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Language Wars and !.t
_l

ñF{
lrl Linguistic Politics
rññ

ry
ñttc

6H
G'É LOUIS_JEAN CALVET
*F Translated by
ñ!q
Michel Petheram
q
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Hf;
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ii' lirr ' OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
f+r 1998
!5$i,:i.
(Y'¡ri-
,}(!üiif I- I
4' &ffi18rí,¡.
 f. í,
')ii:'
I
n
#
,4
A Mulrilingual Ilorld Z7

I
TasLe 3. I .
-n
3
Td Situation 'High' variety 'Low' variety
é
A Multilingual World Sermons" worship
-1
eq Instruction to workmen, servants
d Personal letters +
Political speeches +
-1 University lectures +
-q So human beings are confronted by languages. Private conversations
ñ Wherever tl'rey are, whatever the first language they understood or News broadcasts
learnt, they meet other people every day, understand them or not) recog- 'Soap operas' +
-'l
+
.ñ1 nize them or not) like them or not, are dominated by them or dominate Cartoon captions
d them. It is a fact that the world is multilingual. Linguistic history, lvhich Poetry
is onc aspect oIthc history oIthe wor[d, is to a gráat .rt.nJ constitutcd by Folk litcrature
-n
how $!¡ m¡rl¡!linguallsm !s maqaged,
-"i
# Contrary to what some might think, this multiplicily of lan-quages does
not define particular siruations or contine-nts, it is not especially ihe p.e^ remember that the article in question dates from 1959: the situation rn
.?;ñiirñithe ThiiA'Wó?ld, o:f ihe dévekiping counrries that are easily Haiti has changed somervhat since then)' {g9-ofinf to-Ferguson diglos¡ir
-ü
*d imagined as torn between their 'patois' or 'dialects' and our'ianguages'. It brings together two varieties of a single langua!é,*ryhere 919 h§- pJestigq,-.
is a fate common to all, even if it manifests itself differentlyin gi!&L.l iiiilnaolalzed, and is the vehicle of a respectü*lrdt-9l!lié;á11ie, bu¡
.*.r f ;liil chipt..i"ñtrull áttenrpt to describe these dil^f-eren, ri,ur- ípok.n by a miriority, rvhile the orher is belicve'd to be inferior, but is
*# :j::-

Iions. to sketch a/.-.,.-.++u

tvpoloey of multilineualisms. lp_gkcn
-.-
by mqq! PeoPle.
M' '
út.ril*ost inreresring in the situations described by Ferguson is the
interplay berween what is the same and what_is different..O.n the one
q"tl Bilingualisrn and Diglossia háná, 'similar' linguistic forms, in the sense that they derive from the
Á It was in 1959 that the American linguist Charles Fer,guson launched a simt mo¿et, in a standard'variety and a popular variefy (even if the
term borrowed from Greek into the literature of linguistics, the term example of Haiti does not appear to fall into this category)l on the o1her,
hand, .different, in the sense that it is possible to have coñtrol of one
'{iglogsia},t Although the word means simply'bilingualism' in Greek, in
-fr
# Fergusoñ-s work it has a much more restricted sense. P¡3_W.:l-S.._o-I,_ fo.gl wifhóür controlling the o¡he¡. {rom ¡§ tgnsion between these two poles,
'from
situations that he took to be 'defining' instances (German Switzerland, and the relarionship thai ipeakers maintain with one or other of
tñeJe linguistic forms, there naturally results behaviour that one can try to
e4 ütilj;iii, ilá Gr.éó.¡, tt. arthár described diglossia as a st3ble
"1r
approich either in psycholinguistic terms-(individual linguistic attitudes
d JéI¡tiñsliip-béfwéén iwo irngui§tic-vaiiádes, _one called 'High' and the
other'Low', genetically related .-Glqs_q iSql 4!r!i. an d i irbken- Alr U ig, g 9* [6*rra, these rwo io.*s) or in sociolinguistic terms (the social signifi-
iañóé óf diglosiia, the gioupt differentiated bv it). ff ft -{qllity,- which
#
:F+l
ry_g!i9--91"j! lnul!¡al _G_1..I), The usage of these varieties can be
l|{
given a functional distribution, shown in Table 3.1. téa¿s iobAih the richness and to the limitations of Ferguson's essay, is the

The example of Haiti was taken as an illustration of this table: French

-Iil _US--ed in school, in church, in political speeches, and the like, while
#
ffi
rCreole/was
t-'
used in daily life, in relations with 'inferiors', etc. (we should
'l ,
.¡. Fishm"n,
,Bilingualism with and without Diglossia, Diglossia with and without
Bilingualism', Jo unal of Social.fssucs, no. 32 (1967).
r
C. Ferguson, 'Diglossia', lVord (\959).
d
i!41
It
28 The Origins of Confiict AMultilinguallYorld 29
if
diglossia (the use of several languages'in--a society) whictr comes under rnore prestige than greo-L9.jl i14ti)¡lA-fungtiqns (¡he 9[rq, thal f rlnch
I
I
6{n-u"*tryAg*,ñ\ rñ.o.y in t*á.."cial ways.
'Fi,,stft places much less emphasis on the presence of two codes (there ffifrilti"ñ' "óllt ^i"á-u1, c".ái.üj¡r-*:r' Bl llf* pl'-*ge álá tho¡e
f--
i i r-=\

ü funcrions, this is foi historic a"d üüoffiüi ñ-i;ii,t";tii¿li i.tutt

ir,, b" more, although he thinks that usually the situation comes down to of society, aii of whiqll are matters
an oppósition bet*".., High and Low varieties) S_econdly, he suggests
lhe&;m of powerlld the organization I

tt"iTérgüion ñaiaiy touitré§ upon. O[ 1h-e ot!§J-ba.L4 qhe nqtio¡ of

ü that diglossia emerges as soon as there is a functiondldifference between '&glossia
is useful_(even if it should be sometimes reñned:rrig1_ossia, etc.)
)

i
# rf;, y¡'-9,|.1nguages, yha¡ev91 ¡he deglee of difference, from the very subtle to
I

I
iil"fta ái ii ié i" fact opposed to the notion of bilinguaiism, a point i

i tfie v-ery radical: it is not necessary for the two languages to be related. ;ff¿;;¿a" by piif,miñ.-ttls extremely useful to be able to distinguish
t

i
The author sums up his thought in Table 3.2, which is a perfect b.,*..n_,-!dU d,1l_!i!jtsu3lsgl3"a soge!.9jt+ealil+gq++=b'1t
4
a[i illustration of the title of his article ('Bilingualism with and without
-
th-q¡ emphasize the sociologtcal tmpltca- i

diglossia, diglossia with and without bilingualism'). =qhg"tg lgs¡ia), 1nd 1o I

tions of language differences.

--¡
?ñIi These four thcoretical possibilities correspond to rhe following --t[{U.iñg-!F!;É, ;atters are often more compigx than these trvo I

texts seem to .rrgg.tt, áná i *"ütá lite to mention a few examples

ñi' situations: in
\i
1. Paraguay, where everyone speaks Spanish and Guarani, Spanish being ordei tc, qüi.t<ty demonstrate (we shall return to this later) the pluralitl'
'"¡
ñ functionally the High fbrm and Guarani the Low form. ol situations to be encountered in the world'
rÉl 2. Certain unstable situations where there are many bilingual individuals
but no social bilingualism (the German-speaking area in Belgium, l. For one thing, despite its etymology,'diglossia'can bring together
m
]q
where French is slowly repiacing German). riióie than tivo ianguages, as Fishman has already admitted, Rut it does
---¡
iffi 3. Tsarist Russia, where the nobles spoke orrly French and the people lot indicaté the possibiliiy of what lwould callque!9l-tlugdi{::llat-
only Russian. ütii.Fcán often be found in former colonics. In Tañzania, for example.
4. The rare situation where a small community has a single linguisitic théie wái it niliálgibiiii U'ét*".n ih. language inherited from coloni-
alism, English, and the national language, Swahili' But there was also
ñ+-.1

ffi!1 variety.
asecondperiodwhentherewasadiglossiabetweenthissameSwahili,
, Taken whole, these two texrs require commenr.
as a
r[bal.i.e.,gnslo,me whichisthemothertongueofonlyaminorityofthepopulation,and
to be lacking above all in,.Berguson's definition, with its insistence above the other African languages. The same situation can be found in Mali
,+*i áiL óñ'ttré-noiioni of fufciions and presrige, is óf course any reference to
(French/Bambara,/other African languages), in Senegal (French/
pql"_¿i I¡ 1ot enough to analyse the differences berween the linguistic
i¡ Wolof/other African languages), and so on' In all -thes-e,-93?!-!: 1c-99ss t9
forms involved in terms of prestige (for example the claim that F'rench has power depends on mastery of the official language (Enflish o^r.French)
,,.
f,"
inheritéd from coloniálism, but mastery of the dominant African lan
frurgé lwhether or not it is viewed
T,rsr-r 3.2. by the law as the only. 'natural'
ii"f"ug.; confers another power In other words, English is in-!ti-1a-
Diglossia ..r:^r- l-:"^^ii ú;-l r^.-
nir-, High form with regard to Swahili, w!r19hQ-t¡e]f ^1l!S]'-form ; I'1"
;[,I1 ;d;; á ir,. orrr.; iá.'g,rrg.r' , c".e olóuéil"ppi'á Oictg-'ija I

of diglossia adopted by [erguson, the notion that

;
Z. Aifor iie definition
@
q the language, ,,-tuo¡uéd Áuqt -b. ¡:tlat-ed is, .as Fishman has- noted'
Bilingualism l. Diglossia and Bilingualism
bilingualism without diglossia .*r..-áy t'i*;rl.,g. This poses another problem: slo{4ye d§tllggtl}-r
ái¿tó.ri^ f;ó-the relationship that holds between a standard-language
3. Diglossia without 4. Neither diglossia ,ni io di"l..ts (its local or iocial forms)t Everyone knows, for exam-
that
bilingualism nor bilingualism ple, that there is a socially acceptable way of speaking English, and
can be
c..tri., pronunciations of the language (Cockney, for example)
 ilfl;
!1
.F¿ 30 The Origins of Confiict A fulultilingual World 31

ff
,il a social handicap. But is this strictly comparable to the situation monolingualism (people who speak only French, but also women who
I
I nri
i ,f,
-tft in Tanzania, where Engiisñ*is conrrasred with swarrili? Evidentl¡1 speak only Arabic, etc.), bearing in mind that the monolingualism of a t'*

d
a " ¡ubrle 4if F!-gil-c1l€9¡.¡,1. Frenchman is not comparable to the monolingualism of the son of an J

m.lliii&-f-glf iülihg-Ir6i,rydiC¿l-diff-.ri{,"e§.Itisnor,however,the "r. Algerian or Cantonese.

l
'i
-1 difference between the_ Qreen's Engrish and cockney which creates In other words, the typology we would likg to skg¡ch calng¡ b9
ñl dislossia,uut¡F-s;;-ñffi
narure thrt endowsine¡f t}-,"-."-of
¡n-ir'af f..-,r-*:;ffi i,;;;;;;;r", satiifr"awitf ,i-lG*-i[gt-*.!}-al1-c1!1,metaphorically-,-'photogl¿.phiq];-.
- -se
Iorms witE -ore* p;Atir; ,i;; ,i; i;stead, it should incorporate a cinematic vision. t{-tgS:Sly::-pSf-
Jiñ*. If itie u'iuriiu.,s á;ilññ;ñ/*r,..., *.iitr.g-u:ds., *m¿U ñeiGá1-i tristory is obvious, but this is something that sociolingr!§lics -

-ti was previously considered to be inferior, can become the prestige t,ii not "t*rys understoo{.e¡4lt r¡gry gf I!: p"ir§ 91 1v!!$ t¡e-
il, language. ñ?iiiónof diglossia needs to be modified.
So rhe conccpr of diglossia can be used ro dcfine multilit,g,¡el_
f _if
::.t.:r,.,r, we ,musr howgver be qulge expfigit that these-si¡urtioru
d
#
I
] should bc analyscd according to thcir social relationrhipmnü noi
i¡-.crr_
French as a Touchstone

¡ languagc rclationships lror cxample, ln Mali, Bambara can

be experi_ We shall retain the notion of diglossia in its broadest sense, which is the
énced as a lángüdfré;r-liberation (compared to French)
-ü but ulso as a one most useful for a sociolinguistic approach (that is, to describe func*
language of oppression for the Songhai of Timbuctoo or rhe
#rñ Tamasheq tional and social relations between different languages or varieties of
of the North. Ianguages) and we shall now go on to work out a typology of different
-n : {rylly, pgfC"fn's typology (he insists on the ,srable, facor in situa- 'diglossia', using French as a touchstone. In other words' we shall begin
*4 tfl: Ú'glEri¡ tr rlgl-ts:,-tt { -!iI,:"!* n, rrs t h ro u gh i s ac k by reviewing the situations in which French is involved (rve could of
ñ "11
a e t I

"_1lg*!yg-¡s_yr$on. Take for .*"-pi. th. ,iruátion oiseCón?_- course iust as well give an account of English or Russian), working from
generation emigrants, whether they be the children of portuguese_
or the hypothesis that they provide us with a more or less complete pano-
d
ñ
Arab-speakers in France, the chirdren of chinese in AmJrica,
children of Turks in Germany, or similar. The parents u.., of
the rama of the different possibilities for multilingualism.
But first of all, a preliminary comment: if we examine these different
.or.r.,
bilingual and they experience, within their micro-society, in their situations, whether a European country (France, Belgium, Switzerland,
relations with speakers of the offical ranguage, a situation of'diglo.si., Italy), black Africa (more than a dozen countries), the Mahgreb (Tunisia,
'il
¡ñ this is Fishman's case L on the other hand, the children a.! ofte, Algeria, Morocco), North America (Canada, Louisiana), the Creole-
monolingual, even though this is relativelJ these speaking islands (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion), or any other) we
fmgnolingualism.

4
fl,
'
'monolingual' children often demñiliare ;
Iistchótoddl r¿i¿lion or
the language of their parenrs, which they understand but do
to speak, out of desire for assimilation, for example, and so
not wish
find that nowhere is there any correspondence between political frontier
(a state), nation, and language. If French is ofñcially present in several
find them_ countries and involves a significant number ofspeakers, it coexists every-
selves, when together, in Fishman's case 4 (neither digrossia
nor bilin- where with other languages, and it is the modalities of this coexistence
*fl gualism). But the children do not always remain together,
they rive that I would like to study.
ñttl with their parenrs, in society, and this overall situatiÁ, p..i.ráa
Uy Thisnon-correspgj,{e_lggbe!,//g:n jg%-lntlo5aldl1lgg3tr-]g?4s-§:
raises the problem of the transmission of biringualism
or of to a fi rs t?iieiiññ$ñilÑ fi ir t i o tr,e ..tqllg¡¡l'lp 1s:
d
nñ
!is1orr,
diglossia from one generation to another, at the same
tirrie present-
ing us with a sort of mixing (in the cinematic sense) of "s
S"rS" 3¡¡]ffigllgry, Taking
", the countries mentioned
-q:gy99p-,q&m!*!
above as a

Fishman,s Wtr,olé, inere is not one of which it can be said that all speakers have as therr
categories. Inparts of paris inhabited by migrant workers, lite ,¡ first lanzuagq (the one learnt in the home, most often called the mother
i t
#
ñ.t
Belleville, one can in fact find a macro_situation
oi diglossia
French on the one hand and Arabic, Berber, Vietnamese,
G.;*;;; I
_1,
tglggg) the official language. Let us leave to one side for the moment
an¿'Cfrin l countries such as Switzerland or Belgium which have several official
on the other), micro-situations of bilingualism, and
situatio"" ;; languages. But in France itself, where the maiority of inhabitants have
ffi
I

qq tt
i ir ri lon11r.n,o, : trno'i !.a,' f onq,u
Jul 32 '.¡Tuac" ro4
.ll ' The Origins dConfiict ,
rt!1
Et
i'
ir French as their first laneuaEe. e simi6^,-r ^-.
A iLultilingual World 33
,),i¡
i

have,beforea.o.i.i,r,llT??;üil.1,:1lH;1i!:,:,ü!l*'i..rJllJl,T, ;lfunctions ofiüggther. We shatl call this ritr.tio.,ffi I

ifl
ñr
t
I

\'¡'
i
which may be Alsatian, Corsican Arabic, --o
Éor,ugu.r., Soninke, @Thedominantl^ngrrrffi
France is the nationa ge) is spoken by everyone, or almost everyone
V
I
!

"r". i
I

and is, moreover, the mother tongue of the majority of the population. But
An example: Gaillon we shall see later, when we discuss some of the countries of black Africa,
$ Gaillon is a sma, town of 6,000 inhabitants in the rhat the single dominant language may not filI the official functions carried
department
of the Eure.
The population incrudes 2ro/o foreign workers out by French in France. In other words, there may be no corresp_ondeneg
q
'
around 80/o), a percentage which beám.,
(the national ,u..rg. i,
rrig.. in school since families
b..r-.."r!:d" @
q jÍ"- I:',1.1{rri1 and btack Af.i., ;;;;;o have more children than "i
,l¿.
The countries of§9rt!]!!g/presenr us with a quite different situation.
iFrench families' An investigation carried out in r9B5 *ir,i.loq'rro,r, r-\\uPú'ol'
iof r,l.j*r? school in rhe rown, the École Louise_Michel,
q Three Ianguages are in use everywhere and two of the countries (Algeria -\ I

q ¡ of all that, bcsidcs French,. the.rc wclq thry. l¿ngrpg.s

Portugucsc), from five countries (Tunisia,
revealed firsr
(Arabic, Spanish,
and Morocco) are distinguished by rhe presence of four languages with
very varied funcrions. Gilbert Grandguillaume, in his work Arabisation et
*T
Árg".ir, Morocco, portugar, politique linguistique au fuIaghreb, defined these languages as follows:
fr Chitc) invoiving 4t pupils, that is \4%;:;
r;;whote. Of these 4l pupils,
27 spoke their parentrs language, 9
d did nor sfeat it ar, 5 spoke it a
littre.j
In today's North Africa, three languages are used:&rabiq; Fr,gncfr, and the morher
We have rhen, in this microcosm of
a ,.iiot, A_po_p.,¡latiop,_wjth tongue. The first two are languages of culture, of writing. French is also used as a
ppeaking 660lo
language for conversarion. Nflerf\e;flthe mother rongue, acrually spoken in
,q frengh alone and 34o/o from a*iliü"ñái'rp"Ji.['ñ..".r,
q "and experienciñg or not a diglossi, siturtion. ff.;.¡.Uífr"Il¡i?rif. daily life, is always a dialect, a.idic oiieiuer. The morher tonBue, io, ,o,n..*.
functional language of,rl: school, y", ; very rare exceptions, is never writien down.a
iir-population is in large
bilingual, a situation which is nor'r^." ;;fi.,
in ñr".r"., even if i" ,lrl, ¿Íi'j I
q ifferent status, of course. French, f
it is statistically ,abnormal,. I

q .,1:1,19u,seinheritedfromcolonia@theonlylí,,n,l'
¡ official language, and has been relegated to the srarus ofa foreign language
what, however, is characteristic of France j since the p-olicy of Arabization. Yet it remains
tr clearly dominant and that there
is that
$p.pffigfuJ language is ' middle classes, a language of cultural reference, the prerogatire or t[e
an important asset for
is no The
d ti.n*of 'bilinsuarism' into schoors "tr"rnriire. possibre lntióáiii_
social success, compared to Arabic, the national language. Arabic, whichT
i .L;,
rr;¿".ir7Br.,an, r,r.r.i/pr"r""*1,
etc.) may be discussed,^and rhere is difñcult to define linguistically, owes its srarus (primarily) to the fact
mry b" ttough;;¡l;;;;ári", ,lr. that it is simultaneously the language of religion, the language of the
lArnu''
ñ languages of children of migrant
*orL.., 1po.rugr.r.,
q etc.), but within the countryih"..
i, no tr"gurge
Spanish, Arabic, Koran, ánd the lanluage for unification of the Arabic worrd. ihelanguage
I

Ur"::l -lf,.rr.,..ir.d
rhat can aspire to replace I

59 we have here a situation of the Koran, the Arabic known as classical Arabic, is primarily a wrirten
I ,
by a dispersed
q
ñ { #ffiJt
sense of the
.".:f ,!.;L::ll TJH j1.,,,:ffi * ffi
.
]1nguage, which can also be used for preaching or foi some t.aching,
was Latin in some countries of Europe in the Middle Ages. It is also,
therefore, like Latin, a dead language. On the other hand, the form
"s |
I
.

^/ - diaspgra (e'g.wordfco¡sicr, crt"lonL, Alsace), in another in the form

porish and n'*""1^^ of a promoted to the status of national language (what is called modern Arabic,
I

rñ - the ."íili;ü;';r["'.i".0 or. I

q dominant language which has b.",

Uf iír,"rl'rl'rf,. ,r"r.
middle Arabic, or as I prefer to call it, official Arabic), which has devel- i i
language and is spoken. by practically"rirblirfr"a
the-*hol. population.
oped out of classical Arabic through enrichment and modernization of I \'
seeq this first type is in ho rvrsr4Lrv.' rrü wt'ave
As we have the vocabulary, is most widely used in the media and in public life.
m .on1¡o
way ,"árorinnurr-- I ". '

q one lqight aspire to ihe

' L'-¡' Glvet' 't,. prurilingualisme i {' Ú n''J
l'école pri mrire"tvigratttsformation,no. G. Grandguil laume,Arabisation ct politique linguistique au .l4aghreá (paris: t t"ironn.l.
G.Grandguillaume,ArabisationctpolitiquelinguistiqueauAtaghreá(Paris:Maisonneuve I
1'l^
" ".li,
, ".
irñ
63 (1gg5). et Larose, 1983). "3n
¡.tr0,
i

f{
,!'#';,:,;;',ilr
 r4
4 i\-'í'"'¡, ,#>
d A Multilingual World 35

frl 34 The Origins of Confict

lects: spoken Ar"blg_g1 B.rb* Of course, the former types are related T,rsr-E 3.3. Offciat and national languages in French-speahing Africa
rrt I
ffi#@e latter are'nor, but in boih cases rhey are
'dl
T,i
the only real vehicles for day-to-day communication. So, contrary to the
first type of multilingualism that we distinguished (multilingualism with
CountrY Number of
Ianguages spoken
Official
languages
National
Ianguages

ili
w . In the case ofFrance,
Burkina Faso
Burundi
70
1
French
French and
French
Kirundi
70
Kirundi
Sango
Central Aflrican 65
iench can
1l Republic
-qi ..fiq.m-a statistical point of view (French is, by a long way, the language Chad 100 French 0
t spoken the most) and from a sociological point of view (French is the Guinea 20 French 8
A
language of political and cultural power). In Tynisia, a country in which Zúre 250 French
"j the Berber language is hardly spoken at all (áicoidiñg ro esrimares, around
ñl
J lolo), thc statistically dominant language is, without quesrion, Tunisian
Arabic ant *d sñes-cul- tion, and replace French in its functions' A limited number of
national
türaldomination with French. In things are a little languages (Zaire, Guinea) can be regional languages' with the offrcial
cú different: Berber is statistically dominant in Morocco (50o/o, 600lol), and is tr.,!u*g. serving as a link berween the different regions. On the other
hund, *h.n ,ll th. Itngu"g.t of. .o
spoken by a large minority in Algeria (30o/o), while official Arabic and considgled !o be nltional'
French occupy almost the same positions as in Tunisia. In other words, rhen;hemages have no possibiiity of lchierli,l'lg'
d
#
ich we shall name rA

0 guages
in which the lan- may-áIiofforln all-rnañveTffiaú-policy; in another, it
m ::
is symbolic and
s tttg

d
ú -Gilly
the
suDorolnare. 'l'his
ano culruralryy subordinate.
faiilñiflilfE-rve
Ints type
used the
is to be
rype ls
plural,
defined pnmailly
De Oehnect
dominant
primarily by
langqages,
officfáI-Enguage tt rt is tñe ta"gutge of polu'er, the langulge t[at mtk:s
( the social ke{'. Whether f'ttntn, l:
._.tyg¡hj-ngs:
and the fact that the people's systems of communication and expression cor¡front"d with two, four, eight, or seventy national languages, lt remalns
state structures. ruE dominant language, but, unlike the French situation, this language
{f, 1i1,,:,:o. T!" p"r, r9&1r"k Afri. presents us with its political and cultural dominance is in statistical terms a minority
I )t '-I with yet another situation. In general, in these countries we find a distinc- l"nguagá (the number of real speakers of French in francophone Africa
is
tion between the official language 1nreffi estlmaied at l0o/o). And, unlike the situation in North Africa, this domi-
'
*')-.
,,tY-
-T
# _
hffi
'-
=_=_:_]_- ----o--o--r:-' nant language does not share power (except in the case of Burundi, which
the functioning ofthe srate, ofschools, we shall therefore classify as the second type). After multilingualism with
I of the media, etc. On the other hand, the status of national language varies
-fl
#
greatly from one country to another.
Table 3.3 shows that some countries, like Burkina Faso, consider all
languages, we therefore have a third

their languages to be national languages, while others, like the Central

á African Republic, have chosen one, while yet others, like Zaire or Guinea,
*d have chosen a limited number, and while yet more, Iike Chad, do not us with alíngle dominant language. It ls, however,, necessary to introduce
rnLruur
consider any oftheir languages to be national languages. In these different etween the countries where a statisti-

á situations, the notion of national language takes on, therefore, different cally dominant language might aspire to replace French (wolof in
ffi meanings. A single national language can, in the case of Burundi or the Senegal, Bambara in Mali) and those where this alternative does not exist
Central African Republic, be the language of education and administra- (Cameroon, Gabon, etc.). @
#l
i!ñT
I

f :...., d,
I
.-
i{l -itr¿,i,0 4r1

3ii ,*::, . 36 The Origins of Confiict A Multilingual kl/orld 37

ffit i Let us now turn to the situatioh in the TaBI-n 3.4.

*li
illl
1l thrt
Réunion, lvfartinique, Guadeloupe, G na) that normally illustrate

1910 (in
o/o)
German

72.7 22.1 3.9

Romansch

t.2 0.1
qi i
. It is equally t94l 73.9 20.9 3.9 1.1 0.2
clear that the relationship between French and Creole is not the same kind
I

d1 74.4 20.2 4.1 I 0.3

19ó0
of relationship as between demotic Greek and kathareaousa. In one case we 74.5 20.1 4 I 0.4
1970
have two languages which are not mutually intelrigibre, and in the other 73.6 20 4.5 0.9 I
* two varieties of the same language. we shall give no more credit to theories
1980

d
of 'de-creolization' which argue that, in the same way that people who
speak'badly'aim to speak'well', so creole has a tendency to converge with
-
a
French (I am speaking here only of French-based creoles; the same thing
Switzerland and Belgium present us with another type of situation. It rs
C" I.'
q could ofcourse be said for creoles based on English or portuguese). In all jr l usclon
well known that in Belgium there is an official bilingualism of French and /r,
ofthis, there are rraces ofa pejorative discourse which shall be described in -1.r.
Flemish. these two languages forming the boundary of different parts of
f, the following chapter and so does not concern us for the moment.
rhe country (with the exception of Brussels, which is officially bilingual)
il In the overview that we are carrying out h.r., Ql"d"=§pg4L¡Egsouu_
and that in Switzerland there are four official languages, distributed statis-
tri.r b. deñn.d by th" follo*ing
""n "ha.r"t..irti.l-- tically as shown in Table 3.4. These figures relare only to the population
*
".1 - the-!rs!1¡gy$L(the mother tongue), widely dominant from with Swiss nationality.s
Éreolejis
ñ tEE3tatistical point of view, even ifit@ages The swiss constitution lays down that the country has four national
of course, but also Chinese, some Indian languages, etc.). languages (Germann French, Italiau, Romansch) and three official lan-
ñir
€fqh, guages (Gerrnan, French, Italian), and it can be seen that the relationship
r"l1
gsi&lg¿s
on the other hand, is n9r
not a'prestige'lanBuagg
a 'prestige, lan but this does nor
fr b"t*..n these two notions is very different from that encountered in
ri would be absurd (all languages convey a culture), only that this culture Africa. Romansch is a national language and as such has a legal right to
ü E tr9{ecognized'. existence in ihe region where it is spoken, but it is not an official language,
11

that is, it'is not recognized in confederal proceedings.u As for Belgium, an

wll
ffi -Llfg4¡:!:f&tl-lqgr"se, the dominant language from the socio-
l Eñoririt¡oñt;f view, af in-tG-Áfi-ican situ;ffi *" hr* ,uJ-: attempt is being made, not without causing conflict, to give the two
I
@te strucrures do not take the organizatioí of languages involved an equal par-t in the life of the stft. So we are here
ffi
g popular communication into account. con fro nted wi th a situation o ffi ul til in guali sm with d-ómrnaliñFr@ñá1-

l
gfl ot wlth Uerman) eacn language
t''lemtsh or
coexists with !'lemrSh
lansuaEes:lFrench coexists_
-,Bu4FGñiliis statistically less of a minority language than in Africa. , languages:lFrench 11,n
ñormally rharking out the boundaries of a well-defined territory'
i
Edrlcation (ivhich is almosr general in-Fññce'i domlnions and overseas
á#i I
territories) is increasingly spreading it more as a second language (of Of course, French is spoken in other parts of the world, in the
-a
w{ course things are different in a country like Haiti). Seychelles, in Mauritius, in Louisiana, in Canada, in the Val d'Aoste,
I
in Madagascar, etc., but these situations may be reduced to one of the
We have then,lmultilingualism with an alternative dominant
types we have been examining. TlS-Upglggl undel!¡5-!ea<!inrl
I
E
M
tñ ge
(multilingualism with a single d;mi
M4
ri ity languages, with one dominant minority language, with alternative
DooK we shall see what conütions are required for a subordinate language
3t1 dominant languages, and with regional dominant languages), flrc]r
to rise to the status of a dominant language; it comes under language
anguage work
a
,iffi and planning), 4 lituation which can also uE ruuuq
rru be in -crencn
found tlr polvnesi
French rolynesla. , T"ble 3.4 taken from R. Schtápfer, La Suisse auÍ qualre /angrcs (Geneva, 1985),259.
I

I
j

I
whereTahi.tianffi _-*-! o
Cf. L.-¡. C,alvet, La Tradition orala (Paris, 1984).

@
#§l
i

r'

ffi,
 rtr (

ffi A A4u It i lin gua I Ll/ o r ld 39

ry
illustrates almost iq3giryllt qiruál¡o*, is neverrheless open to criti* ,,:iFrom thiq
il
¡I "ll ;lish by taking the situatiáns in which
il{ the French language is involved as a touchstone, but we have at the same
J i - Societies with a long tradition of writing, in which the written language
time taken these situations as pre-deñned from the point of view of the
tl
state. In practice we have spoken only of the ,country,. Now, taking ' i, , transcription of the linguistic form spoken every day. This is the
I
+{l case with French; knowledge is passed on primarily by books'
Europe alone into consideration, French-speaking territory transcends
nl Societies with a long tradition of writing, in which the written language
frontiers: French is spoken in France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, but at t-
?
i, no, the form spoken but a prestige language. This is the case rvith
the same time not only French is spoken in these countries, and the same
situation can be found everywhere. Bambara, the dominant language of Arabic. Some knowledge is passed on by books, in a language which is
{ill not the language spoken by the peopie; other knowledge is passed on
Mali' is also spoken in Senegal (where wolof is dominant), in Burkina
Faso, on the Ivory Coasr, and elsewhere; e¡rechua is spoken in Colombia, through the channel oforalitY.
in Ecuaclor, in Peru, in Chile, and so on. t- Socieiies in which the alphabet has recently been introduced. This is
ñn
ttá i* ) rhe case with certain postcolonial situations where languages which
Llp_.e_oJtiggl¡g3¿auC, tt¡ s_l iq C u§ llg rt$g p_ {o ¡ o-t co r rc s p o n d, a n d t h i s
until recently were not written down have been endowed with an
.
É

i
g"ni',t characrcristic is as importart i, árñyp;l"cñf ñiiiii;s,ffi; alphabet. We are here speaking of writing, which does not yet act as a
1i
as the hve ma,or srtuatlons which we have briefly describcd. The world
l"*
tr{
tl,c
wou ioniiltñ vehicle for knowledge.
¿[- Societies with an oral tradition in which social memory does not rely on
i
I
g. I writing but on griots and, storytellers, etc'
d
1i
I
$i
foñd,, E;-.example. differen.., g.,*" Iocal of the
some ur
share JUtlrc
differences 5tlaltr characteristics of our cursory i
Ltr! LrraravLL¡
4 trl
la
or local varieties (the French of Paris,
lnese olllerellces
These
description of the multilingual world, not only in themselves but also I i
í
because, as we shall see later, t. ¡5q:@ '

d € w these are culture has often been used ro ¿i

d t
i: er. From an ideolosi¡afvision--frh-lEh treats written transcrlptlon as a suppor!-q- ii
t sional mosaic cannot be as i
allY regarded as
erallY
writing and therefore deprived, which is a very reductive
fl

"{
{: reduced to the single notion of diglossia; the multilingual world presenrs
i ;;lioi,i,nout
time, a way of disparaging them in
I

trq $
t,
us with rnuch more varied, much richer situations, and it is only through
1 way of defining them und:
ti isolating arbitrarily this or that situation that it can be reduced to a pre- 1l:1.^,t-1-. I
í comparison with Western societies.
dr
established framework. But literacy and orality often coexist, and this coexistence has some 1
'fr
td *¡ characteristics in common with the different kinds of multilingualism ,'', ?
which we have iust described. our typology of the situations in whichJ
¡
I,Itriting
French played a role has so far taken into account the status ofsubordinate-
rf, The. multiplicityof language situations is, furthermore, cut across by or dominant languages only from the sociological or statistical point of
|

4 anoñer criterion of diff.r.n, il view. But the fact that these languages are written dory!-ql ng!-tra§rnl
way ln traaition or not, must be integrated int
#fr and has a considerable influence on the way language si
4 rlor§_dgyslqp.
-(l;;-;;ple, we compare Algeria and Mali, two colonies that gained i
#fi independence at the same time (1962), we can see that the relationship'
4 rather than by the formal presence of a system of transcribing language.
between the languages involved, which was much the same at the begin- ¡
ning (in both cases French was the one official language), changed I
;ñi 4
q
 (
4O The Origins of Conflict
i
1 conside¡autr. r,:lu: FrenchJras practically nor changed in Mali,
l.tre .of
the teaching of African languagéb in school has barely begun; it has
l. :llgr. 4
been overrurngd in Algeria where Arabic has repraced French Io. álr*,,
ali official uses. i" Ideologists of Superiority
There are many explanations for this differenr {gIqlSp¡1slt. In par_
ticular, of course, there are the different choices i.,[
ur ,r," @n"a.
;J M;;:;;;ffiffi*'l?
üY9
"/ | sovernments of Algeria
the alternative dominant languages, Arabic, has long existed in written
.I form, while the other, Bambara, has only been written down recently, has
. .lf ' I confronted by linguistic differences,
It is easy to imagine that, when
\ \" fl played an imporrant role. In these two cases the struggle for cultural
human beings have always had tendency to laugh at the customs of
a
decolonization was nor at the beginning equipped with the same weapons.
others, to consider their own language the most beautiful, the most effec-
we shall
see the same reasons operating in other cases, where the speakers
tive, the most precise, in other words to convert the difference of other
ofsubordinate written languages take refuge, in some periods, in literature
languages (for of course it is always the other person or language that is
(this was the case withp'r@v€.offi# andffi.euo,$, for example), a recourse
different) into inferiority. La Guerre du feu (Quest for fire,l9Bl), a ñim
which was obviously n6i ávallable to tlic speakers of subordinate lan-
which had worldwide success some years ago, showed 'tribes' speaking
guages that were not written down. so the relationship to writing, insofar
different languages, and could also have portrayed this kind of language
as it has been perceived through the filter of western cultures, which are
conflict: you do not speak like me, therefore your speech is ridiculous.
spread by written languages, has played a fundamental part in determin-
From all of this it is possible to take a further step and imagine the
ing the power relationships of language and continues to do so. The reader
extension of war studies to prehistoric language wars.
will recall that, in the examples of diglossia given by Ferguson, the High
varieties were all written while only some of the Low varieries were
('dialect'Arabic is not written, but démotic Greek is). This is yet another Greeks, Barbarians, and Others
t. _t.--
/ Ooint where the notion has to be adapted. The three-dimensional linguis- But we are not here to use our imaginations, and even if it seems to me that
-\ / tic mosaic to which I referred above is also af'fected by the coexistence of such conflicts must have taken place, we have to be content with the
6fp languages from an oral tradition and languages from a written tradition.
historic traces of how language difference was dealt with. From this point
¿-\ -\ of view, our sources do not go back very far, and we have to limit ourselves
As I wrote at the beginning of this chapter, human beings are confronted
to ancient Greece to see the emergence in etymology of a word still
by languages. It is from the plurality of situation which we have described,
current in modern languages: 'barbarian' (in its English form), a particular
/1 from this richness, that the problem which lies at the centre of this book
way of treating the Other.
nVv ,r(Y emerges:¡he_w-at of languages has its roots in multili This is well known, and I have mentioned it in passing in preceding
'"v Yí-f
V' 4 wev in whicñffiffi'have
u/h analvse4 i!.For, as we shall see in the chapters. The Greeks had found a comfortable way of dividing up the
, io( ¡ ¡ -yay
following chapter, before{ealing witL multilingualism, human beings
world by placing all those who did not speak Greek and so were'strangers'
v'- by ñrst givinm-mffiiTnterpretatññl*-***".="-.--4-
|
l, *"---*_---l
| Uegan - ---*-- into the category of barbarians, 'barbat7s', and from them the Romans
borrowed both the word and its meaning: barbarus, 'stranger'. But trans- i,ü(
lating barbaros by 'stranger' omits an important piece of information, for
the barbarians were, etymologically, those who could not speak, since they
n^tli
l,gnrh't'
could not speak Greek, and who could only produce babblings, gabbling,
gibberish, in other words something that one attempted to imitate and
ridicule by onomatopoeia based on the repetition of a syllable with a
I childish sound, in this sense that the word entered
E-Ee.Uq-(@r¡twas