Since we have clarified this distinction between nation-states and state-nations in a way that I think makes a lot of sense, I wonder how official language policy is set in state-nations. In trying to connect disjointed states, like African tribes, into one single nation, which language of the many is used as the state’s official language? And how is this language chosen? If the language of the elite is chosen, I think there would be considerable backlash amongst speakers of the less powerful languages, but were an ambiguous local language chose, I could envision similar levels of anger among both the elites and the other language speakers.
A large majority of the readings so far have hit upon the idea that a unified language is often key to national identity, and that language planning and language policy are the means to achieve those ends. Yet it is still not clear, to me at least, how those languages are really chosen, and how effective the chosen languages are. Maybe a few case studies would shed some light on this?
After just finishing Das Gupta, I think that there isn't a standard way of selecting a state language. In the reading, Das Gupta pointed out that most of the states in India opted for the largest and most widely spoken language in the region, which worked because of the majority but failed because of the amount of minority languages still being spoken. On the other hand, the national language was chosen because it was (often) more prestigious than the regional languages and because it was the most widely spoken.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think another interesting question we might ask is why the bilingual solution never seems to work out. Why did Gandhi and Lenin both agree that there should be a central lingua franca (Hindi and Russian) while regional languages remain the majority language in their respective areas? Is it possible to establish a national language without sacrificing individuality? So far, I have yet to see an example that says it is indeed possible.
Well, in the case of India, Hindi was chosen as "an authentic national symbol" but it did not have prestige. It was seen as a compromise, and the strongest advocates of Hindi were non-Hindi speakers like Gandhi (Gupta 480). I think this would be a good standard to choose a national language - finding a language that works as a "compromise", that doesn't have a huge, privileged majority.
ReplyDeleteCaitlin I think you're right in a theoretical sense but that that creates problems economically, like we touched upon in class. If a language is only a "compromise language" and not a majority language, then there is still the economic burden of teaching it to everyone, writing official documents and things in that language, translating from many languages to that one language, incorporating it into the education system, encouraging people to speak it....the list goes on forever.
ReplyDeleteBZ, to respond to your question, "Is it possible to establish a national language without sacrificing individuality?" I think there definitely are examples of this. Recalling one of the first discussions we had in class, we discussed the false binary of language being EITHER a mode of communication OR a marker of identity. While a national language also embodies a collective sense of identity, its role as a mode of communication in multiple spheres of language (politics, media, literature, education, etc.) is essential. Taiwan's official language is Mandarin, and there is no doubt that the worth of Mandarin in the global linguistic market far surpasses Holo Taiwanese, Hakka, or any of the aboriginal languages. However, as a member of the Taiwanese speaking community, I sense that speakers of Taiwanese remain very protective of their own language, as it is used to demarcate benshengrens (native Taiwanese who were on the island before the Nationalists arrived in 1949, but are of Chinese descent—mostly from Fujian province) from waishengrens (literally, "outside province people"). Mandarin has been the official language of Taiwan for several decades now, and its status as such is relatively stable. Still, people like my uncle will refer to Taiwanese as the nation’s language and refer to Mandarin as “Beijingese”.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing, finding a language that works as a "compromise", particularly one that does not belong to a privileged majority might seem like a good and just idea. However, wouldn't this compromise language be reverse discrimination against the privileged?
ReplyDeleteMore Taste, Less Filling
ReplyDeleteI think there are inevitably going to be winners and losers with any language change policy, and I think that one must pick from a variety of bad solutions and hopefully arrive at the least bad among them. If you want go all PubPol 55 on this, you could call this the Kaldor-Hicks principle. There are such a wide variety of scenarios that it's impossible to say whether it's better to pick an existing majority language, a colonial language, or an indigenous language. What it comes down to is how people arrange their value preferences.
Is the number one principle complete equality? (Everyone gets to learn Esperanto!)
Is it facilitating communication with the wider world and providing access economic opportunities? (English, somewhat obviously)
Is it providing (the perception of) national symbol that is somehow autochthonic? (Let's all learn Cherokee?)
Should it be the language that is easiest to teach (acquisition planning)?
Or is it often just best to rely on the status quo and let the "forces of the market," as it were, sort themselves out?
It really just becomes a question of prioritizing goals and accepting inevitable value tradeoffs. Unfortunately, these are not easy choices to make. What if I want an indigenous national symbol AND an efficient means of communication?
I think Max has a really good point that we haven't discussed enough. As for all the important questions to decide from, however, I think it all depends on how new or established the nation-state or state-nation is. Newer nations would probably be more focused on unity and creating a national identity while more established ones would probably care more about efficiency and compromise.
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