Tradition earth was a place of cold ,hunger and unhappiness inhabited by
the “first four men” whose speech was so confounded ,they were unable to communicate.They
set out for a new abode across mountains and seas,which they found in a place of sunshine the
first K’iche ’city.

HINDU LEGEND:
In a Hindu legend,the ‘confusion of tongues ’resulted from the pride of a tree of knowledge that
grew so high in the centre of the earth that it touched heaven.

SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION:
With the passage of time Language expands into new places, territories.Speakers are enable to
speak more accurately, their Language behaviour changes.
ANNEXATION:
Nations and empires are power politics leading to multilingual and multinational populations.
The literary and official language during Ottoman Empire was Turkish.Annexation can lead to
different kinds of social policy.

MIGRATION AND DIASPORA:

Fifty thousand years ago, people moved from Asia across 1,000 miles of tundra to spread
throughout mainland Canada.
A small number of people are fluent in different languages less than 25%of the native to
population. Large number of people migrate,with languages ,to work and improve their standard
of living.

RELIGION:
Religion is involved in language diversity. People often feel a country on account of religious
conflict.ln North America,Nivajo religious practices involving the traditional Navajo religion and
the Native American church. Religious offers a means of preserving distinctive identity by
language differentiation. Roman catholicism,lincked to French language religious practices.
COLONIALISM:
A microclimate of several languages that serves the prevalent social and political order. In a
Cameroons, with 200 different native languages, German was a language of administration
during German colonial rule.World War 2 , the country was divided between French and British
administrations ,80% and 20% with different language policies.

ECONOMY AND MODERNIZATION:

All languages are not equal .some are more powerful than others. Many firms in the global
market, like IBM ,employ English as their in – house corporate language as well as for
multinational contact . Language skills especially in English are seen as crucial in
hiring,tranning, assessment and promotion.

TRANSITIONAL COMMUNITIES OF KNOWLEDGE:

In the 1778,La Scala,one of the world’s most famous Opera houses, opened in Milan from
whence Itlay and the Atalian Language have continued to dominate the culture of this musical art
form. Cultural power tends to reframe the policies of Language and poses new questions.Special
languages become influencial fields.

CHAPTER#3:
MULTILINGUALISM,MYTHS AND
CONTROVERSIES:
Society has conventions for the use of language ,like speak properly, don’t interrupt when
somebody’s talking.There are recurrent ideas and superstitions surrounding language like French
is logical, Italian is beautiful and Japanese is vague.

MITH 1:'THE CURSE OF BABEL’:

In the book of Geneses,the tale of the tower of Babel,pictures the origin of the world’s language
diversity.
The Babylon’s citizens build a high tower to touch heaven ‘in order to make a name for
ourselves’.Work stops because the builders can no longer communicate with each other.
The Babel story was based around the building of the great Sumerian ziggurat of Amar-Sin in the
city of Eridu.The classic interpretation of the story is the existence of many languages in the
world.

MYTH 2:’IF WE SPEAK ONE LANGUAGE ,THE WORLD WILL

BE PEACEFUL':
Violence is unsentimental about language.In the 1970 the Khmer Rouge regime killed
approximately two million other Khmer speaking.Government are adept at mudering fellow
speakers of their language.
The war in the Balkans in the 1990s resulted in the explosion of thousands of Albanians from
their homeland.

MYTH 3: ’MULTILINGUALISM IS NOT NATURAL:

Two third of the world’s people communicate in more than one language on a regular basis.130
countries out of 195 ,from A to Z are officially bilingual. Children everywhere normally learn
regional, minority or tribal language.

MYTH 4 : ‘ENGLISH IS THE GLOBAL STANDARD.WHY

BOTHER WITH ANYTHING ELSE ?’
 75% of the world’s mail is in English.
 80 %of electronically stored information is in English.
 English is the global lingua franca.
 Knowing other languages, becoming bilingual, is helps to improved cognitive skills like
mental flexibility, problem solving,divergent thinking, better listening and
communicative sensitivity.
MYTH 5:’LANGUAGE COST TOO MUCH ,
MULTILINGUALISM IS AN ECONOMIC BURDEN’:
Multilingualism costs because it requires a lot of resources .But language is human
capital ad society must allocate resources to enhancing this capital.There are many
multilingual nations that are finincially stable and successful.
Singapore has four official languages: English,Mandarin,Malay and Tamil.English is the
native language of 30 %of Singaporeans.The knowledge of languages enhances job
opportunities, economic advantages. Languages learning enhances life chances.
MYTH 6:’MULTILINGUALISM MEANS
MULTICULTURALISM-A FAILED PROJECT:
Multilingualism is a complex and challenging concept .It means that,more than the banal
toleration of group-differenciated rights. Multilingualism emerged as a post-war response
to the genocidal politics of the 20th century.Socities view multilingualism in different
ways.They may be hostile to cultural diversity and not understand it,or disapprove of it
and leave it alone.Social groups established their own boundaries.They formulate the
cultural features that they want ,the ones they believe are relevant and important.
In Europe,it has provided a transformative alternative to past violence ,
nationalism,cultural assimilation and ethnic cleansing.