Languages with special roles: national and official languages: Powerpoint slide notes

Official Languages (OLs) and National Languages (NLs)

• All countries need to specify which languages can or must be used in govt, education, law, or other domains of life

• OLs are specified for:

  • (a) areas of life/activity (e.g. teaching in schools, use in government administration, law courts, etc.)

  • (b) geographical area – either all of a country, or a sub-part – a state/province/region, e.g.:.

• examples

  • Hawaiian is an OL in Hawaii, but not in the rest of US

  • Bengali is an OL of West Bengal, but not all of India

• NLs are symbolic and intended to represent the nation and its projected national identity by

  • using symbols of the nation (national anthems, flags, ceremonies celebrating national holidays, etc.)

  • NLs unify populations with a common, national spirit

  • examples

    • French in France

    • Japanese in Japan

• OLs are established for pragmatic reasons – to help people in their daily activities. OLs are not symbolic.

  • OLs can also act as NLs

  • typically found in homogenous countries (S. Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, France, Iceland)

• Choosing OLs and NLs in ethnically diverse countries is much more challenging.

• “A national language is the language of a political, cultural and social unit.  It is generally developed and used as a symbol of national unity.  Its functions are to identify the nation and unite the people of a nation.  An official language, by contrast, is simply a language which may be used for government business.  Its function is primarily utilitarian rather than symbolic.  It is possible, of course, for one language to serve both functions.”  (Holmes 1997)

Examples of NL/OL choices

Language Planning/LP

• Used to establish and develop new OLs and NLs

• Two types of LP, and four steps in creating successful NLs/Ols

Steps

• STATUS PLANNING (Step 1)

  • Giving special roles to certain language/varieties, e.g. selecting new NLs and OLs

• CORPUS PLANNING (Step 2)

  • Not necessary for highly developed languages (ie., English, Mandarin Chinese)

  • Further developing the languages selected in Step 1:

    • develop vocabulary for use in all areas of life

    • specific vocab for science, medicine, law, etc.

    • create dictionaries

    • determine which words will be considered standard forms of the language

    • decide which pronunciations are standard

    • describe the grammatical rules of the standard language

    • decide how the language should be written, including graphization (on the midterm) (choice of script)

  • which writing system to use: Roman alphabet (English, Romance languages), Cyrillic alphabet (Slavic languages), Arabic script, Chinese characters, etc.

  • once these steps are completed, the language is considered standardized

• Promotion of new NLs/Ols (Step 3)

  • Spread knowledge of new NLs/Ols

  • positive incentives

    • mass education, adult education (offer night/winter classes for farming class)

    • mass media — use in TV, radio, newspapers, novels

    • corporate incentives — bonuses, promotions, access to better employment dependent on OL/NL proficiency

• negative deterrents

  • negative propaganda — home language is unpatriotic, backward, etc.

  • fines — imposed on govt employees in France in the 20th century for using borrowed English words instead of French

  • punishments in school — children punished for speaking indigenous languages

  • ineffective and also just really mean

• Winning acceptance (Step 4)

  • Encourage people to use and be proud of/have respect for the new NL/OL.

  • emphasize practical value of OL/NL

  • promote OL/NL as a prestigious language

  • gives the speaker higher personal status/respect

  • goal: make people become naturally enthusiastic to use NL/OL

Examples of language planning

• Modern Japanese

• Before modern times, no common form of Japanese

• very little domestic travel

• lack of unity became problematic during times of western colonization

• created new military, political and legal structures, educational systems

• language plan

  • in 1916, the government select the Tokyo variety (Yamanote area) as the model (Step 1)

  • this variety is standardized (Step 2)

  • it is spread through mass education and media (Step 3)

  • widespread acceptance for the new NL was won (Step 4)

• unified the nation and distinguished it from other close nations

• an example of a successful unilingual NL/OL policy

More difficult situations

• Countries with complex populations, many languages - the choice of NL/OL is not easy

• especially in Africa and parts of Asia

  • African examples

Different NL/OL approaches

There was a widespread belief that a country’s national language is strongest when there is just one.

• Multiple NLs

  • Sometimes identifying a single language as NL is difficult → different solutions are tried.

    • Advantage: avoids inter-ethnic/regional discontent/conflict due to favoring a single NL

    • Disadvantage: weakens the potential unifying force and symbolic role of having a single NL

  • examples

    • Dem. Rep. of Congo: 4 NLs

    • Cameroon: 250 NLs

• Multiple OLs

  • Some states have decided to establish and support more than one OL.

    • Advantage: all segments of a population have equal linguistic advantages

    • Disadvantage: very expensive as a policy – all official materials have to be produced in multiple languages.

  • examples

    • Singapore: English, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil

    • Canada: English, French

  • Switzerland: German, Italian, French, Romansh (ask Theo abt this)

  • No NL, only an OL

    • The OL is often not an indigenous language, but a major world language (usually English, French, Spanish, or Russian)

    • not promoted for NL purposes

    • Advantages

      • (a) ethnically neutral

      • (b) the OL is already standardized, ‘ready-to-go’.

    • Disadvantages

      • (a) no stimulation of national unity via a NL,

      • (b) the OL may have negative colonial associations

      • (c) learning a non-indigenous language may be hard.

    • examples

      • Togo (OL: English)

      • Zambia (OL: English)

An NL is not a good choice for an OL when

• it has a very undeveloped vocabulary suited for modern life and niche subjects

• workarounds

• rapidly develop the NL with new words and standardize ASAP

• add another language as OL, their permanently or temporarily while NL is being developed

  • examples

    • Pakistan: NL = Urdu, OL = English

    • Malaysia: NL = Malay, OL = English

• English was used as an OL for ten years

NLs vs. OLs

• NLs: symbolic, representative, binding

• OLs: utilitarian, non-symbolic

• When a single language serves both NL and OL functions, it is called a national-official language.

  • Examples: Japanese, Polish, French (in France),..

• Polish is called an OL, but performs all NL functions

• Japanese is called an NL, but also acts as an OL

• when a language fills both NLs and OLs, it is called a national-official language.

• Individual case studies:

  1. Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

  2. Indonesia

  3. Singapore

Pakistan (and Bangladesh)

• 1947 the new state of Pakistan was formed

• formed as two regions

  • West Pakistan: 25 million, very mixed population, many languages, politically more powerful

  • East Pakistan (now Bangladesh): 44 million, mostly speakers of Bengali

• West Pakistan declares that Urdu will be the NL — associated with Islam in S Asia

• only 7% of Pakistani citizens knew Urdu in 1947 → major political and social advantages for Urdu speakers

• other languages with prestige were disregarded → causes rioting and discontent

• People in East Pakistan wanted Bengali as NL. Proposal rejected.

• New E. Pakistan proposal: Bengali as a third OL of the country,  together with Urdu and English.  Rejected.

• Causes agitation → a new language movement → an independence movement → civil war

• In 1971, E. Pakistan becomes independent Bangladesh

Sri Lanka

• Population at independence (1948) was comprised of two major groups:

• 75% Sinhala speakers

• 25% Tamil speakers

• had better English proficiency which allowed them to get better job opportunities →Sinhalese speakers dissatisfied

• 1956 first post-independence elections.

• Freedom Party’s leader pledge: We will make Sinhala the unique OL of Sri Lanka immediately!

• The Freedom Party wins election, makes Sinhala the unique OL → major advantages to Sinhalese speakers

• Deterioration in Sinhalese-Tamil relations

• Tamil books/films from India are banned →new Tamil nationalist movement

• Riots occur, hundreds die.

• Civil war, terrorism.

• Still not peacefully resolved.

• Moral: OL-planning should not disadvantage major components of a population

Indonesia

• Good selection of an OL in a multi-ethnic state

• 1949 independence from the Netherlands

• A new OL for Indonesia?

  • Not Dutch — negative colonial associations

  • Not Javanese, the most widely spoken Indonesian language — disproportionately advantages Javanese speakers

• Ultimately chose a variety of ‘Malay’, developed as ‘Indonesian’. 4 advantages:

  • ethnically-neutral, mostly used as an L2 lingua franca (a language used for communication between members of different language groups); Malay was spoken as a native language (L1) by a small group with little political power

  • already used in some schools and popular novels.

  • an indigenous language of Indonesia, specifically that of Austronesians

    • similar to other indigenous languages

    • represented Indonesia well on the national stage

  • used as a common language by the independence movement = prestige

    • standardized + vocabulary developed

• Now widely used in

  • formal domains of communication — newspapers, media, politics, education, philosophy

  • inter-group communication

• Other languages were not repressed; used locally in informal speech.

• Stable bilingualism through much of Indonesia.

NLs should fulfill four special functions

1. Unifying – unify the nation + offer advantages to speakers that other languages don’t.

2. Separatist – should distinguish its speakers from those of other nations.

   1. Does this variety give its citizens autonomy?

3. Prestige – should be seen as a ‘real language’ with high status.

   1. Does this variety feel like a “real language”? Does this language elevate my status?

4. Frame-of-reference – should provide a model of correctness = be well-standardized.

   1. Is this language well-standardized?

Are these functions achieved by Indonesian?

• Unifying - Yes; unifies pop. and gives everyone more advantages than their L1/native language does.

• Prestige - Yes; proudly regarded as a real language

• Frame-of-reference - Yes; very well-standardized

• Separatist function - ?; Malay is also spoken in Malaysia and Singapore, but Indonesians feel that their variety is distinct enough from those spoken in other countries

Singapore: success with a multi-lingual OL policy

• 1958 self-government from the British.

• Challenge to unite a very mixed population:

  • 75% Chinese, 17% Malay, 6% South Asian (predom. Tamil), 2% miscellaneous Eurasian backgrounds

• chose to promote multi-cultural, multi-lingual society

  • OLs: Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, English (for inter-ethnic communication and international business value)

  • NL: Malay

• Bilingual education for everyone.

• 60% of classes delivered in L1, 40% delivered in L2

• goal: get people to learn the languages of other groups

• result: multilingualism has created social stability in a mixed pop.

• ‘Linguistic pluralism’ is difficult to maintain, but has been very successful in Singapore.

• Globalization of English shifted the initial focus of bilingual education

• Government policy of multilingualism has helped create social stability in a mixed population.

Corpus Planning, The Redux: the expansion of vocabulary and its symbolic effects

Different ways to create new words

1. Language-internal sourcing of new words

• Create ‘new’ words by re-using old words or sub-parts of words already in a language, in three ways:

• (a) give a new meaning to an old word no longer used

• Hausa (W Africa): jakaadaa meant ‘important palace messenger’ in imperial times – new meaning: ‘ambassador’

• (b) promote the use of words from regional dialects

• North Korea replaced loanwords from Chinese, Japanese, and English with words from N. Korean dialects

• (c) make new combinations of existing words with new meanings - ‘compounds’

• meaning not predictable from the meanings of separate words

• English: greenhouse, wet suit, hard drive

• German: fernseher ‘far see-er’ = televisions

• Thai: nam-taa ‘water-eye’ = tears

2. Language-external sourcing of new words

• Borrow a word and its meaning from another language

• called “loanwords”

• typically adapting pronunciation to fit the norms of the borrowing language

• words borrowed into English from other languages

• kungfu →gongfu (Chinese)

• cockroach →cucaracha (Spanish)

• tornado → tronada (spanish)  meaning ‘thunder’

• ⅔ of English words come from other languages, mostly French (colonization) and Latin (preceived as prestigious)

The symbolic nature of new words

• Countries focused on developing, maintaining, and protecting a new/existing national identity may favor the use of internal sources for new words.

• Borrowing from other languages is more common in countries which are more open to accepting outside cultural influences and inspiration, and may already have a strong, confident national identity.

Creating new words in Chinese and Japanese: a comparison

• Chinese favors internal sources for new words.

• Modern Japanese often borrows words from other language groups.

• In the early 20thC, Japan borrowed words from English during its initial corpus planning.

• Then in the 1930s (ultra-nationalist period) it converted them into native Japanese words.

Language purification and vocabulary changes

• Purging of words of foreign origin to make the national language ‘pure’ again during periods of nationalism.

• Borrowed words/loanwords are replaced with new native/internally-sourced words.

• Ex.

• Greece — independent in 1832 →eliminated Italian and Greek words

• Italian — fascist period of 1930s →purging of foreign words, even family names

• even the dead had their names altered to more Italian sounding names

• N. Korea, 1960s, thousands of words changed → N.Korean sounds almost unintelligible to S. Koreans in 1970s in first North/South meetings after the war.

• comparison of language borrowing between the Koreas

Linguistic protectionism

• Policy that new words should only be created from internal resources.

• Old borrowed words are not eliminated, as they would be in language purification

• examples

• French Academy aimed to block new English loans being used in place of existing French words.

• Fines for government workers using English loans.

• comparison

Government interference with NL/OL writing systems

• Control of script can stop communication

• Used for political purposes.

• Soviet Union language-planning

• Azerbajian – Azeri was written with Arabic script.

• 1920s, the Soviet government imposes Roman alphabeton Azeri speakers to weaken links with Muslim groups in other countries.

• communication was easier with Arab countries in Arabic script

• destroyed Arabic script

• 1928, Turkey switches from Arabic script to Roman alphabet to write Turkish

• SU panics, worried that common use of Roman alphabet would lead to pan-Turkic movement

• 1930s all languages spoken in Soviet Union ordered to switch to use of Cyrillic alphabet.

• After independence in 1991, Azeris were asked whether they wanted to write in the Arabic, Cyrillic, or Roman alphabet

Linguistic assimilation and the suppression of languages

• Governments may apply pressure on minority groups to stop using their heritage language and culture.

• use of heritage languages is forbidden in certain places

• state objectives: create a unified, strong national identity through forcing people to assimilate culturally and linguistically

• State objective: create a unified, strong national identity through forcing people to assimilate culturally and linguistically.

• Does it work? What are the effects of such policies?

Taiwan

• 1895-1945 ruled by Japan

• Pressured Taiwanese citizens to speak Japanese

• Suppression of Chinese and other Taiwanese languages

• Goal: stimulate new loyalty to Japan.

• Result? Japanese rule and harsh conditions → a new all-Taiwanese, anti-Japanese identity

• Pre-1895, no national unity due to different Chinese dialects and local Taiwanese languages

• Learning Japanese helped all Chinese/Taiwanese groups communicate with each other and form a unified opposition across the whole island

Nepal

• Many groups and languages; embraced multiculturalism

• 1960 king of Nepal decides Nepal should develop a mono-cultural, unilingual national identity.

• ‘One country, one dress, one language.’

• Pressure on people to assimilate.

Nepal 1990: the old regime collapses.

• Massive resurgence of pride in ethno-linguistic diversity.

• the government was shocked that monolingualism didn’t take

• widespread demands for linguistic and cultural pluralism to be made national policy in education, government, etc.

• A strong rejection of monolingual nationalism.

• Take home message: Like Taiwan – the forceful repression of language and culture is not an effective way to stimulate a new national identity.

The Ainu in Japan

• An ethnic group living in Hokkaido and other islands north of Japan.

• dressed very differently from the Japanese

• The differences between the Ainu and the Japanese marked the northern border of Japan in a useful way and were regarded positively.

• The Ainu were forbidden to learn and speak Japanese or wear Japanese clothing.

• An example of active dissimilation.

18th-century changes

• The Ainu further north of Hokkaido start to adopt Russian clothing, names, and religion.

• Japan reacts, and decides to make Ainu living in Hokkaido into Japanese people.

• The Ainu are now encouraged to speak Japanese, wear Japanese clothing, follow Japanese customs.

• Active assimilation.

Phase 3

• Late 18th century, the Russian ‘threat’ recedes → Japan stops its assimilation policy.

• The Ainu are ordered to stop wearing Japanese clothing, speaking Japanese

• New dissimilation policy.

Phase 4.

• 19-20th century.  Japanese nationalism – emphasis on uniform national culture, ethnicity, language.

• Pressure on the Ainu to give up heritage language and speak Japanese.  Renewed assimilation.

• Effects: Ainu has almost totally disappeared, very little chance of revival.  A dying language (Unit 3).

Conclusions: different OL/NL policies for different populations

• Common policy types:

• [1] A single national-official language.

• Where the population is very homogenous:

• Japan, Italy, Somalia, Iceland, Vietnam, Thailand

• [2] A single NL + one (or more) OL

• Where a NL can be chosen that is representative of the national ID, but not developed enough to serve as OL.

• Paraguay, Malaysia (at independence)

• [3] Only an OL. No NL.

• When creating a unified national ID through a NL is too difficult, in very mixed populations. Two variants:

• (a) the OL is an indigenous language: Indonesian

• (b) the OL is not an indigenous language – often English or French, in ex-colonies

• Success = avoiding inequality and conflict through the selection of an ethnically-neutral OL.

A final note..

• Over time, a ‘foreign’ OL may become indigenized..

• Incorporate words and pronunciations from local languages.

• Leads to the development of very distinctive local forms of English, French etc:

• Ghanean English, Abidjanais French

• Due their added, local properties, such foreign-imported ‘OLs’ may even come to signal a new local national ID in a certain way.