Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
For more details of these or any other of our publications, please contact:
Multilingual Matters, Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall,
Victoria Road, Clevedon, BS21 7HH, England
http://www.multilingual-matters.com
BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 52
Series Editors: Colin Baker and Nancy H. Hornberger
UNESCO ETXEA
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means
without permission in writing from the publisher.
v
List of Maps
Map 1. Genetic Groupings of the Languages of the World
Map 2. Languages in the Caucasus Region
Map 3. Native American Languages in California
Map 4. Sami Language. Language, Territory, and Official Status
Map 5. Languages of South Africa
Map 6. Great Diversity but only Occasional Use in Administration
Map 7. Standardisation in Senegal
Map 8. Languages of Central America (Partial)
Map 9. The Media and Languages Spoken in Tanzania
Map 10. Tamazight Language Areas
Map 11. Attitudes and Indian Languages in Canada
Map 12. Languages of Colombia
Map 13. Language Diversity in China
The maps can all be found between pages 248 and 249.
vi
Acknowledgements
The preparation of this Review would not have been possible without the collabo-
ration, contributions, help and advice of a large number of people, institutions and
organisations all over the world. In this respect, the World Languages Review can be
considered a collective work, indebted to all the contributors listed below. We would
therefore like to express our profound gratitude to all those who have disinterestedly
supported this project (we apologise for any possible oversight or inaccuracy the list
may include):
vii
viii Acknowledgements
• To the experts of recognised prestige who have contributed to the text of the Review:
Anvita Abbi, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Xavier Albó, Peasant Research and
Promotion Centre; Isaac Pianko Ashaninka and Joaquim Mana Kaxinawa, Acre
Indigenous Teachers Association; Ayo Bamgbose, University of Ibadan; Wynford
Bellin, Cardiff University; Jean-Paul Bronckart, University of Geneva; Bernard
Comrie, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology; Nancy C. Dorian,
Bryn Mawr College; Francis Favereau, University of Rennes 2; Joshua Fishman,
Jeshiva University; Barbara F. Grimes (Ed.) Ethnologue; Josiane Hamers, University
of Laval; Sun Hongkai and Huang Xing, Minority Languages Academic Society of
China; Joseba Intxausti; Irina Khaleeva, Moscow State Linguistics University;
Omkar N. Koul and Debi Prasanna Pattanayak, Central Institute for Indian
Languages; Multamia R.M.T. Lauder, University of Indonesia; Chura Mani
Bandhu, University of Nepal; Grant D. McConnell, University of Laval; Bartomeu
Melià, “Antonio Guasch” Centre for Paraguayan Studies; Juan Carlos Moreno,
Autonomous University of Madrid; Raymond Renard, University of Mons-
Hainaut; Suzanne Romaine, Merton College, University of Oxford; Miquel Siguan,
University of Barcelona; Miquel Strubell, Open University of Catalonia; Alexey
Yeschenko, Pyatigorsk North-Caucasian Centre for Sociolinguistic Studies.
• We would especially like to thank Professor Peter Mühlhäusler and Professor Moreno
Cabrera for their extensive contributions to Chapters One and Two respectively.
• To each and every one of the informants who filled in the more than one thousand
questionnaires on their languages or the languages they knew. To all of them we
send our warmest thanks for their commitment and for their valuable first-hand
contribution (see Appendix 3 for the list of informants).
• To the people and institutions with whom a special partnership was established:
Stephen Wurm (†)
Clinton Robinson, Ray Gordon, and Barbara Grimes, Joe Grimes and Paul Lewis
(Summer Institute of Linguistics, SIL)
David Dalby
Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
• To the National Commissions for Cooperation with UNESCO all over the world.
• A special mention for the direct collaborators of the Technical Committee during
these years: Maitena Etxebarria, member of the Technical Committee for this report
during the years 1998–2000, for her dedication during this period; Izaskun Azueta,
Mikel Mendizabal, Marta Pardo, Begoña Arbulu, Maider Huarte, Margareta
Almgren, Xabier Monasterio, José Luis Villacorta, Ane Ortega, Esti Izagirre and
Olga Andueza as support staff; finally, UNESCO Etxea – UNESCO Centre of the
Basque Country, their work team and their Board of Governors, chaired by Jon
Arrieta and Ruper Ormaza during all these years, and Mikel Mancisidor, Director
of UNESCO Etxea.
Prologue
The value of language diversity
Languages are humanity’s most valuable cultural heritage. They are fundamental to
understanding. Each language provides a system of concepts which helps us to
interpret reality. The complexity of reality is easier to understand thanks to the
diversity of languages. Progress in understanding is due, amongst other things, to the
growing linguistic diversity that has characterised the human species. Languages are
also fundamental in the generation and transmission of values. Each language
expresses a differentiated ethical sensibility. Each language provides us with symbols
and metaphors to deal with the mysterious and the sacred. Furthermore, languages
are not closed or exclusive universes. All of them express the rationality of the human
species, as well as its common fears and hopes. Linguistic diversity is the most
obvious manifestation of cultural diversity. In a world characterised by growing
processes of globalisation, it seems necessary to assert the value of cultural diversity
as a guarantee of more democratic and more creative coexistence. Cultural
uniformity would mean a decline, to the extent that we would lose our ability to give
specialised answers to specific challenges. The report “Our Creative Diversity”,
published by UNESCO in 1995, pointed out what orientations were necessary to
preserve diversity without renouncing positive aspects of globalisation. In the field of
cultural and linguistic diversity we often coincide with the criteria of the defenders of
diversity of living species in the natural environment. In both cases it is said that there
is a need to protect the heritage. The reason is not exclusively ethical. Both the defence
of biological diversity and the defence of cultural and linguistic diversity are
necessary conditions for the well-being of humans, for the balances that protect life
and for the life quality we aspire to develop.
The defence of languages and cultures is part of a larger project which aspires to a
more rational, fairer and freer organisation of humanity. We have entered the
twenty-first century without giving sufficient answers to very serious global
problems. These could be grouped under seven headings. First of all, the failure in
the system of distribution of the planet’s wealth, which leads to poverty and extreme
hardship, so objectively described by the successive reports on human development
by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Secondly, unsustainable
production and consumption systems, which increasingly deteriorate the planet’s
x
Prologue xi
passage of time, have evolved. Linguistic contacts have been something very
common. Many languages have suffered irreversible processes of minorisation or of
repression and have died. Others have changed through the evolution of the
linguistic community itself and have given rise to new languages. Scientists of
language warn us of the conventional nature of our concept of language or of
languages. In reality what we find are linguistic practices which become diversified
over the human geography but that do not permit the establishment of clear borders.
Political borders are often presented as linguistic borders, but in the majority of cases
there is no real break to be seen in the linguistic practices of areas separated by
borders. Furthermore, while in some territories only one language is used, in other
territories it is normal for various different linguistic communities to coexist in some
form and for multilingualism to be a generalised and socially well considered
practice. What is new in our time is the pace affecting linguistic contacts, the growing
complexity of all societies from the point of view of their linguistic diversity and the
generalised risk of linguistic take-overs as a result of certain aspects of globalisation.
achieved if it avoids mistakes that have been very common in public interventions in
matters of language policy. For this reason some authors are sceptical about the
appropriateness of promoting language policies. The Review, with its recommenda-
tions, tries to allow for modest, sensible language policy measures that favour the
weakest or most endangered linguistic communities.
unable to understand other communities living around them can give rise to preju-
dices, fear and intolerance. Peace is built with the enjoyment of rights that affirm one’s
own linguistic identity and by promoting relations of understanding and sympathy
towards other linguistic communities. These judicious principles constitute the
Linguapax philosophy. The Review is inspired in these principles and it is hoped it will
contribute to the solution of conflicts with a linguistic dimension.
This Review is the result of a work done by an independent group of experts. The
authors have worked in excellent collaboration with the Languages Division, until it
was suppressed in 1999, as well as with many permanent delegations of the UNESCO
member states, but the Review is the responsibility of the technical committee, the
scientific committee and the board of directors. Its mistakes and its limitations must
be attributed to its authors, and as figures in many publications, the opinions and
judgements expressed cannot be considered official opinions or judgements of
UNESCO. The editors offer this text with the intention of contributing to a much-
needed international debate on measures to protect the linguistic heritage. Amongst
sociolinguists this debate already exists, but it would be good if this Review served to
enlarge it. It is indispensable that we find out the points of view of linguistic commu-
nities, of state and intra-state governments, of international organisations, of NGOs,
of teachers, of experts in the new communication technologies, of cultural promoters
in the cities and of everyone interested in the life of languages.
Reading notes
Apart from being able to read the Review from the first to the last chapter, the mono-
graphic character of the book allows the reader to read each one independently. The
reader can make more rapid progress, for example, following the recommendations
that one can find at the end of each chapter. Another interesting itinerary would be to
follow all the testimonies of the informants that are marked in italics throughout the
text and that is maybe the more original and authentic contribution of the Review. A
graphic view of world language diversity can be obtained from the thirteen maps of
thirteen different geographical areas that are included in a separate section according
to the interest that a particular area has as an example of the phenomena analysed in
each chapter, together with the tables and graphics. The various monographic texts,
in boxes, of the specialists that have collaborated in the Review, offer a varied and
contrasted way of understanding many of the more highlighted aspects of the situ-
ation of the languages of the world. The reader can also consult the different indexes,
the extent list of collaborators and informants, the questionnaire used, the list of the
languages quoted in the Review or the subject index always depending on the
reader’s interest.
Introduction
How can we describe the sociolinguistic situation of the languages of the world in a
way that lets us assess the situation of each language and at the same time put
forward recommendations or patterns of action to help preserve the linguistic and
cultural heritage of humanity?
Before a challenge of this scale, the technical committee felt it was essential to turn
– amongst other sources – to the speakers of the languages themselves, to ask the
members of the linguistic communities directly for their view of the situation their
language is in and collect first-hand the opinions of the protagonists themselves. We
believe that the survival of a language basically depends on what its speakers, its
community, wants to and can do with their language.
To obtain this information, the technical committee prepared a questionnaire
specially for this Review and distributed it to an extensive network of informants
during the five years of work. The questionnaires have been returned by those
informants who wanted to collaborate in this project and to whom we are deeply
grateful (see the respective Appendixes)
The data received via the questionnaire are a basic reference providing the review’s
most original information. However, to respond to the review’s objectives of explanation
and understanding, we have also had access to other sources. There are many research
and documentation centres on languages that are carrying out systematic work on the
circumstances surrounding languages in different parts of the world. Catalogues, reper-
tories, atlases and various works of a linguistic type have been of great use to us and
have provided invaluable references (see the respective Appendixes).
We have turned to many authors and to members of many institutions with a
record in the fight against the loss of linguistic diversity for their collaboration
through specific contributions. These contributions have enormously enlarged our
perspective and undoubtedly done a lot to enrich this Review.
In involving the largest possible number of specialists and/or cultural agents
committed to the defence of linguistic diversity and wealth, the meetings held in
different parts of the world have also been very useful. In the course of events during
the four years spent preparing the Review, it has been possible to meet many people
whose academic speciality, awareness or experience in work on the preservation of
linguistic diversity has made them collaborators in the project. We would like to pick
1
2 Words and Worlds
out the international seminars held in Bolivia (Cochabamba, March 1999), the Russian
Federation (Elista, May 1999), Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou, June 1999), India
(Mysore, March 2000) and Australia (Melbourne, April, 2001), which made it possible
to significantly enlarge the group of collaborators and informants, as well as helping
the Review to accurately reflect the linguistic situation in different parts of the world.
It is essential that we report the different views of what languages are, of how
languages in contact in certain areas relate to one another, of the uses that bring
prestige to languages in each context, of how diversity, complementarity or relations
of domination or dependence of languages are experienced in each area. Experts in
each region, as well as the enlightened members of each community, have a lot to say
and offer with a view to greater understanding of linguistic diversity in the world,
avoiding the dangers threatening it and feeding the hope that it can be developed.
And our aim has been to reflect this in our Review.
with similar social characteristics. We feel that a mutual knowledge of these experiences
will be enriching for everyone and will encourage new relations of exchange.
We have dedicated Chapter One to clearing up terminologies and to understanding
the concept of linguistic community. This is the object of the work of Professor
Mühlhaüsler. We believe his particular knowledge of one of the geographical regions
with the greatest linguistic wealth, the Pacific and Australia, makes a basic contri-
bution to understanding the data supplied by the informants and to guiding the
policies of preservation and furtherance that should be promoted. We feel his reflec-
tions on the concept of language, a concept which tends to be heavily biased by
Western experience and which can cause so much confusion when it comes to under-
standing and especially intervening in other experiences, are particularly relevant.
The members of the technical committee consider that his view of linguistic ecology
allows a suitable description of very diverse linguistic situations which will be
reflected through the data gathered from the questionnaires.
Chapter Two, called “The Linguistic Heritage”, offers a general overview of the
planet’s linguistic diversity and includes an extensive contribution on the subject
from a classical typological standpoint by the collaborating lecturer and member of
the scientific committee, Juan Carlos Moreno Cabrera. The technical committee felt it
was important to include this contribution in the Review because it provides a
general overview of the planet’s linguistic diversity analysed by number of speakers,
linguistic families and geographical areas, constituting an essential academic
reference in a review such as ours. In addition, it was felt important to include this
contribution because it is not just a sterile academic description but points out the
dangers threatening diversity. It also provides a personal view of the reasons why the
diversity of languages is endangered.
Chapter Three deals with the analysis of the status of languages. In particular, it
covers the legal or official status to be seen on the global linguistic scene. In this chapter
we would like to point out the contribution by Professor Annamalai, who takes a novel
and realistic approach to linguistic policy aimed at dealing with multilingual relations
grounded on rigorous theories. This proposal not only has implications for tradi-
tionally multilingual societies like India, this specialist’s country of origin, but also has
implications of relevance for most parts of the planet. Multilingual relations are also
arising in Western countries; his proposals are especially interesting as an alternative
to the monolingual model imposed by Western tradition and the many problems it
poses in approaching a reality which is multilingual and multicultural.
Following this, chapter four analyses the use of language in administration.
Administration is the area which in certain linguistic situations best reflects the legal
status of the language. Writing, education, the media and religion are the spheres of
use analysed in the following chapters: Chapters Five, Six, Seven and Eight. The
enormous disparity in sociolinguistic situations and the different ways they are seen
do not allow simplifications. It is important to understand that these are always
dynamic processes and that there is never just one factor to explain the reality of a
language. Multifactorial analyses are what allow greater realism in dealing with the
4 Words and Worlds
information provided in the accounts gathered. Chapter Nine analyses the trends
observed in the intergenerational transmission and use of languages. Chapter Ten
studies linguistic attitudes and Chapter Eleven sums up the dangers and threats the
informants observe in the languages and communities mentioned. These three
sections provide the most disturbing information contained in the review. In fact,
intergenerational transmission as observed in the sample under study is in an
alarming situation. Almost 50% of languages are no longer habitually transmitted.
Intergenerational use of languages as reviewed by the informants seems to have dete-
riorated even more, since only 30% of the languages studied are used among the
younger generations of their communities. In the remaining cases, communication
between young people is established in a different language, generally the dominant
one. The title of Chapter Eleven, “The Dangers and Threats Facing Languages”, is not
very optimistic either. However, as can be seen in the plentiful accounts reproduced,
more and more linguistic communities are becoming aware of the dangers threat-
ening their languages and therefore their cultures and their very communities, and
are beginning to rebel against the trend towards linguistic substitution which only a
few had noticed until now.
Finally, Chapter Twelve looks to the future. It points out the need to establish new
linguistic models based on the acknowledgement and celebration of cultural and
linguistic diversity. Other highlighted topics are the importance of universalised
multilingual education that should not be limited to the learning of a few large circu-
lation languages, the need for progress in the field of linguistic rights, the access of
small and medium sized linguistic communities to the new information technologies
or enhancing the value of the own language as an element of the economic devel-
opment of communities. This chapter also puts forward some proposals to better
study the linguistic contact and the rapid evolution of diversity, especially caused by
increasing population movements and migrations. It recommends the creation of
new research centres in sociolinguistics and suggests specific responsibilities for
UNESCO and for the states. The chapter ends by connecting languages with peace
and welcoming the new languages that will appear during the 21st century.
The questionnaire
In the course of forty questions, most of them open, we have gathered the character-
istics of languages and of their linguistic communities, regarding their denomination,
uses, representations, attitudes and the linguistic expectations shown by the speakers
of different languages. The questionnaire was drawn up according to criteria now
classical in sociolinguistics, such as Haugen’s (1972), mentioned by Mühlhaüsler in
this same review (see Appendix 1).
In spite of some difficulties, the questionnaire has had a relevant virtue; it has
allowed the informants great freedom in their answers. This fact is especially worth
noting as it has become a very valuable aspect in the review. The informants have
supplied the facts they felt were most relevant, regardless of whether or not they were
Introduction 5
required of them. Obviously this very aspect could reduce the credibility of the
results, just as it is obvious that the diversity of the informants (organisations,
linguists, members of the community, etc.) could have the same effect. However, since
these two facts (differences in the perception of the relevance of the information and
differences in the involvement of the informants) were detected at the beginning, the
technical committee has chosen, first of all, to pay greater attention to the qualitative
information and, secondly, to include, as well as the objective data, the informants’
representations of the reality.
Subjection to objective data often involves a distortion of reality, especially
inasmuch as it is altered by non-objective elements (feelings, desires, opinions, etc.).
In the case of this World Languages Review, it is obvious that emotional or professional
involvement impregnates the objective elements and we have therefore felt that
representations of reality should also form part of the review. After all, not a few
linguistic normalisation projects have failed because they did not take into account
the wishes, ideologies, feelings, etc. of those affected.
Reading the questionnaires, we have been struck by the informants’ urge to
communicate and by the hope this Review has evidently stirred up in many commu-
nities, and we believe that rather than acting as depositories, our duty is to make
these voices reach the largest possible number of people and organisations.
Although the sample we have worked with is clearly limited (approximately 10%
of all the world’s languages), the results clearly show what other specialists have
already stated: one of the underlying causes of the acceleration in the trend towards
world linguistic uniformity is the increasing inequality between languages and, of
course, their speakers, such that the growth of some languages involves a reduction
in the number of speakers of many others and/or their disappearance. This process
has harmful consequences in that it drags other communities after it by destroying
their traditional web of communications, as we shall see later.
The sample reveals trends in the sociolinguistic behaviour of linguistic commu-
nities and makes it possible to plan actions aimed at restoring or preserving the
linguistic balance. However, the Review does not present detailed figures for each of
the languages making up the sample. It is not a catalogue in which to look for specific,
singularised information.
perception and/or intention. The same language can be seen either as a variety of
another language or else as an independent language or as a language group.
Even when linguistics has given priority to the criterion of intelligibility in deter-
mining linguistic borders, the fact is that the nature of languages as a continuum, the
relations established between communities, the reciprocity or otherwise of intelligi-
bility and, in short, the actual wish to understand, clearly interfere with this criterion.
At the same time, the notion of languages as discreet entities usually overlooks their
historical development apart from their “official” history, which sets out to give a
fragmented view of communities, as though their historical background had nothing
to do with the surrounding communities.
All of this raises questions that go far beyond technical aspects of linguistic filiation
and pose another challenge: how to designate the set of intelligible varieties we
consider “languages”. It is obvious that using a single term distorts the perception of
variety and contributes to uniformity, but it is also true that the use of various terms
favours fragmentation and this can be fatal for the preservation of linguistic diversity.
The authors of this Review believe that this is another of the theoretical aspects which,
on account of their importance in the life of communities, deserve to be treated in
depth over and above technical aspects.
The informants
We have tried, often successfully, to obtain first-hand information, that is, to ensure
that the information came from informants who were members of the respective
linguistic communities or were closely connected to them. Thus more than half of the
informants, approximately 60%, say they belong to that linguistic community.
Identification with the community, furthermore, is backed up with reasons of ethnic
and/or linguistic membership. Almost 40% say they are not members of the
community. These are researchers or people who, in one way or another, are working
for the community in question. Some researchers, though, identify themselves as
members of the community precisely because of their work or because they have
learned the language.
I belong to the community by descent and blood ties. I also speak (the language) fluently.
(Maori, New Zealand)
I consider myself a member (of the community) because I am part of that culture and my
parents brought me up in the belief that I am a native like them, I was born in that
community. (Yine, Peru)
I am a speaker and writer, but I am not a native or a native speaker. I am not a gypsy but I
know the four dialects of the Romany language that are spoken in Romania by the Roms
(Gypsies). (Romany, Romania)
The significant proportion of informants who say they belong to the linguistic
community for which they are supplying information strikes us as a decisive factor.
8 Words and Worlds
We know that this adds subjectivity to the information but, in view of the circum-
stances, it is obvious that no-one knows the linguistic reality like the member
involved. Since the aim is to create awareness and help to reverse the trend towards
uniformity, we believe that this connivance with his or her linguistic reality, far from
detracting from the review’s validity, enriches it.
This element of will must be taken into account in analysing the results, since the
Review includes details of languages whose speakers are already aware of the need to
revitalise it or of its value for the community in general, and, in the case of the
specialists (language informants), the very fact that the languages have research and
researchers itself singles them out from the majority of the world’s languages.
Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 contain a list of all the people and institutions who
have contributed to this Review so far. We would like to take this opportunity to
express once again our profound gratitude to all of them.
The contributions
We have tried to include contributions by experts representing a variety of
geographical, sociopolitical and cultural contexts, coming from different scientific,
social and cultural backgrounds and belonging to a range of academic, political or
sociocultural institutions. Although they all show a positive awareness as regards
preservation of the linguistic heritage, one can find opinions that may differ amongst
themselves or from the approach taken by the technical committee. We feel this is a
reflection of the reality which need not be hidden in working for the common cause of
the defence of linguistic diversity.
In spite of all the efforts, however, we realise that we have not managed to contact
all the recognised specialists on the subject. What we can say is that the requests for
participation have had a widespread general acceptance for which we are
profoundly grateful.
The contributions by the collaborators are included in the text in a different format.
The content and form, of course, is the responsibility of the author signing them. The
members of the technical committee are responsible for their placement. We are
grateful for their generosity in sharing their experience and knowledge in favour of
the common cause which involves us all: the preservation of linguistic diversity.
• Generating pride, self-esteem and prestige in the speakers and promoters of the
world’s languages, so that they will continue to work in favour of their heritage
without looking down on or weakening languages with which they share speakers
and their communicative space.
• Providing models for action, raising awareness and promotion that have been
positive in their respective communities so that they can provide an incentive and
a stimulus in other situations and one to continue in those where they have already
been tried successfully.
• Denouncing threats and warning of the dangerous situations languages are facing,
so as to rouse awareness in the authorities and the general population in favour of
the preservation and development of the linguistic heritage.
• Attracting the support of those who have the responsibility and the power to
reverse the trend towards linguistic uniformity.
Fèlix Martí, Paul Ortega, Itziar Idiazabal, Andoni Barreña, Patxi Juaristi, Carme
Junyent, Belen Uranga and Estibaliz Amorrortu
Chapter 1
Linguistic Communities
This Review is concerned with languages, language communities or speech commu-
nities along with language ecologies. The reader will find that the terminology used is
not new, though we would like to underline the fact that the traditional definitions of
some terms and ideas are not adequate to describe the real situation of languages in the
world. Thus, we wish to make clear that languages are neither abstract entities nor inde-
pendent systems as the Western Linguistics tradition has portrayed them to be.
Languages are rather historical products related to each other that the communities use
for several purposes: to communicate, to represent their world and to generate thoughts.
The attempts to formalize certain aspects of a language, such as the grammar of a
language, do not tackle the real nature of a language, that is, its social aspect.
Languages are social and identifying realities, they are thoughts and values
provoking realities and the strict framework of a grammar or a classical dictionary
cannot handle such aspects of the language. A great variety of parameters is needed
in order to define a language as an ecological system.
The technical committee considered it necessary to devote a chapter to clarify the
terminology used in the field. Professor Mühlhäusler (University of Adelaide,
Australia), who studies linguistic realities very different from the Western ones and is
an expert on languages from Australia and the Pacific area, has been invited to write
this chapter for the Review.
As Professor Mühlhäusler points out, the chapter presents many of the terms that
have been used to describe sociolinguistic realities that are different from the
languages and patterns of language use around the globe. The chapter also presents
the set of parameters that will be used to define the language ecologies. The question-
naire designed to collect the data in the review is also based on this parameter
framework that was originally presented by Haugen (1972). The chapter and the
whole review describe the different situations of languages and language ecologies,
not with great thoroughness but indicating which aspects of the relations among
different linguistic groups are the healthiest or the most pathologic for the purpose of
linguistic diversity.
We believe that the clarifications of the terminology as well as the description of the
different language ecologies are an accurate reflection of the descriptive and
prescriptive aims of the review.
10
Linguistic Communities 11
1. Introduction
This chapter will be concerned with a number of issues that are fundamental to the
task of understanding the vast diversity of languages and patterns of language use
around the globe. It is hoped that the understanding gained can contribute to the
urgent task of maintaining linguistic and cultural diversity. The problem which gave
rise to the UNESCO review of the state of the world’s languages is that linguistic and
cultural diversity, which until the advent of the modern industrial age was a self-
regulating and self-sustaining system, is no longer self-sustaining and like other
phenomena such as climate or biological diversity, requires management. Left to its
own devices, linguistic and cultural diversity is likely to rapidly decline, giving way
to monolingualism and monoculturalism. A major challenge to scholars working in
this area is the widespread perception that we are witnessing a natural process of
competition between less fit and more fit ways of communication, the end of which
only a few competitors will survive. There is a very strong intellectual tradition in
Western thinking about language that this is also a desirable process, that the
replacement of a very large number of languages and ways of communication by a
few modern standardised languages will lead to greater economic efficiencies, a
decrease in human conflicts and greater human well-being. Linguistic diversity in
popular perception is a reflection of the curse of Babel.
The idea that linguistic diversity is an asset or even a treasure is widespread in
traditional societies that cherish multilingual skills, though the wish to preserve one’s
own small language is growing stronger among many ethnic groups in modern
industrialised societies as well. The revival of minority languages in Spain, France or
Britain are recent examples of this. Fishman (1991), one of the principal theoreticians
on language revival, has strongly emphasised the rationality of this wish and we can
now witness a reframing of the question, ‘How can we achieve greater efficiencies
through the reduction and streamlining of diversity?’ to a new question, ‘How can
linguistic diversity be employed in solving social, environmental and technological
problems?’ This reframing goes hand in hand with the emergence of a new paradigm,
the ecological paradigm in many areas of enquiry, including linguistics (Fill &
Mühlhäusler (eds) 2001/Mühlhäusler 2002).
The ecological paradigm has a number of characteristics, including the following:
• considerations not just of system internal factors but wider environmental ones;
• awareness of the dangers of monoculturalism and loss of diversity;
• awareness of the limitations of both natural and human resources;
• long-term vision; and
• awareness of those factors that sustain the health of ecologies.
A fundamental principle of management is that one can only manage what one knows.
Two related principles are one can only manage what one can talk about and one can only
manage what one cares for. This paper aims at summarising existing knowledge on the
12 Words and Worlds
issue of speech communities and to draw attention to the important issue of talking about
the phenomenon. It is argued that existing knowledge is patchy and that unreflected use
of words such as ‘language,’ ‘tribe’ or ‘community’ make management very difficult and
whether political and economic leaders care about languages remains to be seen.
An appreciation of linguistic diversity alone, it is argued, is not enough. It presup-
poses an understanding of the nature of this diversity. The complexity of the issues,
the limitations of time and space and the urgency of action make it necessary to resort
to shortcuts, simplification and abstractions and, above all, focussing on a smaller
selection of parameters that are desirable in a parameter-rich ecological approach.
2. Methodological considerations
In what follows I propose to adopt the classical ‘scientific’ method of proceeding from
a research question to observation, classification and eventual theory formation. Put
differently, I shall try to develop a tool or theory which can be used to reverse the trend
towards language loss. Given the novelty of the problem, I shall concentrate heavily on
the pre-theoretical stages of observation and classification. I shall be guided by the
suggestion of the editors of this volume and carry out my observation and classifi-
cation from the perspective of the community of users of a language or languages.
I shall further be guided by Haugen (1972) who in his seminal paper ‘The Ecology
of Language’ has suggested a list of questions to be asked.
For any given ‘language1’, then, we should want to have answers to the following
ecological questions:
1
The notion of ‘given language’ is highly problematic and will be discussed in greater detail below.
Linguistic Communities 13
The ecological view would appear to be the most complex, but at the same time the
most realistic as it caters for the fact that languages combine independence from the
world with dependency on the world as well as their ability to shape the world
through a range of ecological interdependencies. The problem with finding a satis-
factory definition of language is encountered again when defining the notion of
community (see below).
4. Types of languages
The following is an attempt to identify some of the principal parameters that can be
employed in characterising different social types of languages. Individual languages
can be conceived as a kind of matrix of parameters including:
Linguistic Communities
COMMUNITIES WORDS
Balgo Hills lampan (pa) tjuku wiima nyamany (pa) tjapu tjulitjuli tjumpili
Christmas Creek lampan (pa) tjuku tjukutjuku tjukunya nyamanpa ngini// tjulitjuli,
wiima,
tjumpili, nyuyi
Fitzroy Crossing tjuku lampan tjukutjuku tjutamata nyuyi tjulitjuli tjapu, wiima,
nyamanypa,
tjumpili
15
16 Words and Worlds
Micronesia, a group of very closely related languages are spoken all the way from
Truk in the east to Tobi in the west. As observed by Bender (1971) ‘there are some indi-
cations that it is possible to establish a chain of dialectal connections from one end to
the other with all contiguous dialects being mutually intelligible.’
Language boundaries, one might argue, are not so much a linguistic given, but a
creation of linguists, administrators and missionaries. Over time, Western and
Westernised thinking has become so habituated to the concept of language boundary
that it has become to be regarded as a natural fact.
The popular perception is reinforced by the large number of language maps and
atlases and indeed the entire subdiscipline of dialectology which is predicated on the
notion that it is possible to establish locations and boundaries. Dialectologists, for
instance, seek to define a dialect2 as being surrounded by bundled isoglosses. This turned
out not to be the case, even when the objects of mapping were carefully abstracted
languages rather than patterns of speaking (for further discussion see Bailey 1996).
It is possible of course to map the political boundaries within which a particular
language has official status, for instance, the parts of Belgium where German is offi-
cially spoken but this hardly gives an indication where languages are actually used.
Political boundaries, the development of national standard languages and changes
in speakers’ mobility has greatly affected the viability of language chains, or at least
severely curtailed their geographical range. Language chains are among the most
endangered linguistic phenomena.
2
The definition of dialect is primarily a sociopolitical one – “a dialect is a language without an
army and navy” is a common pronouncement of sociolinguists. Being labelled a dialect or
patois (a Romance form of speech in French-speaking countries) can contribute to endan-
germent of a way of speaking. There is far less concern for the disappearance of dialects than
for the disappearance of languages and there are fewer funds for dialects than for minority
languages. A dialect, apart from lacking military hardware, thus has come to mean a language
lacking official recognition and funding.
Linguistic Communities 17
instance, brought attention to the fact that demographic and social changes in Vanuatu
have greatly diminished the number and authority of older speakers who in the past
provided role models, an outcome of the absence of older speakers are less focussed
young people’s varieties such as Young People’s Dyirbal described by Schmidt (1985).
4.5 Pidgins
Pidgin languages come into being when speakers of different languages need to
communicate about a restricted range of topics and when neither party wishes
and/or is allowed to become fully competent in the other party’s native language.
The classical pidgin context is that of plantations, set up in the colonial era which
employed slaves or labourers from numerous language backgrounds, who, in order
to communicate among themselves and with their plantations owners and overseers,
had to develop a common language. Pidgin languages by definition are second
languages, structurally and functionally restricted and not mutually intelligible with
the language from which they derive most of their lexicon. The various Pidgin
Englishes of the Pacific (Queensland, New Guinea, Vanuatu etc.) are not intelligible to
speakers of ‘standard’ English. They have developed their own communicative
norms which draw on universal principles of language simplification, borrowing
from a range of languages and diffusion of Pidgin conventions around the globe. The
observed absence of shared grammar has prompted Silverstein to state (1971) that the
equation of ‘linguistic community’ with ‘people with the same grammar’ seems to be
too strong here. The complexity of a Pidgin is closely related to the communicative
functions it fulfils and they are sustained not by native speakers transmitting them
from parent to children but by the continuation of the conditions that brought them
into being. The military Pidgin English of Vietnam and Korea disappeared with the
social context in which they were developed and Vietnamese Pidgin French (Tay Boi)
ceased to be used once the French colonisers left Vietnam. Pidgin Portuguese, once
spoken almost universally in South East Asian trade, disappeared when English
traders became dominant.
The survival of colonial Pidgin languages depends on their users putting them to
new uses. Pidgin English in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu have become the prin-
cipal languages of intercommunication of modern independent states and have been
recognised as official languages. Increasingly this principle appears to apply to many
non-Pidgins as well.
In specific circumstances Pidgins can become primary or native languages, a
process called Creolization. Compared with Pidgins, Creoles are spoken as native
languages, are compatible in terms of structural and lexical complexity with other full
languages. Contexts in which creolization occurs include plantations where children
elaborated the only useful means of intercommunication, their parents’ broken
Pidgin, in orphanages of remote locations (such as Tayo in New Caledonia or
Unserdeutsch in Papua New Guinea) or most recently under the impact of rapid
urbanisation in countries such as Papua New Guinea or the Solomons.
20 Words and Worlds
4.6 Koines
This term derives from the variety of Greek spoken by settlers from different areas in
the Greek colonies of the Mediterranean (best known as the language of the Modern
Testament). The term has since been extended to many similar situations where
dialect mixing occurs in new settlements, for instance the German settlers of Eastern
Europe or Namibia, or in the non-traditional Aboriginal settlements of Australia
(Mühlhäusler and Amery 1996). In discussing this term, Siegel (1985) draws attention
to the following points:
A Koine is the result of mixing between language subsystems that are either
mutually intelligible or share the same superimposed standard language.
Koineization, unlike pidginization, is typically a slow and gradual process.
The social correlate of Koine development is sustained intensive contacts and
gradual assimilation of social groups.
Thus, although some of the linguistic consequences of koineization can be similar to
those identified in Pidgin development (for example, simplification of inflectional
morphology), Koines do not involve the drastic reduction characteristic of early
pidgin development. There is some overlap with the notion of lingua franca. In
contrast to the latter Koines are spoken as native and/or primary languages.
The development of Koines goes hand in hand with social displacement and social
reconstruction and an increase in urbanisation and social change in the 21st century is
likely to lead to the development of further Koines. Their long-term viability however
is not secure.
linguists belonging to the Melanesian Mission (such as Codrington and Palmer, 1896)
and elevated the state of the language of missionization and education.
Modern languages are a special case of Ausbau. The modernisation process is
designed to make them intertranslatable with modern European nation languages.
Indonesian, for example has undergone an extension process of modernisation (over
400,000 new words have been added since 1947) as have Swahili, Pilipino and Afrikaans.
Whilst in principle all languages can be modernised, in practice it has been a very
selective process. Because of the cost of language planning, modernisation is
governed by considerations of economy of scale. Only Indonesian and a few large
provincial languages in Indonesia underwent modernisation, all the other 400+
languages of the archipelago remained largely unaffected and unmodernised. Once
modernised, a language tends to have considerable economic advantages and
speakers on non-modernised languages can find it desirable either to adopt them as a
second language or switch to them.
Extension which does not involve dependency on European language models is
being attempted in a number of instances, where indigenous languages have gained
greater political status. A well known case is that of Maori (Harlow 1993).
(see below) the extent of human agency can be very considerable. The documentation
of what Laycock has labelled ‘naïve language planning’ is very patchy. The main
raisons d’être in traditional societies includes, taboo, secret or initiation ceremonies,
purposes or language play (ludlings). Like Pidgins they are brought into existence by
special social circumstances and disappear once external conditions change. Franklin
(1992) for instance has documented the disappearance of the Pandanus gathering
variety of Kewa Papua New Guinea, and Hale (1992) has analysed the disappearing
Damin register of the indigenous Australian Lardil language.
There is great urgency to document and analyse similar special languages around
the world.
Entirely planned languages were developed mainly in Europe following the
Enlightenment. The objective of their creators being to have a language capable of
expressing enlightened philosophical or scientific ideas, to have a single language for
worldwide communication either in addition to or as a replacement of existing
languages.
Structurally, artificial languages are either of the a priori type, created from scratch
on the basis of philosophical principles of classification or naming (Libert 2000), or a
posteriori languages, simplified and enhanced versions of an existing language or
languages. The best known example of this latter category is Esperanto. In the recent
past the idea of developing a single artificial language for the European Union has
been revived.
A general problem with artificial world languages is the underlying assumption
that a single language can cope equally well with all aspects of the world, that it could
in principle be replacive of other languages.
In whatever sense human languages are equal, they are certainly not equal in
regard to their visibility. There is a clear danger that the best described, mapped and
labelled languages have a better chance of being maintained. Ironically, this often
means that languages that have been described or otherwise standardised or objec-
tified by Europeans are the ones whose survival chances are greatest and that
genuinely different ways of speaking are highly endangered. There is a clear paral-
lelism with the so-called charismatic species in wildlife protection: whereas many
millions of dollars are spent on koala research in Australia, very little money has been
made available to document and maintain Australia’s weevil population. But
arguably, the survival of a diversity of near invisible weevil species is ecologically
more important than that of the koala.
Many ways of speaking which, on structural and/or functional grounds could well
have been recognised as languages in actual fact are not – because of political circum-
stances, lack of folk sentiment, or lack of Abstand and Ausbau. In Europe, this
includes languages such has Alsatian, Asturian, Bavarian, Corsican, Flemish,
Francique, Istro-Romanian, Yutish, Karelian, Low Saxon, Tsakonian and many others.
In some instances, the ways of speaking have been labelled ‘dialect’ or ‘patois’, in
other instances there is little metalinguistic awareness of their existence.
What I shall do in the following section is explore how different ways of speaking are
employed side-by-side by groups of people. Just as the term language applies to a range
of phenomena, so do the terms language community, speech community, multilingual
community etc. Again, the multitude of combinations must be seen as functional
responses to particular communicative requirements, not dysfunctional oddities.
I shall employ Haugen’s (1972) and other ecological parameters to identify a
number of types of possible languages or language ecologies. The term ‘language
ecology’ is used as a cover term for a range of phenomena, some of which in the past
have been labelled language communities or speech communities. The main
difference between an ecological and closed sociolinguistic approach is that the
ecological approach places greater emphasis on the environmental support systems
and pays greater attention to the adaptability of different language ecologies.
It would seem useful first to say a few words about the concept of speech commu-
nities used in sociolinguistics.
The Indian tribes are scheduled as per Article 342 of the Constitution by the
President and the Parliament. They do not form a neat homogenous social-
cultural category. The concept of tribe in India is thus an administrative,
judicial, and political. The scheduled tribes constitute 623 varied communities.
Languages spoken by these scheduled communities are considered ‘tribal
26 Words and Worlds
Diagram 1. High-density personal network structure: X is the focal point of the network
Diagram 2. Low-density personal network structure: X is the focal point of the network
Traditional lifestyles strongly correlate with closed multiplex networks and such
networks provide a home for a multitude of small endemic languages. Urbanisation,
social and geographical mobility and information technology, by contrast promote
open networks which call for larger, even international languages: one can witness a
corresponding process of the shrinkage of closed networks (they are becoming
restricted to communication with in-families, tribes and other highly-knit social
structures), and a steady growth in the importance of open networks. In as much as
the village has been the typical locus for closed network communication, the notion of
a global village seems absurd. Kreckel (1980) comments on the ‘undesirable effects of
heterodynamic [=open network] communication for presupposed common
knowledge may easily have no common basis at all.’
Given the problem of pinning down what a speech community is, it would at
first sight seem desirable to start with clearly bounded units such as states,
provinces and urban communities and ask: what languages and what relation-
ships between languages are encountered within such units. This, in fact, is what
many sociolinguists have opted to do (a process referred to as the dialectological
approach) when describing phenomena such as diglossia (see below). However,
Linguistic Communities 29
applying labels such as speech community, Laycock (1979) has pointed out, can
bring with it other problems:
Extensive multilingualism has important consequences for theories of language
contact and language classification. One major effect is the erasure or blurring of
linguistic boundaries. We can distinguish three types of linguistic areas with
definable boundaries:
(1) a communication area, which is the area in which a speaker or community can
still manage to communicate, by the use of any languages known;
(2) a lectal or language currency area, which is the area in which a single language is
effective for communication purposes,
(3) a language area, which is the area in which a particular language can be said to be
native – that is, it is the first learnt and/or the primary language.
Linguistic maps usually feature type 3, which is the hardest to define satisfactorily, and
which is coterminous with types 1 and 2 unless multilingualism is present. However, it
is precisely the boundaries of 3 that are made fuzzy, or are erased by, multilingualism.
A way of defining community that does not rely on pre-established boundaries
might be to examine the key metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) that different
groups of people live by. Those dominant in mainstream Anglo culture (time is
money, argument is war) are not shared by members of many other cultures. The
Australian and British metaphor of politics as a game of cricket (to be played
according to rules on a level playing field) is foreign to most of the ‘foreign’ politicians
that British politicians are dealing with and the lack of shared metaphors could be one
of the reasons for the lack of mutual understanding.
That the notion that speaking the same language needs to correlate with other
social categories is questioned by writers such as Rigsby and Sutton (n.d.) who argue
that speech community is not a primary social term but a secondary construct. Their
own data, gathered during many years of fieldwork in Northern Queensland suggest
that ‘residence groups, task groups (such as ritual participants) and regional political
groupings are formed largely independent of linguistic affiliation’ (p. 35). The notion
that one language equals one culture and the derived view that the loss of, say, 100
languages implies the loss of 100 cultural and philosophical systems thus would seem
highly questionable.
The non-agreement between language and culture can be illustrated in the so-
called developed world by the existence of pluricentric standard languages with
several standard varieties (see Clyne 1985). Examples of these include Arabic,
Chinese, Dutch, English, French and Spanish, all of which have official status in a
number of nation states with different political and cultural agendas. Belonging to the
same speech community does not exclude hostility or almost total non-cooperation,
as can be seen from the examples of Korean in North and South Korea, Mandarin in
Mainland China and Taiwan or German in former East and West Germany. The case
of Moldavian and Galician illustrate that there can be considerable disagreement
30 Words and Worlds
among speakers as to whether they are speaking a language with its own norms or a
variety of Romanian or Portuguese and in the case of Valencian vis à vis Catalan this
has led to considerable social conflict.
In view of the difficulties with the definition of communities, the notion of
language ecology would seem preferable, particularly as it supplements information
about the use of different languages as information about the wider ecological factors
(including discourses) that sustain such practices.
One has to remind oneself of the etymological roots of the term ‘ecology,’ i.e. Greek
oikos, ‘house’ or ‘home.’ Haugen, whose ecolinguistic questions were quoted at the
beginning of this paper, very much looked at the linguistic practices of the inhabitants
of communities bounded by sociopolitical boundaries and this approach would seem
appropriate only for nation states and similar modern entities. The question of the
relationships within a house, what relationships between its inhabitants make it a
home and a sociolinguistic characterisation of its inhabitants are important. However,
Haugen uses the notion of ecology as a heuristic metaphor without suggesting that
language can itself be an ecological phenomenon.
In discussing the notion of endemic language I have suggested that languages can
also be seen as ecologically adapted to particular natural environments and this
suggestion can be extended to the hypothesis that particular language ecologies in
turn are adapted to particular natural conditions, that, for instance the seemingly
excessive multilingualism in some parts of the world is a response to the need for
various types of cooperation needed for survival and management in a particular
environment. Healthy ecologies are characterised by the presence of a large number
of mutually beneficial interrelationships and a relatively small proportion of compet-
itive and/or parasitic ones. They are also defined by functional diversity.
In the past, healthy language ecologies were the norm but over the last few
hundred years or so, there has been a marked shift to unbalanced and unhealthy
ecologies, characterised by an increase of internal competition and a reduction of
diversity and, in the domain of language, a dramatic loss of the connections between
languages, speakers and their natural habitat.
What defines language ecologies remains to be explored, and the sections that
follow have to be read against the background of an important ecological principle.
What keeps one ecology healthy and stable may destroy another one. The support
system for different language ecologies can be very different and must be determined
case by case.
An overview of writings on the psychology and sociology of language ecologies is
given by Fill (1993). The parameters determining ecological processes in language
and society listed by Fill include:
• frequency of intermarriage,
• functional distribution,
• degree of codification,
• external interventions.
Northern Australia, the first part settled by human beings and the one closest to
South East Asia with whose inhabitants there have been several periods of contact. By
contrast human habitation of the Southern parts of Australia is far more recent and
contacts with outside groups were rare or non-existent.
Time and contact alone are insufficient to explain all aspects of linguistic diversity.
Laycock (1982) adds deliberate human choice as a further motive. Speaking about the
situation in Melanesia he argues:
In view of all the above, it is possible to formulate a hypothesis about Melanesian
linguistic diversity. Migration into the small independent, or semi-independent,
communities, with, often, the same or very similar languages. Isolation and
normal linguistic change played their part in the splitting of these communities
unhampered by pressures towards convergence. The process was accelerated by
contact between communities of quite different linguistic backgrounds, by
warfare (and subsequent dispersal of communities), by cross-cutting migrations,
and by technical innovation. Once the process of diversification was well under
way, diversity had advantages as well as disadvantages, in clearly distinguishing
friend, acquaintance, trading-partner, and foe; and with this consciousness came
an attitude, I believe, that the community was further divided. In other words, I
suggest that Melanesian linguistic diversity is not merely the by-product of acci-
dents of history and geography, but is in large measure a partly conscious
reaction, on the part of the Melanesians themselves, to their environment and
social conditions.
Ecolinguistics, as discussed under the heading of ‘Endemic Languages’, has added
external environmental reasons. The size of a language coincides with the size of the
ecological borders in which it is spoken. Highly diversified complex ecological condi-
tions such as in rainforest areas coincide with high linguistic diversity. The linguisti-
cally most complex areas are Melanesia, the Amazon and West Africa. The number of
languages spoken in desert areas and the Arctic, on the other hand, are relatively small.
Areas with high linguistic diversity are also areas with a high degree of multilin-
gualism, with as many as 4+ languages spoken in traditional Melanesia and up to a
dozen in tropical Northern Australia. Linguistic diversity is often linked to
geographical isolation but this turns out not to be a very reliable parameter. Islands, for
instance, have traditionally been associated with isolation but as the many contrib-
utors to the Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia and the
Americas (Wurm, Mühlhäusler & Tryon 1996) have demonstrated, contacts between
most of the islands of the Pacific was relatively intense and the only genuinely isolated
islands of the area were Easter Island and possibly Hawaii. Rivers also isolate popula-
tions but, on the contrary, provide access and contact. The isolated languages of distant
mountain villages are mainly a discursive category rather than a linguistic fact. The
largest languages in Papua New Guinea, for instance, are located in the rugged terrain
of the New Guinea highlands. Genetic research (e.g. Terrell 1986) confirms that human
groups rarely remain isolated over extended periods of time.
Linguistic Communities 33
There is, however, an interesting relationship between some factors of the physical
terrain and language continuity. Languages located in areas subject to natural disasters
such as drought, floodwaves, volcanic eruptions etc. are more vulnerable to change and
extinction than other languages. Thurston (1982) has illustrated this for the languages
spoken on the dangerous coastline of Eastern New Britain, and the unreliability of water
supply in parts of the Pacific has in the past lead to the extinction of populations and
their languages on many islands. Medical disasters such as epidemics can also disrupt
linguistic continuity. Stross (1975) has shown how speakers of Tzeltal in Yukatan are
affected by frequent epidemics which lead to the decline of individual dialects and the
rise of others, promoting frequent changes in the direction of language development.
Introduced diseases and their roles in changes in language ecologies remain to be
fully documented. Australian Indigenous languages, as a response to smallpox and
influenza, often became non-viable as their speaker numbers declined, or as speakers
fled to different parts of the continent where they mixed with other groups. Hottentot
and several Melanesian languages experienced a similar decline and the spread of
AIDS and other pandemics throughout the developing world is likely seriously to
affect the viability of many smaller languages.
more precocious development of bilingual children, while still others (Padilla &
Liebman 1975) conclude that the acquisition of the two languages follows a
monolingual pattern.
Mixing is mentioned in all biographies and studies on bilinguistic development.
The majority of mixings are lexical in nature, with nouns as the most frequently
substituted words. Mixing may also occur at other levels (est-ce que you sleep
here?). Infant and adult mixing follow different patterns and there is also a
consensus that syntactic categories do not appear at random in mixed elements.
Although probably all bilingual children mix codes, this mixing occurs with a
low frequency (from 2% to 6.5%), tending to decrease with age. What role mixing
plays in bilinguistic acquisition is still little known, but its less frequent use as the
child grows older may be a manifestation of his improved capacity to keep his
two languages separate. Not all mixing must be attributed to a lack of compe-
tence; mixed utterance might express the intended meaning more adequately.
Translation is also an integral part of bilinguistic development. Besides using
translation spontaneously, the bilingual child requests translation equivalents
in the other language. The onset of awareness of two systems is evidenced
around the second birthday: two-year old children will assign words to each
parent’s repertoire and request translations for them. This is considered as proof
that language awareness develops at an early age.
The relation between language and mind
Several researchers have suggested that language and mind are closely inter-
mingled. In 1956, Whorf suggested that language moulds thought, and
although this hypothesis in its extreme form is no longer accepted, most
scholars do agree that language and thought are not completely independent
from each other. Childhood bilinguality does not develop in isolation from
other developmental aspects but interacts with them. Whether one considers
that language plays an important role in the development of thought or
whether both are seen as developing independently from each other will
influence the extent to which bilinguality is considered as a relevant factor for
the development of cognitive processes. At the present time most child
psychologists recognise the role played by language in cognitive devel-
opment. But what happens when children are socialised into multilingual
modes of communication?
Empirical research on the cognitive consequences of bilingual development
can be divided in two periods. The early studies, mainly psychometric ones,
conducted before the 1960, reported mainly negative results: bilingual children
suffered from academic retardation, from a linguistic handicap, had a lower IQ
and were socially maladjusted as compared with monolingual children.
Bilinguality was viewed as the cause of an inferior intelligence.
Linguistic Communities 37
children; this provides them with the necessary foundation for metalinguistic
ability, a necessary tool in cognitive development. Because experiencing with two
languages enhances the awareness of the analysis and control components of
language processing, different processing systems develop to serve two linguistic
systems from the ones that operate with one language. These advantages are
available to all children provided with an adequate bilingual education program.
Josiane F. Hamers
Laval University, Canada
A large number of small group of speakers (fewer than 1,000) also ensures that (a)
relatively unauthoritarian structures can be maintained within a language
community and (b) no community can readily achieve power over another
community: diversity reduces the scope for competition and strengthens links
between speakers of small vernaculars. Speakers of small or very small languages are
rarely monolingual as they depend on their well-being and functional links with
other groups for trade, out marriages and joint action.
The solutions to this requirement vary from ecology to ecology: an obvious but rela-
tively ‘costly’ solution is multilingualism or the less costly dual-lingualism (passive
multilingualism) where each party speaks their own language but understands their
interlocuter’s language. The greatest degree of multilingualism is encountered in parts
of Australia (e.g. Cape York Peninsula, Sutton 1991) where speakers have at their
disposal a repertoire of up to a dozen languages; a knowledge of 3–4 languages such as
in parts of Papua New Guinea is more common, but because multilingualism usually
does not imply full competence in all languages it is impossible to be precise.
The varying extent of communicative requirements when dealing with outgroups
is the reason for bilinguals employing a vernacular and one or more special inter-
group Pidgins. A particularly sophisticated solution is a layered language ecology
(Mühlhäusler 1999) where local vernaculars are employed mainly to express local
identity and discuss local knowledge, intergroup Pidgins (often with a 50/50 mixed
lexicon and a common core grammar) are employed mainly for transactions between
villages, and regional lingua francas are employed mainly for signalling regional
identity and exchanging regionally important information. Examples of such layered
ecologies have been documented for Native (Indian) Americans in the southern
United States by Drechsel (1997). Similar layering is developing in the European
Union where many inhabitants are competent in international English, their National
Standard Language, plus a local vernacular.
Stable hierarchical communities often employ a diglossic pattern, where there are
specialised functions for High (socially superordinate) and Low (socially subordinate)
forms of speech. In the strictest sense, these varieties should be historically and lexically
related such as French versus Haitian Creole or Classical Arabic and Egyptian Colloquial
Arabic (Ferguson 1959). In a wider sense the complementary functional distribution of
two languages, e.g. Spanish and Guarani in Paraguay, has also been labelled diglossia
(for more details see Romaine 1989). In using labels such as stable or balanced, I do not
wish to suggest that traditional societies are static. Rather, the rate of change in many
traditional language ecologies is such that they can adapt to those changes that
inevitably occur. What endangers them is that technological and social changes that are
now occurring have put their adaptive potential under severe strain.
decision to speak
special normal
circumstances circumstances
e.g. joking
two exotic languages, English and Fiji Hindi. The degrees of stability achieved in
Paraguay (Rubin 1968) for Spanish and Guarani would seem to be relatively rare and
competition or even dualling (Myers, Scotton 1993) are common in the 20th century.
In 1971 White concluded:
Fiji shares with many other new nations the problems of creating a sense of socio-
cultural unity in a territorial area which at the moment has little else but geo-political
unity. It is characteristic of emerging nations that the forces of nationalism and
nationism co-exist, and it is common for an ethnically based diglossia to potentially
be divisive, but the possibilities of division are reduced by two factors disclosed in
the current survey: (i) the practice of vernacular bilingualism, and (ii) the use of
English as a mediating or stand-by language in intergroup interaction. English, it is
clear, has the potentiality of becoming an instrument both of nationism and of nation-
alism, but it will probably have to serve as an artefact of geo-political unity before it
can contribute to the evolution of socio-cultural unity in the emergent nation of Fiji.
Thirty years later the situation remains problematic and attempts to create a stable
society with a stable multilingual ecology continue.
In as much as these changes were brought to the communities from the outside, the
choice of shifting to other languages is far from free. It is necessary not just for social
mobility, but in many instances, physical survival.
Migration again can be both a choice driven by the wish to improve one’s life or it can
also be beyond people’s control brought about by war, persecution and forced reset-
tlement. Migrant languages not only are far from the cultural and physical support
system that once sustained them and surrounded by numerically and functionally
more powerful languages; as Fishman (1991) has shown, there are few instances in
which migrant languages have survived for more than three generations but this
survival was typically accompanied by a shrinkage in the domains and functions in
Linguistic Communities 43
which these languages are used. First language adaptation is a matter of centuries, the
outcome of competition is often a matter of years only. Whatever short-term economic
benefits it may bring, the long term consequences are far from beneficial. One of the
problems of language shift is that it can lead to a loss of cultural identity. There is a
strong but not necessary link between language and people’s identity, the wish to
speak the same language typically being driven by the wish to belong to a community
of like people (Fishman 1991). The loss of a language can be a matter of grief for a
community and can have negative side-effects on its members. When there is a strong
link between language and identity, a number of adjustments can occur. In the case of
the indigenous languages of Australia, 90% of Australian Aborigines no longer speak a
traditional language. However, traditional patterns of language use have been main-
tained in various Aboriginal Englishes (Eades 1982), for example South Australian
Nunga English, South East Queensland English, and the concept of language
ownership can persist even where a language is no longer spoken. New Englishes in
Australia are not necessarily languages of identity, rather a typical pattern in tradi-
tional language whether spoken or not is the focus of identity. Aboriginal English is the
language of non-identity with the white majority and standard English a language of
communication within the wider community.
The European Union, whereas far more tolerant of minority languages, never-
theless has over the years introduced many policies that have remarkably changed its
original linguistic ecology and, with a number of new members about to join, more
radical solutions (e.g. creating a supernational artificial language, such as Eurolingua
or using Esperanto) are being considered.
Thus far, artificial language ecologies have been of the streamlining type, i.e. the
objective has been to reduce the number of languages spoken. There is no reason why
one could not also plan for highly diverse language ecologies in which a maximum
number of languages could be sustained. Given the extent of which traditional
language ecologies have been disrupted, this would seem a logical task for future
language planners. However, management of complex diversity presupposes a great
deal more knowledge than is available to most language planners at present. The idea
was briefly mooted in the context of planning a multi-ethnic, multi-function polis in
South Australia but with the demise of the physical project the plans for cultural and
linguistic diversity have also been shelved.
An interesting project is that of Romansch Grishun (see contributors to Lüdi 1994)
which combines streamlining with planning for diversity. In essence, five very small
Romansch languages were merged with into a single standard variety (Romansch
Grishun) which is recognised as Switzerland’s fourth official language and which is
used side-by-side with the other three official languages in parts of the country. The
concept of merging closely related small languages into a single larger more compet-
itive language is also being tried for Sami and other languages (Wurm 1994). What the
long-term chances of this approach might be remains to be seen.
My remarks on types of language ecologies and speech communities should not be
regarded as either complete or as a statement of linguistic fact. It is a pre-theoretical,
exploratory attempt to classify a very large number of phenomena, each of them
unique, and may require a major revision after more becomes known about the
numerous ways in which human beings establish their linguistic identities, define
themselves vis à vis others and cooperate or compete with one another.
8. Conclusions
Whilst linguists, and to a certain extent sociolinguists, have tended to arrive at gener-
alisations I have in this paper taken the opposite approach. My point is that it is not
possible to make sweeping generalisations as to what languages, speech commu-
nities and language ecologies are. Rather, humanity has over a very long time arrived
at a large number of different solutions to the management of human affairs and to
adapting to environmental conditions.
A grammar in its widest sense accounts for the fact that the whole is more that the
sum of the parts. Sentences, for instance, mean more than what their individual words
cumulatively mean. Speech communities or ecologies too are grammatical
phenomena in the sense that the whole community is more than the sum of its parts.
What matters are the syntagmatic relations or functional links between the parts. At
Linguistic Communities 45
this point only relatively few studies and a small metalinguistic vocabulary exists (e.g.
diglossia, balanced multilingualism) to describe the grammar of entities comprised of
different languages. To understand why so many individual languages are disap-
pearing requires an understanding of the ecological conditions that sustain complex
language ecologies.
Language is inescapably linked to the world and affects the well-being of those
who inhabit it. Language users want more than to communicate information, they
want to maintain social bonds, have a feeling of belonging and identity, to include
and exclude outsiders to varying degrees and to manage their environment. In view
of the numerous problems of overpopulation, genocide, war, displacement and
psychological disturbances in the 21st century, it would seem essential to gain a
greater understanding of healthy as well as pathological aspects of different linguistic
groups and their interactions. An initial step is to adopt an interlinguistic and
ecological perspective in documenting the world’s language communities.
Chapter 2
The Linguistic Heritage
A un populu Enchain
mittitilu a catina a people
spugghiatillu strip it bare,
attupatici a vucca, cover its mouth,
é ancora libiru. it is still free.
Un populu, A people
diventa poviru e servu, is poor and enslaved
quannu ci arrobbanu a when it is robbed of the
lingua language
addudata di patri: inherited from its parents:
é persu pi sempri. it is lost for ever.
How many languages are spoken in the world? This is a question we have all asked at
one time or another. It is also a question that linguists are often asked and which we
have had to answer on numerous occasions. But the answer linguists give to this type
of question is usually unsatisfactory, as we can only venture an approximate figure.
The fact is that for various reasons it is not easy to give a straightforward answer to this
elementary question. One of the reasons it is difficult to answer is that some parts of our
planet have not yet been described linguistically and that even today, from time to time,
news reaches us of the discovery of new ethnic groups and languages. This happens, for
example, in the islands of Indonesia, in regions of Papua New Guinea and in tropical
46
The Linguistic Heritage 47
regions of South America. In 1998, for example, the Vahuadate and Aukedate ethnic groups
in Indonesia were “discovered” from the point of view of Western culture.
Another reason why it is difficult to answer is related to the names of languages.
Languages, in general, tend to be given more than one name, depending on the neigh-
bouring peoples the speakers have dealings with and the name the speakers them-
selves give their own language. This multiplicity of denominations complicates the
job of identifying the language concealed behind different names. The problem is
such that the Ethnologue (Grimes 2000), for example, speaks of 6,809 languages and
41,806 names for them and their variants.
But the real problem making it difficult to answer is over who should decide when
a variety is a language or a dialect, or, in other words, what concept of language we
are working with. As has been pointed out already by Mühlhäusler, until recently the
concept of European national languages has been decisive in this issue.
Until very recently, Luxemburgian was considered a dialect or variety of German.
Today, though, Luxemburgian, along with German and French, is one of the official
languages in Luxemburg. Who should decide if a variety is an independent language
or a dialect of another language? This is a crucial issue, since the concept of language
varies according to the period, the place, the culture and the society. After all, who can
stop a community with political and economic power that is firmly determined to
defend the rank of language for its speech?
Such a variety of criteria is used that Grimes (2000), for example, mentions seven
different Germanic languages spoken in Germany, while for many these are no more
than varieties of German. The same sort of thing happens with other very widespread
languages in the world, such as Arabic, English or Chinese.
But this question also affects numerous less widespread languages. Who, for
example, should decide whether Achi is a variety of the Maya language K’iche’, as the
Academy of Maya Languages in Guatemala proclaims, or an independent Maya
language, as many of its speakers claim? Who should decide whether the different vari-
eties of Tamazight, Sami or Quechua form a single language or a group of languages?
Mutual understanding as one of the characteristics for defining the autonomy of
languages is not a valid criterion or at least does not work infallibly. Otherwise, why are
Danish, Swedish and Norwegian considered three separate languages if they have no
problem understanding each other? Who decides whether or not the Croatian speaker
understands the Serbian speaker, the Catalan speaker understands the Spanish speaker
or the Urdu speaker understands the Hindi speaker? Furthermore, mutual under-
standing is not always symmetrical and depends to a large extent on people’s attitudes.
But, returning to the original question regarding the number of languages in exis-
tence, most linguists today (Crystal 2000, Nettle 1999, Comrie, Matthews & Polinsky
1996, Wurm 2001, Grenoble & Whaley 1998, Hagège 2000) give global figures
between 5,000 and 6,000 languages, which we shall also use. If we start with the
premise that some 6,000 languages are spoken in the world, their distribution by
continent is approximately as follows: 1,900 in Africa (32%), 900 in America (15%),
1,900 in Asia (32%), 200 in Europe (3%) and 1,100 in the Pacific (18%) (see Diagram 4).
48 Words and Worlds
3%
15% 32% Africa 1900
Asia 1900
Pacific 1100
Europe 200
32%
But languages are not uniformly distributed over the different continents either. If
we look at linguistic diversity by territories or states, we see that in 22 states there are
more than 100 languages spoken, or, in other words, that in those 22 states almost 90%
of the languages of the world are spoken (Table 2).
Table 2. Continued
If we classify languages according to the number of speakers they have, we see that a
few languages, about 80, have more than ten million speakers each – that is, that 1.3%
of languages account for about three quarters of the world population. On the other
hand, 81.8% of languages do not exceed 100,000 speakers and 55.5% do not exceed
10,000, though on this question the sources differ considerably (Table 3).
50 Words and Worlds
Nigeria, with a population of about 100 million, has a little over 400 languages,
most of which belong to two large families: Niger-Congo (whose largest sub-
family is Benue-Congo), and Afro-Asiatic (whose largest sub-family is Chadic).
These two sub-families between them account for most of the country’s
languages. In fact, Hausa, one of the country’s three major languages, is Chadic,
while the other two, Yoruba and Igbo, are Benue-Congo. Another interesting
thing about these sub-families is that Chadic is found mainly in the northern,
and northeastern areas, while Benue-Congo spreads across the southern and
central parts of the country. The third family, Nilo-Saharan, is represented
mainly by Kanuri in the northeastern tip of the country. In addition to languages
The Linguistic Heritage 51
that are indigenous to the country, English is the official language, Nigerian
(English-based) Pidgin is an informal medium, and Arabic is used mainly in
connection with Islam.
It should be clear from the foregoing that Nigeria is typically multilingual
with all the challenges that characterise multilingualism. The fact that there are
400 languages to 100 million people does not imply that each language is
spoken by ¼ million persons. The three major languages account for about 55
million native speakers, while another 10 million speak one or more of them as
an additional language. If a language is not regarded as major, it does not mean
it is minor. In practically every State, there is a main language which can be
promoted and there are hundreds of smaller languages at the local level.
Ideally, all Nigerian languages should find a role at the national, State or local
level. The ideal is however often different from reality. In spite of policies
purporting to enhance the status and role of Nigerian languages, implemen-
tation is generally ineffective. The result is that Nigerian languages are
constantly being bombarded by the dominance of English as the language of
government and administration, education at almost all levels, most of the
media, science and technology and most creative writing. In recent years, inter-
national attention has been focused on endangered languages and the need to
safeguard them. This effort must not be limited to smaller languages alone but
should rightly extend to the dominance of English and the deprivation arising
from lack of use of Nigerian languages in prestigious domains. A major
constraint in this regard is the lack of political will by policy-makers and unfa-
vorable attitudes to indigenous languages engendered by the colonial expe-
rience. If Nigerian languages and cultures are to survive, basic education must
be given in a child’s language and efforts must be made to take measures to
enhance the value and status of indigenous languages. As long as being profi-
cient in Nigerian languages is not seen as conferring any special rewards or
advantages, so long will their use and preservation be hampered.
Ayo Bamgbose
Ibadan University, Nigeria
Although the number of speakers is often considered decisive for the preservation
and future of languages, we would like at this point to stress the relative nature of
this question.
At first sight it seems to be the case, as Nettle (1999), for example, points out, that
below a certain number of speakers a language can have problems surviving. This
author indicates the figure of 10,000 speakers as a crucial threshold. But this issue has
a lot to do with the type of society and culture.
52 Words and Worlds
Languages with less than 10,000 or even 1,000 speakers can form highly viable
communities in which the only language used for all internal purposes is their own.
We find situations of this type, for example, in the communities using the Gumawana
language in Papua New Guinea, which has 367 speakers according to the 1996
census, Nambikwara in Brazil, with almost 1,000 speakers of which 95% are mono-
lingual, Ka’apor in Brazil, with less than 500 speakers of which 90% are monolingual,
Onobasulu in Papua New Guinea, with some 500 speakers, or Secoya in Ecuador,
with a similar number of speakers. Similar situations have been described on
numerous occasions and in a variety of places, such as the Caucasian language
Hinukh in Dagestan (Kibrik 1991) or the Baiso language of Ethiopia (Hagège 2000).
The community’s cohesion and its wish to maintain its language and culture can
decide their future and so it has been for centuries, as in the case of Baiso in Ethiopia,
mentioned above, which for more than a millennium has resisted competition from
more widespread languages around it. In other words, as well as the number of
speakers, the vitality shown by the language is fundamental.
On the other hand, there are languages with more than 10,000 speakers in situa-
tions of extreme danger. This is the case, for example, of Breton in France. According
to figures by Broudic (1999), although Breton has more than 250,000 speakers, due to
the percentage of speakers in the total population (Diagram 5) and their distribution
by generation (Diagram 6), the situation seems highly delicate.
Global figures for Breton for 1997 (Diagram 6) seem to indicate a rapid reduction in
the number of speakers in the coming years, although at the end of the nineteenth
century it had almost one and a half million speakers.
The number of speakers of a language therefore seems to be a relative aspect. However,
a decrease in the number of speakers is an important indicator, as all the experts agree.
It is a known fact, for example, that in many parts of the planet aboriginal
languages are seeing an alarming decrease in numbers of speakers in a trend that
leads to extinction. By way of example, let us look at the extremely disturbing figures
for the percentage of speakers of aboriginal languages in Canada and Australia
(Diagrams 7 and 8) based on recent censuses.
9%
Good knowledge
57% 11%
Fairly good knowledge
A few words
Nothing
23%
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
74+ years 60–74 years 40–59 years 20–39 years 15–19 years
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 1996
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20.4 20
20 14
10
0
1986 1991 1996
and it is argued that the acceleration in the loss of the world’s linguistic wealth has a lot
to do with the steady internationalisation of English, which is not based on a sponta-
neous or natural phenomenon but on certain monolingual models of acculturation that
are becoming more and more widespread over the length and breadth of the planet.
Linguistic diversity
In this section we shall establish the theoretical bases of linguistic diversity so as to
make empirical considerations on this aspect in subsequent sections.
We can distinguish three types of linguistic diversity (Nettle 1999): individual,
genetic and typological.
We shall examine these three approaches to the concept of linguistic diversity in turn,
since all three have important aspects for evaluating and understanding it.
Individual diversity
As has been pointed out above, it is quite difficult to count the number of languages
spoken in the world, as the criteria applied in different parts of the world are not the
same. In countries where one or more standard languages have been officially adopted
by the state, that language is usually counted as a single individual, even though there
are varieties that differ to a greater or lesser degree. For example, English, German,
Chinese and Russian are all counted as four single languages in most accounts, when
it is well known that these languages include a large number of different linguistic
varieties that are far from identical to one another. Nevertheless, this situation only
occurs in certain parts of the world. There are places in the world that have no official
standard languages, but a set of more or less similar linguistic varieties which are very
often counted as separate languages, even though they resemble one another more
than some of the varieties included in the languages mentioned above.
Calculations of individual linguistic diversity on a world level are therefore
biased, as they reduce linguistic diversity in the industrialised societies and
increase linguistic diversity in the other societies. This creates the false impression
that the so-called backward societies of the third world show a great linguistic
diversity and that that diversity is one of the factors contributing to their so-called
56 Words and Worlds
Table 4. Percentages of languages with less speakers than the figure indicated
Although the number of speakers is only one of the factors influencing the preser-
vation and survival of a language, the fact is that the smaller this number is the more
weight this factor carries in the risk situation facing a particular language.
If we take the figure of 10,000 speakers (Nettle 1999) as the threshold below which
the factor of the number of speakers can be considered decisive for the survival of a
language, then of the approximately 6,000 languages in the world 59.4% of
languages have fewer than 10,000 speakers, which amounts to 3,564 languages. In
other words, in the course of the twenty-first century, in view of their endangered
situation, it is very possible that half of the languages spoken today could disappear.
Amongst them, 30.1% – that is, 1,806 languages – have less than 1,000 speakers. It is
possible that most, if not all, of these languages are doomed to extinction in a
question of decades.
If we take into account languages with fewer than 100,000 speakers, which Nettle
himself (1999) defines as languages whose future is seriously endangered this
century, then we get 83.8% of 6,000 languages, which means rather more than 5,000
languages. On this basis, only about 1,000 languages can be considered strong
languages from the demographic point of view.
The simple fact that there are almost 3,500 – or, perhaps more realistically, 5,000
– languages in danger (almost 2,000 of them very seriously), along with the
cultures for which they are a vehicle, is a cultural catastrophe of a truly over-
whelming magnitude. As Nettle says, “Most of our human heritage is disap-
pearing before our eyes” (1999).
58 Words and Worlds
We may wonder what the cause of this situation is. There are undoubtedly multiple
causes of a historical, economic, political and cultural nature which ought to be
studied at length. What we can say is that at the heart of this situation and of its steady
acceleration at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first
can be found, amongst other things, an efficient policy of discrimination, marginali-
sation and assimilation that has been and is still being applied on a global scale, as I
shall explain later.
Genetic diversity
Since the beginning of historical-comparative linguistics in the nineteenth century it
has been known that many languages can be classified into larger units called
linguistic families, which contain all those languages that have arisen as a result of
the process of differentiation of a particular ancestral language, known as the parent
language. One historically recent case is the Romance family, which includes
languages like Spanish, French, Italian, Romansh, Sardinian, Catalan, Galician,
Friulan, Ladino, Occitan, whose parent language is vulgar Latin. Although no
written testimonies of them have survived, the Germanic languages – German,
Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, for example – and the Slavic languages –
Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, for example – are also
each descended from their own parent languages and therefore form two distinct
linguistic families. Outside Europe we find a similar situation. The more than 1,000
Austronesian languages, which cover most of the Pacific Islands, Indonesia,
Malaysia and the Philippines, seem to be descended from an ancestral language for
which there is no written evidence, which is known as Proto-Austronesian and could
be about 6,000 years old. Similarly, the Bantu languages of Central and Southern
Africa arose from an ancestral language called Proto-Bantu which must have been
located somewhere in today’s Cameroon and whose speakers expanded towards the
equatorial forests of the Congo about 5,000 years ago.
Several linguistic families have in turn been shown to be genetically related. For
example, the Romance, Germanic and Slavic families (along with other families and
languages) are demonstrably related to one another and it is therefore postulated that
they are descended from one ancestral language usually called Indo-European. A set
of related families, taking a term from biology, is called a phylum. So we have the
Indo-European phylum, to which languages like Sardinian, Dutch, Greek, Armenian,
Belarusan, Breton and Lithuanian belong, languages which at first sight have nothing
to do with one another. Similarly, the Bantu, Iyoide, Atlantic, Mande and Kordofanian
linguistic families of western and central Sub-Saharian Africa seem to be genetically
related and an ancestral language called Proto-Niger-Congo has also been postulated
with an age of about 15,000 years.
Unfortunately, it has not always been possible to determine how the various
linguistic families discovered in the world are linked genetically, although there are
proposals – some riskier or bolder than others – which at all events should be seen as
The Linguistic Heritage 59
speculations for research rather than reliable results. The American continent
provides an illustrative case. The approximately 900 languages of America can be
grouped in the following linguistic families:
Although not all these linguistic families are felt to have been convincingly demon-
strated, since some are based solely on a few clues which do not necessarily prove
their genetic relation (Campbell 1997), we can nevertheless say that the 900
languages belong to just fourteen linguistic families. One author, Joseph Greenberg,
a pioneer in the classification of the linguistic families of Africa, has proposed a
macro-phylum called Amerindian (Greenberg 1987), which would contain all the
families listed except Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dené in a single phylum. In that way,
America would have just three native language groups, although, as I say, this
proposal is considered too uncertain.
All together, and with the exception of a few dozen languages that are considered
genetic isolates – that is, lone remnants of possible extinct families or phyla – we can
say that 90% of human languages belong to one of the following phyla or families.
(see also Map 1.)
60 Words and Worlds
Therefore, the immense majority of the world’s languages can be classified in these 33
phyla or linguistic families (counting the families gathered under the Amerindian
macrophylum individually).
The Linguistic Heritage 61
Typological diversity
Typological diversity refers to the diversity of grammatical features to be found in the
world’s languages.
First, all the languages of the world have an identical general structure: there are
elementary significant units (words) and all those words consist of one or more
syllables and these syllables, in turn, consist of a concatenation of distinct units of
speech, without meaning, called phonemes. Any utterance in any human language
can be analysed in this way. For example the West Greenland Inuktitut (Manning
1996) word neqitorpunga, “I ate meat”, is broken up as follows: neqi-tor-pu-nga,
where neqi means “meat”, tor means “to eat”, pu is the morpheme for the indicative
mood and nga denotes the first person singular. In turn, each of these elements
consists of one or more syllables (ne-qi). Each of these syllables consists of several
phonemes – for example, tor is obtained by the concatenation of three phonemes:
/t/, /o/ and /r/.
Expressions in all known human languages can be analysed in this way, showing
the deep fundamental affinity between all of them.
Within the sphere of phonetics, variability is not very great, since the human speech
organs limit the possibilities for the production of sounds. Vowels such as [a] or [i] are
very common in languages, the consonants [t] and [k] or [m] and [n] are amongst the
most common. There are more complex sounds that are less widespread in the world’s
languages. For example, the pharyngealised voiced nasal velar, the affricative
voiceless retroflex, the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative lateral, or the voiced pharyn-
gealised dento-alveolar vibrant have been found in very few languages. All these
sounds arise through the combination of simpler articulatory gestures that are much
more frequent in human languages.
As regards the syllable, it seems that the immense majority of humanity’s
languages contain syllables of the CV type (a consonant followed by a vowel, as in ka),
although the CCV (kra), VC (ak), CVC (kak) and CCVCC (krans) types occur with
varying frequency in a wide range of languages. Several languages also have diph-
thongs such as ya or ay.
In the sphere of words we find that languages are unequally distributed between
analytic procedures, in which each word tends to be associated with a simple
meaning, and the synthetic model, in which a word is associated with a complex
meaning composed of simple meanings. For example, the Inuktitut word neqitor-
punga shows a high degree of synthesis as it includes four significant elements. In the
English translation of this expression “I ate meat” we have three words with a simpler
meaning: “I”, the first person singular pronoun, “ate”, the past of the verb “to eat”,
and “meat”. What in Inuktitut is expressed through just one word requires three
words in English. In this respect, therefore, Inuktitut is more synthetic than English
and English is more analytical than Inuktitut. In spite of this superficial difference, the
correspondence between the two languages is perfect:
62 Words and Worlds
The only difference is that what Inuktitut can do in the morphology English has to do
it in the syntax. However, the English “I” is not as autonomous a word as “meat” and
could in some ways be said to act more like a prefix than a separate word (in fact, it is
difficult to find contexts in which “I” appears alone in a sentence).
In syntax we also find a fairly restricted diversity, since syntactic mechanisms can
only be expressed by the following means: word order, function markers and into-
nation. Normally, the last procedure is present along with one of the other two.
For example, to distinguish the object from the subject of an action, Spanish can
resort to the use of a preposition to mark the object: Juan vio a María (“Juan saw
María”), where Juan denotes the subject and a María denotes the object. In Basque the
opposite occurs: Jonek María ikusi zuen, where the ending –(e)k in Jonek indicates the
agent function. Furthermore, the auxiliary verb zuen indicates a subject and an object
in the third person, so that the function of the participants is also marked in the
auxiliary verb form. In English, the order of the words is what indicates the function:
“John saw Mary” as opposed to “Mary saw John”. Languages in this aspect use one of
these procedures or a combination of them, so that diversity is limited.
In vocabulary, languages have some elements in common and elements specific to
each one. There is a basic vocabulary that denotes common elements of nature and of
the human being itself and which appear in all languages. The known languages have
words for “sun”, “water”, “moon”, “star”, “head”, “leg”, “eye” or “tongue” and
words denoting basic actions such as “eat”, “urinate”, “copulate”, “walk”, “run”,
“sleep”, etc. These words from the basic vocabulary are the ones commonly used to
determine the genetic relation between two or more languages.
North America
We have already given figures for the Eskimo-Aleut family in the previous section.
Most of the indigenous languages of North America (Canada and USA) are in a very
bad situation. For example, the Salish family of British Columbia (south-west
Canada) consists of many languages with fewer than 100 speakers and a few with
around 500. Of the Na-Dené phylum (Canada and USA), at least 27 languages have
fewer than 1,000 speakers. Navajo, the indigenous language with the largest number
of speakers, belongs to this phylum. Fishman (1991) reports that in the largest
indigenous population in the United States, the Navajo, only half (about 100,000)
speak Navajo. A more recent study has raised the alarm:
As for Navajo, which is one of the healthier American indigenous languages and
cultures by most measures, Diné language and ways of life are deeply endan-
gered. The shift from Navajo to English…is taking place with extraordinary
speed. (Lee and McLaughlin 2001)
Of some 25 languages in the Algonquin phylum (Canada and USA), there are 15 with
fewer than 5,000 speakers. Of the 13 remaining languages in the Sioux family (USA),
12 have fewer than 10,000 speakers, nine have fewer than 1,000 and seven have fewer
than 100. The Iroquoian family is no better off: of the six languages in this family, five
have fewer than 5,000 speakers, most of them fewer than 1,000. The four remaining
languages of the Caddo family (USA) have fewer than 1,000 speakers. Of the 28
languages of the Penutian phylum (USA), there are at least 18 with fewer than 100
speakers, so that the chances for survival for most of these languages are slim.
The situation of the indigenous languages of North America, then, is absolutely
desperate. It is almost certain that all of them will disappear during the present century.
Central America
Most of the languages making up the various families of the Hokan phylum are already
extinct or have fewer – in many cases far fewer – than 500 speakers. For example, of the
Salinan-Serian family, only speakers of Seri in Mexico remain (about 700), the other two
languages in this family, Chumashan and Salinan (California) are already extinct.
In the Chibchan family (Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica,
Colombia, Ecuador), 70% of the languages have fewer than 5,000 speakers, most of
them fewer than 1,000.
All of the languages of the Amuzgoan, Chiapanec-Manguean and Chinantecan
families (Mexico) have fewer than 10,000 speakers, most fewer than 5,000. Most of the
languages of the Popolocan family of Mexico have fewer than 5,000 speakers. Other
language families of Mexico, such as Mixtecan, Mayan, Aztecan and Zapotecan, have
a much higher number of speakers. In Mexico, then, we find a degree of preservation
of indigenous languages which is totally unknown in the rest of North America,
which does not mean that these indigenous American languages are entirely free
from danger, in view of their low status of recognition and association induced from
66 Words and Worlds
above and very often assumed from below with poverty and ignorance. The general
situation is characterised as follows:
Language policy in Mexico can be summarised as a tendency to unify the country
linguistically and make native languages disappear. The policy is based on the rela-
tions established by the indigenous groups with Spanish-speaking sectors which in
turn are based on economic relations and social discrimination transmitted by the
media, religion and primarily by the educational system. Since 1964 there is
supposedly bilingual and bicultural education. It has amounted to making the
communicative barrier between teachers and students less abrupt, but it isn’t a real
system of bilingual education and it certainly is not bicultural: the teaching mate-
rials are inadequate, the teachers are not qualified and above all their attitude is
negative. What they do is use the native language to teach Spanish. (Lastra 2001)
South America
The languages of the Ge and Pano families (Brazil) do not exceed 1,000 speakers in most
cases. Most of the languages of the Cariban family (Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia) have
fewer than 5,000 speakers. The Mataco-Guaicuru family (Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia,
Paraguay) consists of languages which also have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The
Huitotoan family (Peru, Colombia) is also seriously threatened, as most of its languages
have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The Arawakan family (Brazil, Colombia, Peru,
Venezuela) has 90% of its languages below the 5,000-speaker mark. Ninety-three
percent of the Tupian languages (Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay) have fewer than 5,000
speakers. Paraguayan Guarani alone stands out with some 4.5 million speakers. More
than half the languages of the Tucanoan family (Brazil, Colombia, Peru) have fewer than
1,000 speakers. The Yanomami family (Brazil, Venezuela) is made up of five languages,
four of which have fewer than 10,000 speakers. The Páez-Barbacoan family (Colombia,
Ecuador) has several languages with fewer than 10,000 speakers. Of the Andean family,
excepting Quechua, the rest are on the verge of extinction. The Zaparo family (Peru,
Ecuador) is made up of a series of languages having fewer than 200 speakers. Of the
Alakaluf family (Chile), only one language, Kaweskar, remains, with about twenty
speakers. Of the Araucanian family (Chile), only two languages remain, one of which,
Mapuche, still has more than 400,000 speakers. But some families are already extinct or
are on the verge of extinction, like Cahuapanan (Peru) or Chon (Argentina). But even a
language with millions of speakers, like Quechua, mentioned above, can be considered
endangered. This is how two researchers see the present situation:
While the position of Quechua varies greatly from one community and region to
the next, there are substantial sociolinguistic data which indicate that Quechua is
indeed a declining and threatened language. In Peru, for example, figures from
the official census reveal that Quechua monolingualism is steadily giving way to
temporary, subtractive bilingualism in one generation, followed by Spanish
monolingualism in the next. (Hornberger and King 2001)
The Linguistic Heritage 67
Africa
In North Africa the Berber family, while containing languages with an appreciable
number of speakers, is cornered and constantly threatened by the predominance
of Arabic.
The Biu-Mandara family, of the Chadic phylum (Nigeria, Cameroon), consists of 48
languages with fewer than 10,000 speakers. Of the Omotic languages of Ethiopia, 42%
have fewer than 10,000 speakers.
Of the 94 languages of the Nilo-Saharan phylum, 75 have fewer than 10,000 speakers.
In the Khoisan family (Namibia, Angola, Botswana), there are just over 30
languages, of which more than 20 have fewer or far fewer than 5,000 speakers.
The large Niger-Congo phylum, which includes the large Bantu family, is the
richest and most widespread of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa (it covers western,
central and southern sub-Saharan Africa), but that does not mean that there are not
dozens of languages in this phylum in serious danger of disappearing under the
pressure from other more widespread languages, both African and European. Of the
rather more than 640 Bantu or Bantoid languages, more than 200 have fewer than
10,000 speakers. We could mention the Bantu languages of the H and C areas. In the H
area (Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Angola), there are some 19 languages of
which at least 12 can be considered endangered. In the C area (Democratic Republic
of Congo, Congo, Central African Republic), there are rather more than 70 Bantu
languages of which about 35 seem to have fewer than 5,000 speakers.
The situation of the Adamawa families is especially worrying, with 61% of
languages with fewer than 10,000 speakers. The languages of the Kordofanian family
(Sudan) do not seem to be in a very hopeful situation, either. It comprises some 31
languages, of which 20 have fewer than 10,000 speakers and 13 fewer than 5,000.
Most of the native languages of Africa are under pressure from two directions:
from the large native languages of Africa-Swahili, Kikuyu, Bambara, Fulani,
Amharic, Tigriña, Lingala, Luba Congo, Lugando, Lugbara, Ebe, Wolof, Yoruba,
Hausa and Igbo:
These major languages are like big fish that deliberately go out to swallow up the
smaller languages. Their functional dominance in the national scheme of things
dictates, willy nilly, that anyone who desires any meaningful participation in
national life must learn to use at least one of them. (Adegbija 2001)
and from the European languages inherited from the colonial period:
The very presence of European languages and the disproportional prestige asso-
ciated with them overtly and covertly by virtue of the dynamic roles that they have
68 Words and Worlds
played in national life since colonial times is a major threat to African languages
which, functionally, become insignificant by comparison. (Adegbija 2001)
With its nearly 2000 languages, Africa is the continent of multilingualism. This
explains why many states have granted a European language the status of
exclusive or not exclusive official language. French enjoys this status in about
twenty of them, essentially in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also widespread in the
Arabic-speaking Maghreb. Many states in the anglicised or Portuguese-
speaking areas have chosen it as a second foreign language in their concern for
economic trade with their neighbours.
Yet the 27 African member States of the institutional Francophonie cannot be
considered as ‘French-speaking’. All sociolinguistic surveys stress the great
diversity in intercommunication situations that characterise those countries, the
vitality of their own languages and the gap between the de jure status and reality
in the field.
The dissemination and vernacularisation of French in Africa are linked to
schooling and urbanisation processes. The excessively low schooling rates –
hardly 30% in the South of Sahara – and totally inadequate and exclusive
education systems cannot satisfy the enormous need for integration and devel-
opment of a fast growing school-age population. So the French that is spreading
is a street-French. One can therefore wonder whether its appropriation by
Africans will convert it into a language very different from that spoken in the
former metropolis. Regional varieties of French have already appeared, such as
Cameroonese, Congolese, Ivorian, Senegalese, and so forth.
The massive appropriation of an exogenous language always entails
linguistic changes that constitute an endogenous norm. As opposed to the
imported – or official – norm, that of the popular French corresponds to
informal, home exchanges that are more social and therefore more convivial.
They are evidence of a feeling of linguistic security, of freedom of complexes,
which allows French to really participate in the African identity, to integrate
well into the environment. It is not without reason that linguists speak of “Afro-
French speaking Africa” (Kazadi) or of “French as African language” (Dumont).
The acknowledgement of the different “national” French alone can legitimate
the “plural francophony”.
On the other hand, the media – mostly the audiovisual ones – probably
contribute to maintaining a certain intercomprehension which is necessary for
official, scientific, administrative or economic functions and carries hopes of
social promotion…
The Linguistic Heritage 69
But the major problem is obviously the relationship between French and the
national languages. An initial schooling in the environmental language condi-
tions the harmonious development of any child and any community in respect
of their sound identity.
Shouldn’t we ascribe part of the lack of participation of the majority of so-
called French-speaking Africans in their own development, their difficulty
achieving democracy and academic failure to the cultural uprooting they are
confronted with?
Reconciling tradition and modernity through adequate language planning,
this is the path to follow to allow French to play an irreplaceable role as a feder-
ative element. An effective strategy of functional multilingualism would make
French a second language of access to modernity.
This approach requires interlinguistic articulation of languages based on an
intercultural contract of partnership excluding the very notion of dominant and
dominated language, relying on the respect for “partner languages” and open to
endogenous norms. In this perspective, French is certainly not intended as a
substitute for environmental languages but rather for the “hexagonal” French,
which will confine itself to the fields of sciences and international relations.
Believing that Africans could do without an international language of access
to modernity is as utopian as imagining they could renounce their own
languages in their social relations.
Raymond Renard
University of Mons-Hainaut, Belgium
Europe
Europe is the home of some of the most widespread languages in the world today
(English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian). The existence of independent political
states in association with a particular language has meant that many European
languages, even those with few speakers, enjoy a favourable situation. However, this
does not mean that all the languages of Europe are in good health. Many European
languages are at this moment in a precarious or serious situation. Perhaps the most
obvious example is Romany. The Gypsies have their own language, Romany (a member
of the Indo-Aryan linguistic family), which, following the fate of this people, is cornered,
scattered, despised, fragmented and on the verge of total assimilation and extinction.
Hagège reports (2000) that many speakers of Romany have disappeared through
various attempted genocides. Other authors are just as forthright on this subject:
With regard to Gypsies, policies have always been a negation of the people, their
culture, their language, in different ways. (Liégeois 1992)
70 Words and Worlds
group in Azerbaijan and Georgia). The classification omits Lak (Lakku Maz)
and Dargva (Dargan Mez, with its varieties Jaidako and Urbuko), which are
characterised by a certain “oneness”.
It is worth singling out the demographic potential of four Dagestan languages
(Avar, with more than 600,000 speakers, Dargva, with almost 370,000, Lezguian,
with more than 200,000, and Lak, with more than 100,000), contrasting with most
of the languages of this group, which have between 1,000 and 15,000 speakers.
Following the Russian Parliament’s approval in October 1991 of the “Law of
Languages of the Russian Federation”, the Republics of the Northern
Caucasus passed the respective laws or decrees establishing the “stateship” of
their titular languages (in Russian, the concept of “state language” is
considered the highest element in the tripartite terminological system “state
language – official language – titular language”). As a result of this legislative
action, today we can speak of 14 Northern Caucasian languages that have
been proclaimed state languages: Avar, Adyghe, Chechen, Dargva, Ingush,
Kabardian-Cherkessian, Kalmyk, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Lak, Lezgian,
Nogay, Osettic and Tabassaran. As we can see, there are more state languages
than there are Republics, and this is because some Republics are plurilingual,
as in the case of Dagestan, which has seven state languages, the Republic of
Kabardino-Balkaria, which has two state languages, and the Republic of
Karachay-Cherkessia, which has three. To all these languages must be added
Russian, which is still the state or official language in all the Republics of the
Northern Caucasus.
Alexey Yeschenko
University of Pyatigorsk, Russian Federation
Asia
In the area of Siberia, of the twelve languages belonging to the Tungus family (Altaic
phylum), nine have fewer than 10,000 speakers. We have already seen how the
Chukchi-Kamchatkan of the far northeast of Siberia is also in obvious danger. In a
recent field study on Chukchi, Dunn reaches the following conclusion:
Chukchi is thus a highly endangered language. While at the time of writing there
remain lots of native speakers, transmission of the language to the young has
been disrupted, and political and economic support for language maintenance is
very low. (Dunn 1999)
Of the Yeniseian family, the only surviving language, Ket, has fewer than 1,000 speakers.
Of the 81 languages comprising the Iranian family, there are at least 52 with fewer
than 10,000 speakers.
74 Words and Worlds
The Pacific
In the Austronesian phylum, which dominates Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines
and the Pacific Islands and which comprises more than 1,200 languages, we find
more than 800 with fewer than 10,000 speakers. This does not mean that these 800
languages are in immediate danger of extinction, but the fact that the drive of
English, the official languages and the vehicle languages of the area (including the
Creole languages and the sabirs) means that their future is in no way assured. One
illustrative example is the New Hebrides archipelago forming the territory of the
state of Vanuatu.
Vanuatu is the country with the world’s highest linguistic density, since it has some
150,000 inhabitants and has rather more than 100 languages, all of them belonging to
the Austronesian family, comprising almost 10% of the entire phylum (Tryon 1999).
This gives a proportion of one language for every 1,500 inhabitants. According to
Tryon (1999), none of these 100 languages is taught in the schools and although none
of them seem to be in danger of immediate disappearance, we must bear in mind that
approximately half of these languages have fewer than 300 speakers. By Tryon’s esti-
mates (1999), the greatest threat to these languages comes from the national language
of Vanuatu, a Creole language based on English and called Bislama. Children in
Vanuatu tend to use this language when they communicate with one another rather
than the languages education takes place in, English and French. Furthermore, the
example set by parents who speak to their children in Bislama instead of their local
language is catching on. Nevertheless, Tryon notes that the fact that the inhabitants of
Vanuatu take pride in their languages and their culture works in favour of the preser-
vation of these languages. According to this author, these feelings can for the time
being guarantee the survival of these languages.
The linguistic variety of the Island of New Guinea is also absolutely amazing. In
Papua New Guinea there are more than 800 languages and in Irian Jaya, the western
part of New Guinea, which belongs to Indonesia, there are more than 250 languages.
The phylum with most languages on the island of New Guinea is Papuan, which
contains numerous linguistic families. Most of these languages have fewer than
10,000 speakers, many of them fewer than 5,000. For example, of the 105 languages of
the Sepik-Ramu family, located in the north of Papua New Guinea, there are rather
more than ninety with fewer than 5,000 speakers. The Madang-Adelbert family has
102 languages, 100 of which are spoken by fewer than 5,000 people. This is the general
pattern in the rest of the families of Papuan languages.
Australia, with some 230 indigenous languages, presents a desolate picture of
suffering and destruction. The linguists’ opinion leaves no room for doubt:
Australian aboriginal languages are dying at a rate of one or more per year.
Although there may have been more than 250 languages before European contact,
some linguists predict that if nothing is done, almost all Aboriginal languages will
be dead by the time this book is published. (Nettle & Romaine 2000)
The Linguistic Heritage 77
The notion that there are either 700, 800, 846 or whatever languages in Papua
New Guinea is devoid of precise meaning, as the entities counted are not
readily comparable.
Whilst the indigenous concept of language and communication remain unex-
plored, a new generation of Papua New Guineans is being educated to
subscribe to a Western concept of language.
A major problem which has arisen from the projection of Western metalin-
guistics views on a linguistically very different language ecology, is that it is
difficult to diagnose changes – the fact that languages disappear from a list does
not say much about language decline. For instance, the current Ethnologue lists a
single language Pinai with eight dialects (among them Wapi and Hagahai) with a
total of 600 speakers. Nekitel (1998), Professor of Linguistics at the University of
Papua New Guinea, lists three languages, Pinai 1500 speakers, Wapi 1200
speakers and Hagahai 300 speakers. It is difficult to see how such confusing infor-
mation can be the basis for any action concerning language policy and planning.
What has kept the languages of Papua New Guinea viable is not names,
boundaries or numbers but the fact that Papua New Guinea has highly struc-
tured multilingual language ecologies inhabited by typically unnamed and
uncounted lingua francas, Pidgins, vernaculars, sign and drum languages etc.
To conceptualise these ecologies would seem a precondition for carrying out
linguistic diagnosis and linguistic rescue work.
Peter Mühlhäusler
University of Adelaide, Australia
As we have seen previously, it is clear that at this moment the world is going through
a gradual reduction of the linguistic and cultural wealth treasured over many thou-
sands of years. Linguists have begun to realise the scope of the problem after many
decades in which only a few specialists had worried about it. The alarm has been
raised and there are monographs devoted to letting the world in general know of this
critical situation. Books aimed at the general public, like those by Nettle and Romaine
(2000) and Crystal (2000), are illustrative examples of this trend. See Map 3 for a
description of the situation of the languages of California.
It is absolutely vital to realise, in order to understand this situation, that the expla-
nation for the death of languages is connected with the result of a certain type of policy
of assimilation and oppression which powerful communities exert on small commu-
nities that are at a disadvantage and which since colonial times have begun to have an
effect on a global scale. This sort of oppressive policy is not exclusive to the colonial
period when slavery existed, but still exists today in other more modern forms, which
explains the accelerating pace at which languages and cultures are becoming extinct.
Many examples could be given of this oppressive imperialist policy. The following
are a just a small cross-section, denounced by the Non Governmental Organisation
Survival International, which are taking place at this moment:
• The linguistic discrimination and oppression the Tibetans are subjected to by the
Chinese government.
• The linguistic and cultural genocide to which the Turkish government is trying to
subject the Kurds.
• The maltreatment by the government of Botswana of the Bushmen, still today seen
as savage and primitive hunters, marginalised and trampled by the government.
• The constant attacks by the government of Brazil on the territorial and cultural
integrity of the Yanomami and other native peoples of the territory of this country.
• The continuously unfulfilled promises of recognition of the territorial integrity of
the Wichi by the government of Salta (Argentina).
• The marginalisation and systematic invasion of the Naskapi Indians (Innu) by the
Canadian government.
• The marginalisation of the culture and language of the Berber people in the coun-
tries of North Africa and the null or scarce official recognition of Berber in Morocco
and Algeria.
• The marginalisation, scorn and continuing persistent attempts at the cultural and
linguistic genocide of the Gypsies in many of the countries of Europe.
• The continued oppression of the Khanti (west Siberia) by the oil companies since
the sixties, which have endangered or totally prevented their traditional means of
subsistence.
As this Non Governmental Organisation proclaims, “There are some 300 million
indigenous people all over the world, organised in viable contemporary societies
with complex lifestyles and progressive ways of thinking. They are not remnants
from a past age.”
Indigenous peoples are part of the present and not just part of the past. All commu-
nities, as historical communities, have ties with the past. The large Western commu-
nities are also a product of the past.
Modernisation and the age of globalisation are leading to the disappearance of
many languages and cultures because a series of deliberate and sustained policies are
being implemented that are directed at eliminating them, either through assimilation
or through physical violence (destruction of these communities’ habitat and
resources) or social and psychological violence (destruction of their self-esteem and
of the valuation of their language and culture). This is how it was described in a recent
study of today’s hunter-gatherer communities:
For most indigenous minorities, the transition to modernisation is a synonym of
impoverishment, racism, violence, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide and
social disintegration. In fact, the tendency to consume toxic substances can be
82 Words and Worlds
This is not the place for an examination of the efficacy of these points of view
mentioned by Phillipson for the teaching of a second language, but let us look at the
ideological aspects concealed behind these postulates and their relation with a mono-
lingualist ideology that sees cases of bilingualism or plurilingualism as no more than
stages in the transition to monolingualism in the dominant language.
The idea that only English and no other language should be used when teaching
English is clearly aimed at linguistic substitution rather than at the coexistence of
languages. This is even more obvious bearing in mind the third supposition, that
English teaching should be introduced as soon as possible. This allows for the possi-
bility that English could eventually replace the student’s native language. The idea
that the use of other languages can have harmful effects on the teaching of English,
the fifth supposition, once again shows that this proposal is based on a monolingual
ideology. The first, third and fifth suppositions, therefore, regardless of whether or
not they are considered effective or suitable in the teaching of a foreign language, are
signs of a clearly monolingual mentality tending towards the replacement of our
various languages by one single language.
88 Words and Worlds
The second and fourth suppositions reveal another of the basic pillars of linguistic
imperialism: induced assimilation and acculturation.
First, to say that the best teachers must be native speakers implies two concealed
ideas: the English of native speakers (British or United States) is the best and most
correct English and, secondly, by suggesting this type of teacher as a model, someone
is being proposed who has normally been educated according to an Anglo-Saxon
educational model which thereby becomes a universal model for all parts of the
world (educational imperialism).
Considering native English as correct English and the remaining forms of English
speech as incorrect or defective has the following consequence: since the number of
people who learn a foreign language and get to speak it like a native is very low,
there is an extremely high number of speakers of English who speak it badly or
incorrectly, with the discrimination that this involves. The worldwide spread of
English is creating a kind of cultural proletariat characterised by its incorrect,
defective use of English, which brands them as second-class cultural citizens
compared with the natives, who are first-class. To reach a level in one’s use of
English close to that of the natives it is often necessary to spend a long time inten-
sively involved in Anglo-Saxon teaching institutions, which ensures they are assim-
ilated in depth, as speaking English correctly means neither more nor less than
speaking according to the canons of the British or United States educated norm.
Only those prepared to undergo all this will be able to shake off the cultural under-
valuation involved in using English incorrectly.
The fourth supposition lies at the root of one of the basic postulates of the teaching
of English: it is not enough just to learn to understand English, one must also learn to
use it actively, to speak it fluently. Linguistic imperialism considers that just learning
to understand a language is imperfect and faulty learning. Someone who says they
understand English but can’t speak it is not normally valued as highly as someone
who says they can do both. It is obvious that the passive teaching of languages
favours plurilingualism, since it is much easier to learn to understand several
languages competently than it is to learn to speak them competently.
It is well known that learning to use a language actively involves much greater
effort and dedication than learning it simply for passive use, that is, for under-
standing. This clearly favours monolingualism: the time spent learning to speak one
language is time taken away from the passive learning of others.
Furthermore, the predominance of passive language learning does not favour
speakers of the dominant language, as they have to make an effort to understand the
language of the dominated, if they really want to understand them. But people who
speak a dominant language, such as English, are rarely prepared to make this effort.
Therefore, the model of monolingual and assimilatory imposition, which to a large
extent is the model used in the teaching of English (and of other European languages
like French and Spanish), not only facilitates the spread of the language and creates
the conditions for it to replace other languages, it also creates a large number of
second-class citizens who use English (or French or Spanish) not entirely correctly, at
The Linguistic Heritage 89
the same time as it means that native speakers of English (or French or Spanish) do
not need to make any effort to understand, let alone to speak, the language of others.
With a model of this sort it is difficult to be optimistic regarding the future of
linguistic diversity on our planet.
Conclusion
We have seen the immense linguistic and cultural wealth our planet still treasures, but
we have also seen the trends on a world level, left over from the colonial period,
towards the implantation of a model based on monoculturalism and monolingualism.
This model places no value on the mutual understanding of languages and cultures as
the basis for the cementing of harmonious relations between the peoples of the world,
but considers that there are modern cultures and languages and backward cultures
and languages and that the backward communities must assimilate this model as soon
as possible and that it does not in the least matter if their cultural and linguistic idio-
syncracies are partly or totally lost in the process of assimilation.
The policy of imposing ideas, cultures or languages has often been the origin of
conflicts between the world’s communities and peoples and will continue to be so.
Western models of economic, political or social organisation demand that the agents
intervening in them adopt a very limited number of languages, normally those of the
dominant layers of society, and therefore force many of those agents to abandon their
own language in favour of one that is strange to them and in which they will probably
feel less sure of themselves than native users of that language. On this sort of basis,
mutual understanding between the world’s communities becomes submission and
cultural and political dominance. In this way it will never be possible to build a world
in peace and harmony.
As Froment points out in referring to the future of hunter-gatherer communities,
this can only take place on the basis of respect for all facets of the life of small
communities and their way of assimilating the changes brought about by relations
with other communities:
In the end, the biological consequences of modernity for hunter-gatherer
groups will be dictated by the evolution of social prejudice against them, their
access to school, affluence and health facilities, the acknowledgement of tradi-
tional rights to land, as well as their own choices in the matter of development.
(Froment 2001)
Although at this moment English is the imperialist language par excellence, the
problem does not lie in English as such, since it is as respectable as a language as any
other, so much as in the monolingual assimilation models linguistic imperialism is
based on.
This does not imply that if English were to vanish (a highly improbable
hypothesis in the present world), other languages would live in equality.
Dominant languages in multilingual communities and in a multilingual world
90 Words and Worlds
are dominant because their speakers have the power to secure advantages for
their own group, among them linguistic advantages. Thus linguicism serves to
maintain the dominant position of French in a substantial number of countries
which are linked to France in an imperialist structure in much the same way as
English linguistic imperialism operates. (Phillipson 1992)
Linguistic diversity, like cultural diversity, is something that enriches Humanity and
which we ought to care for between us all. What is needed is a radical change in
mentality. If we really want to understand each other we ought to take an interest in
understanding each other’s language and culture, but the effort needed to do this will
only be made on the basis of mutual respect. If we think that the other person’s
culture and language are inferior to our own – that is, if we take a racist attitude – we
shall never make the effort needed to understand the other person, who is as human
as we are.
The monolingual attitude being imposed on a global level is intrinsically counter to
peace and harmony and furthermore is lacking in legitimacy:
I have argued that this assertion of continued monolingualism has no real or
legitimated basis – certainly, at least, not under the auspices of individual rights –
since the opportunity and right to continue to speak the dominant language is in
no way threatened by minority-language recognition. (May 2001)
Nothing can change if we are not prepared to change this mentality and, far more
serious, if we are not even aware of it. Since it seems difficult to change the mentality
of those who are already educated, then perhaps education for tolerance, the valu-
ation of other cultural and linguistic communities and mutual understanding, and
against racism, is the only basis on which we might, in the future, build a truly fairer
and more human world.
• Spreading the idea amongst international bodies and the general public that
linguistic and cultural diversity is a heritage that must be preserved as actively
as possible.
• Publicly proclaiming and defending that endangered languages, like all
languages, contain enormous wealth and interest for humanity, and drawing
attention to the falsity and the danger of placing languages in a hierarchy.
• Transmitting and popularising the feeling that all languages and cultures
form part of the common heritage of humanity and that as such they must
not only be preserved but developed and encouraged.
The Linguistic Heritage 91
In this chapter we shall look at the official status of the languages of the world and also at
the impact that official recognition of a language by a state has for the development of that
language. Since it is the official languages of each state that, as a result of being used in all
social spheres, show the greatest vitality, those linguistic communities whose language
does not share the same official status should demand this status for their own language,
or if not this status, then at least the practical consequences arising from being official.
The chapter is structured as follows: first of all, different state policies regarding
recognition of their official languages are analysed; secondly, we shall look at languages
that have achieved official status and those that have not; next, we shall single out some
of the current legislation aimed at the protection of linguistic heritage through policies
of official recognition, and finally, Professor Annamalai will put forward a new
approach to linguistic policy based on the recognition of plurilingualism.
92
The Official Status of Languages 93
In the new territories, it has in turn become the language behind the disappearance or
marginalisation of other languages and cultures.
European nationalism in recent centuries has integrated the concepts of a common
language, nation and state (Lastra 1992) and has created the opinion that a modern
state, if it is to be modern and promote itself as such, must be endowed with a single
language common to all its citizens.
The development of the European concept of the nation state together with colonial
expansion has encouraged a specific concept of state based on the idea of a “national”
language sustained and reinforced by a common administrative and educational
system and has spread it all over the world.
The creation of new states in the course of the twentieth century and the moderni-
sation of others has on numerous occasions involved the mimetic adoption of this
model, very often to the extreme of even declaring the language of the European
colonisers the official language.
In this way, languages of basically European origin, such as English, Spanish,
French or Portuguese, are today official languages in most of America and Africa and
in large areas of Asia and the Pacific, and have a clear advantage in their competition
with the local languages. English is the official or co-official language in more than 70
states according to Crystal (1997), French in 30, Spanish in 20, Arabic in 20 and
Portuguese in 6.
McArthur (1998) mentions 232 territories spread over the planet in which one of the
four languages mentioned (English, Spanish, French or Portuguese) is official, co-
official or carries a lot of weight. According to this author, only the remaining 52 terri-
tories are free of this European linguistic preponderance. The situation is especially
notorious in Africa, where out of 56 countries, according to UNESCO (1997), 45 have
a language of European origin as their official or co-official language and nine have
Arabic (Bolekia 2001).
This policy of linguistic homogenisation is based on the prejudice of considering
that the use of just one language or of a common language facilitates the cohesion and
progress of the state, overlooking the fact that in many situations the language of the
former coloniser has not united and does not unite different linguistic communities.
Whatever the case, with this worldwide consolidation of the idea of a national
language, in some states the languages of the European colonisers has in practice
managed to replace the local languages and the “national” language adopted has
been the colonial language. This has happened, for example, in Australia, New
Zealand, Argentina and Brazil. In these states, the local languages have only just
survived and their speakers can only use them alongside the official languages in a
bilingual situation.
In other states, which have also opted for the language of the colonisers as the
official language and a vehicle for Westernisation, linguistic wealth has been better
preserved, perhaps because the demographic pressure of the colonisation itself was
less. This is the case of Cameroon (English and French), Gabon (French), Gambia
(English), Chad (French and Arabic) and Guatemala (Spanish), for example.
94 Words and Worlds
In other cases, especially when colonisation has been more recent or less intense,
the modern state has preserved the language of the colonisers as one of its official
languages, while also promoting one of its local languages to the same rank. This is
the situation, for example, in Kenya (English and Swahili), Pakistan (English and
Urdu) and Vanuatu (English, French and Bislama). There are even situations where
colonisation has meant the conversion of a traditionally monolingual society to bilin-
gualism or multilingualism, as in Samoa (English and Samoan), Tonga (English and
Tongan) and Rwanda (French, English and Rwanda), which as well as their own
languages have declared those of their former European colonisers as official.
States that have copied the European model of a “national” language, promoting just
one of their local languages to this rank are also found. This has taken place in certain
states in the process of modernisation, such as Turkey (Turkish), Nepal (Nepali),
Tanzania (Swahili), Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani) and Thailand (Thai). This policy has led
them to the promotion and development of the language declared “national” over
and above their other languages. In some cases, the language chosen for this purpose
is the one most closely tied to local economic power or with the best chance of being
promoted as an interstate language, and not the most widespread language. This is
the case in Bahasa in Indonesia and Tagalog in the Philippines, languages which are
officially known as Indonesian and Filipino.
However, there are also states that have adopted positions more in consonance
with the preservation and promotion of their linguistic heritage, raising several of
their languages to the level of official languages. South Africa, for example, has since
1996 recognised 11 languages as official (Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Xhosa,
Sotho, Tswana, Swati, Tsonga, Venda and Zulu); India has two official languages over
the whole of its territory (English and Hindi) and 17 more co-official languages in
different regions (Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Kashmiri,
Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil,
Telugu and Urdu), and Eritrea has recognised eight official languages (Afar, Arabic,
Blean, Hadareb, Kunama, Saho, Tigre and Tigriña).
Most states, therefore, have adopted explicit linguistic policies, juridically
favouring the internal and external development of the language considered by their
The Official Status of Languages 95
rulers to be the common and official language of the country. On many occasions, the
state even takes on the work of preserving and maintaining the “purity” of the
language adopted as official, as well as its protection and diffusion beyond its
borders. This political practice leads to the preponderance and development of the
languages proclaimed official, which states generally use as the only medium of
communication in all public spheres, to the exclusion of all other languages.
Most Indonesians are able to use more than one language with Indonesian and
the regional languages being used side by side. However, for the majority of
people, one of the regional languages – rather than Indonesian – will be their first
language. So the regional languages have an important place still in the life of the
people. The regional languages are still used as a means of education in their
own locales. The use of the regional languages in education is provided for in the
country’s law. In Statute 4 of 1950 it says that ‘teachers may use the regional
languages as a medium of instruction up to the third year of primary school.’
There is a close link between the regional languages and a person’s ethnic
group. Regional languages are the mother tongue or first language of many
people and are used for informal, personal communication in the home among
family members, or in the immediate environment with people who are from
the same ethnic group. The regional languages are also used in a limited way for
formal or public activities such as marriage ceremonies.
A Rich Heritage
For someone interested in the relationship between language and culture, the
vocabulary of a language can mirror the way the people in that speech
community conceive their world, the way they structure knowledge about
society and their place in it. Because language reflects culture and also represents
cognitive structures, each regional language is a valuable resource for research
not only into the diverse nature of each of the unique cultures it expresses, but
also into important theoretical issues about the nature of linguistic and cognitive
universals – the way human beings cognitively process reality. These important
issues need to be tested by field data from languages other than English or those
in the Indo-European group before such theories can win wide acceptance.
Certainly, the decision to promote Indonesian which has come to some extent
at the expense of the regional languages can be justified in terms of the
important role Indonesian is playing in national unity, development, and the
provision of educational opportunity.
Yet surely it need not cost the extinction of this rich heritage which is an
important source of knowledge for questions ranging from the relation between
language, culture and knowledge to the search for linguistic universals, the
structure of human knowledge and human evolution.
Informed policies are necessary which will aim to promote a happy coexis-
tence between Indonesian and the regional languages and will help to slow
their demise. We cannot stop language change. Nor can we necessarily prevent
the natural processes that lead to the extinction of languages. But we can
perhaps support the work of those who wish to combat social beliefs and
political policies that are actively undermining the world’s linguistic diversity
by the promotion of monolingual policies.
The Official Status of Languages 97
Recent efforts which frame the arguments for preservation within the context
of a social and political agenda are signs that the threat of extinction for many
languages is seen by many respected linguists as all too real. The least that
researchers can do is to record for posterity something of the uniqueness of
those people’s lives, thoughts and culture. Perhaps we can also support efforts
at increasing awareness among policy makers of what is being lost.
Multamia RMT Lauder
University of Indonesia, Indonesia
Sri Lanka, for example, recognised Sinhala and Tamil as official languages in 1978.
Luxembourg declared its three languages – French, German and Luxemburgian –
official over the whole of its territory in the eighties. Belgium has French, German and
Dutch as official languages. South Africa, as mentioned above, has recognised 11 of its
languages as official. Paraguay has made Spanish and Guarani official. Eritrea has
established eight languages as official: Afar, Arabic, Blean, Hadareb, Kunama, Saho,
Tigre and Tigriña. Nigeria has declared nine languages official or national: Edo, Efik,
Adamawa Fulfulde, Hausa, Idoma, Igbo, Yerwa Kanuri, Yoruba and English.
Other states, instead of making all their languages official state languages, grant all or
several of them co-official status in their territory alongside the state language or
generalised official language. This is the case in Spain, with Basque, Catalan and
Galician, in Denmark, with Faroese and Greenlandic (Inuktitut), in the Russian
Federation, with many of its languages, such as Chukchi in Chukchia, Chuvash in
Chuvashia, Dolgan in Taymyria, Nentsi in Nenetsia and Taymyria, Osetic in North
Ossetia, Udmurtian in Udmurtia and Yakuto in Yakut and in China with some of the
languages spoken in its territory, such as Tibetan, Jingpo, Derung, Dai, Salar, Zhuang,
Zaiwa, etc.
In other states, local languages, not always recognised as official or co-official, are
promoted through their use in the administration and in the educational system. This
happens, for example, in Ghana, where Akuapim Twi, Asante Twi, Dagaari, Dagbani,
English, Eve, Fante, Ga, Kasem and Nzema are used in teaching (Grimes 2000), in
India, where according to the Sixth Educational Survey in 1998, 35 languages are used
in the educational system, though at different levels (Pattanyak, in this Review), and
in Papua New Guinea, with some 30 languages in the educational system (Wurm, in
this Review).
Although it is true that most states affected by linguistic diversity have for a long
time, contrasting with what have been the main lines of their traditional policy,
proclaimed the dignity of the local languages and the need to preserve them and
encourage them in public life, it is no less true that these proclamations very often
tend to be simple declarations of good intentions which are not reflected in the
linguistic practice of the authorities (Siguán 2001).
But casting an eye over all of the languages of the world, it is important to remember
that 95% of them lack official or co-official state recognition.
Official recognition by the state, as Hagège (2000) points out, involves the
inscription of a language in the state’s constitution and is an increasingly indispen-
sable measure for ensuring the preservation and promotion of languages.
100 Words and Worlds
When a language is made official, the prestige this measure gives rise to in the atti-
tudes of the speakers towards their language is remarkable. Linguistic communities
see their efforts to preserve their language reinforced and the measure allows the use
of resources not previously available. Being able to endow themselves with official
resources to promote their language adds to the prestige of its speakers and in the
means available to them in their daily struggle for the promotion and preservation of
their language.
By 2001 the Census showed that there were 582,400 Welsh speakers making up
21 per cent of the population of Wales. This represented stabilisation since the
Census of 1981. The highest percentages (41%) were in the numbers of younger
Welsh speakers (five to fifteen years old).
The language is represented on television (30 hours a week) and radio (120
hours a week). An Education Reform Act of 1988 stipulated that all children in
state schools should be taught Welsh. Most five to fourteen year olds were so
being by 1993. Then, since 1999, all pupils from five to sixteen learn Welsh either
as a first or second language.
The ‘Welsh Language Act’ of 1993 was intended to give Welsh and English
equal legal status in Wales. It does not give Welsh speakers individual rights.
Public bodies, but not private companies, must draw up plans for providing
services in Welsh.
The legislation gave responsibility for receiving and assessing such plans to
‘Bwrdd Yr Iaith Gymraeg/The Welsh Language Board’. The Board also became
responsible for promoting the language. It administers state aid to two annual
‘Eisteddfodau’ or competitive festivals which have become large scale events.
Intergenerational transmission is a problem. Just over 90% of families where
both parents speak Welsh transmit the language. But where just one parent
speaks Welsh the language is spoken at home only 50% of the time.
A movement for pre-school education (‘Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin’) has been
important for developing Welsh medium nursery education since 1970. A
The Official Status of Languages 101
On the other hand, though, there are occasions when the state can declare all
languages official, as in the case of Mozambique, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador.
However, only very rarely does it take real measures towards protecting them.
Constitutions like Colombia’s (1991) proclaim, for example, that “the state recog-
nises and protects the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Colombian Nation”
(article 7) and that “the languages and dialects of the ethnic groups are also official
in their territories.” “The teaching in communities with their own linguistic tradi-
tions will be bilingual” (article 10). The informant for the Awa Pit community,
however, points out that their language “is theoretically official in their territory,
but this has not yet been put into practice.” The same sort of thing seems to happen
in Ecuador, where article 1 of the constitution states that “the State respects and
encourages the development of all the languages of the Ecuatorians. Castilian is the
official language. Quechua, Shuar and the other ancestral languages are used offi-
cially by the indigenous peoples in the terms laid down by the law.” The informant
for Waorani, in turn, points out that his language “is also co-official in their
territory, but (only) in theory.” The informant for Zaparo in Ecuador also coincides
with this feeling and points out that the language is “co-official in its area, but (only)
on a theoretical level.”
The linguistic communities do not express disagreement with this generic procla-
mation of official status; what they want is to be able to take advantage of the means
that real official status implies.
When the state does not go beyond formal declarations, disappointment is an
inevitable consequence. The informant for the Achuar language of Peru, for example,
102 Words and Worlds
clearly demonstrates the inefficacy of mere general recognition: “In fact it has no
official status of any sort as far as the use of this language in the public administration
and other bodies is concerned”.
It is worth adding that this disappointment seems to extend to a number of coun-
tries, to judge from the accounts gathered. With regard to Article 4 of the Constitution
of Mexico (1992), which says that “The Mexican nation has a pluricultural compo-
sition originally based on its indigenous peoples. The Law will protect and promote
the development of their languages, cultures, habits, customs, resources and specific
forms of social organisation”, the informant for Otomi points out that this is “fair but
belated recognition for the indigenous languages”, but that “there’s many a slip twixt
the cup and the lip”.
Generally in these situations of tolerated languages the members of the
linguistic communities involved have only their own resources to work with in
favour of their languages, and can only count on tolerance on the part of the public
institutions. These languages are only used within the linguistic communities and
rarely get to be used in dealings with the administration. Even when they are used
in the educational system, it is generally at the elementary levels and with the
object of integrating the community’s members into the dominant national culture
more quickly.
In addition, those linguistic communities wanting to preserve and cultivate their
languages and cultures are often faced with hostile attitudes from their fellow
citizens, as the informant for Aymara in Peru points out: “Formally it is co-official and
in practice tolerated, but there is also a negative attitude on the part of the dominant
sector of white Creole society”.
The survival and development of a language is not ensured by giving it an official
status or by tolerating its use. However, it is always positive to claim for the right of a
language to become official. If there are speakers and linguistic communities who feel
that their states forget, marginalised or try to do away with their languages, the
problem is even worse. Amongst these cases we find situations like the ones in Turkey
or Botswana, where the use of non-official languages is explicitly forbidden in some
public spheres.
At other times, although the prohibitions are not explicit, the spokespeople for the
linguistic communities understand that the government would like to see the non-
official languages disappear. In this respect they blame the state and the government
for the situation of their languages, which are close to extinction.
This is the case of the informant for Munduruku in Brazil, who says, “I understand
the Brazilian government’s great desire is that they stop using Munduruku and speak
only Portuguese. The sooner the better.” The perception of the informant for Breton in
France also goes this way: “France denies the existence of linguistic minorities on its
territory. The notion of community other than ‘the French national community’ is
banished from the French legislation that only recognises citizens ‘equal in rights’ and
considers the affirmation of specific community rights as discriminatory and contrary
to the principle of ‘republican equality’.”
The Official Status of Languages 103
From the origins of Brittany until well into the 20th century, Breton was the
language spoken by a great majority of the population of its area, Lower Brittany.
Besides, the use of Breton reached its highest level (more than a million speakers
out of one and a half million inhabitants) on the eve of the First World War.
But Breton parallelly suffered a complete exclusion from the education system set
up at that time (from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century),
while French was declared the only teaching language, particularly in primary
school, despite many claims, movements of protest, petitions and draft laws.
It was only by the middle of the century that the change of language imposed
itself and the practice of Breton much declined from then on. After dropping to
less than half-a-million, the number of Breton speakers is now estimated to
roughly 250,000, and “passive Breton users” – who understand Breton but don’t
speak it – are roughly estimated to 360 000, according to recent figures.
On the other hand, for the past two decades there seems to be a strong desire for
the preservation of Breton and its increased access to teaching and media among
at least three-quarters of the concerned population (Lower Brittany). The rate
even came very close to 90% in the latest opinion polls on this issue (1997, 1999).
Admittedly, a change occurred since the Breton language was given a certain
place through the Deixonne law in the fifties, which allowed its introduction in
secondary school. Breton was taught as a second modern language during the
seventies, then as an optional subject and finally bilingual streams were set up
during the last two decades, especially after the creation of the Diwan asso-
ciative schools in 1977. By the end of 200, these schools were the subject of
ministry proposals for their admission under public status with a view to ensure
their development.
Currently, the three bilingual education streams (immersion-type associative
stream, parity-type streams of public and Catholic private schools) enrol around
7,000 pupils (approximately one-third each). To this we must add around 12,000
pupils who receive Breton teaching (as optional or so), which means a total of
less than 20,000 pupils out of more than half-a-million enrolled children in the
district of Rennes (not counting the district of Nantes).
The European Charter for Minority Languages signed by the French
government in 1999 (i.e. 39 articles), should contribute to improve this situation
and legitimate the Breton language, in the field of education as well as in the
field of media and for its officialisation at different levels. This is why the ratifi-
cation of this Charter seems important to us.
Francis Favereau
University of Rennes II, France
104 Words and Worlds
However, political practice in Canada as regards its local languages has not materi-
alised in laws or received financial backing until very recently, when in 1988 the
province of Northwest Territories declared its six aboriginal languages (Chipewyan,
Cree, Dogrib, Gwich’in, Inuktitut and Slavey) co-official in its territory along with
English and French (Ignace 1998).
As a result of this recognition, these languages receive funding for their real implemen-
tation as languages used in the administration and in education and have acted as a point
of reference for the other Canadian provinces and their native linguistic communities.
There are now projects for the teaching and use of Canadian aboriginal languages
in various provinces. As examples we could mention those of the Cree and Inuskitut
communities in James Bay and North Quebec or that of the Mohawk community of
Kahnawake, Quebec, where since 1980 a programme of linguistic immersion in this
language has been in progress following the model used for French in Quebec. This
Mohawk teaching model has given excellent results as regards the learning and use of
the language and is today one of the mirrors in which the other aboriginal linguistic
communities see themselves (Hoover 1992, Ignace 1998).
Although aboriginal linguistic communities do not always seem to get the support
they wish for and need, the explicit wishes of the aborigines and more sensitive legis-
lation have opened a window of hope in Canada as regards the preservation of the
linguistic heritage. This has happened in a part of the world where the threat facing
languages is enormous (Krauss 1992).
Another language that has seen a certain revival in recent years is Maori. It has been
said of Maori that it is a language that has risen from its deathbed. After centuries of
marginalisation the Maori language was declared official in New Zealand in 1987.
Aborigines and defenders of the language had been fighting since the sixties for its
inclusion in the educational system and its use in public life. In about 1980 the first
linguistic immersion educational programmes in Maori began to be applied and,
thanks to the determination of its defenders and to legal and financial support from
the New Zealand administration, Maori has gained in prestige and raised its level of
use (Ministry of Maori Development 1998).
The most serious move in this respect was the approval in 1992 by the Committee
of Ministers of the EU of what is known as the European Charter of Regional or
Minority Languages, which was submitted to member states for their signature and
practical recognition. This Charter lays down the obligations of states in the attempt
to preserve the linguistic rights of its minorities and of citizens who do not speak the
official language. To facilitate the signature by states of this charter, only general obli-
gations are mentioned, without making any reference to specific languages. As a
result, the document is purely symbolic.
Even so, the Charter demands minimum measures in teaching, in the media, in
cultural facilities, in public and administrative life, recognition of the plurilingual
reality and a firm will to preserve and promote it. For all these reasons it can be
considered an important step forward, so long, of course, that its recommendations
are respected and carried out. For this it will be necessary for all the EU member states
to sign the Charter and comply with its contents.
In addition, the Council of Europe has expressly invited all the European states to
give their support to this charter. At the end of 2001, 27 states had signed the Charter
and 14 of them had ratified it: Germany, Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Slovenia, Spain,
Finland, Holland, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Norway, United Kingdom, Sweden and
Switzerland. Amongst the signers who had not yet ratified it were: Armenia, Cyprus,
Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta,
Rumania, Russia and Ukraine. On the other hand, 16 states in the Council of Europe –
Albania, Andorra, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Ireland,
Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Poland, Portugal, San Marino and Turkey – had not yet
signed the Charter.
Another EU organisation that works to preserve the European linguistic heritage is
the EBLUL (European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages). This institution estimates
that 40 million citizens of the EU speak a language other than those considered official
in the EU and advocates full recognition of their linguistic rights.
One of the EBLUL’s most recent initiatives, for example, is its proposed resolution
for the promotion of Occitan as an official language at the Winter Olympics to be held
in Turin in 2006.
In Africa, too, in recent decades there have been a series of conferences and
meetings of state representatives to outline and plan several aspects of linguistic
policy. In Harare in 1997, at the Intergovernmental Conference of Ministers on
Language Policies in Africa, organised by UNESCO with the collaboration of the
OAU (Organisation of African Unity) and the ACCT (Francophone Agency) and the
financial support of the Republic of Zimbabwe, at which government experts from 51
states took part, a clear wish was expressed to design a future in which linguistic
wealth would be favoured and protected through government action.
At this conference a proposed action plan was also drafted, which pursued the
implementation of real measures by government authorities with a view to the
promotion of languages in the spheres of education, administration, culture, media,
communication, economy, etc.
108 Words and Worlds
Along the same lines, the Asmara proclamation, in 2000, underlines the need to
further African languages and literature in the face of the tendency to maintain
colonial languages as vehicles for communication in Africa.
See Map 5 showing language diversity in South Africa.
and establish the principles for fair and equitable planetary linguistic peace as a prin-
cipal factor of social coexistence.”
Amongst the basic ideas that guided the drafting of this Universal Declaration of
Linguistic Rights is the principle of the equality of all peoples and all languages. The
initial concept is that neither the internal characteristics of languages nor the
particular economic, social, religious or cultural features of the people who speak
them justify any kind of discrimination.
Given the centrality of the interests of the State in the goals of language
policy, policy making and implementation becomes the prerogative of the
government. The government is not neutral ideologically and so is not a
neutral arbiter when the interests of the different segments of the society come
into conflict. Its policy is shaped by the ideology of the ruling class and by the
interests of this class and so the policy becomes an instrument of this class to
retain its power. A consequence of this connection in making policy is that its
implementation draws more on the legal sanction of the policy by the State
than on the will of the people. The State has to enact laws for the acceptance of
the policy by the people and adherence to it; there are social sanctions for non-
compliance like denial of educational and economic opportunities. When
people protest against one or other aspect of the policy, it is suppressed using
the power of the State. There are other consequences as well. Policy implemen-
tation depends on bureaucratic will rather than on the demands of the people;
it becomes a governmental programme rather than a popular programme.
There may be disjunction between the policy pronounced by the government
and the actual practice of the people.
These features of policy making and implementation reflect the fact that the
ruling class generally is drawn from the linguistic majority and consequently
the interests of the linguistic minorities are not incorporated in the policy. These
features, however, are found with regard to the linguistic majority also when a
globally dominant language is involved. In many developing countries, their
formal colonial language is eschewed in the policy but embraced by the people.
The case of English is the paradigm example of this. This results from the fact
that policies in other spheres like economics are contrary to the goals of
language policy. The economic policy may promote capital intensive, high tech
industries and integration with the global market, which are perceived by the
ruling class to be beneficial. This kind of economy enhances the value of the
global language for knowledge accumulation and dissemination and so
increases the demand for it by the people in spite of the language policy
promoting a native language. Public policy and private choice of language
diverge even for the linguistic majority in a nation.
Such divergence is a manifestation of the relation of dominance between
languages in which one or some languages abrogate the functions of all public
domains that give power. Promotion of the relation of dominance is inherent in
the traditional language policy and thus emerges one or some dominant
languages out of the multitude of languages. It is inherent in the policy because
the policy is to aid national governance and a centralised governing structure is
made easy by the dominant language, which is made good use of by the bureau-
cracy to assert its authority. The dominance of a language forces or induces a
114 Words and Worlds
Some advantages follow the above shift in the domain of the policy. The
cultural needs of rootedness and distinctiveness of individuals and commu-
nities get equal weight with the political needs of unity and solidarity of
nations. These needs do not exclude each other. Unlike traditional language
policy, the linguistic functionality of the individual and the community is not
left to be the default function or, at best, to be the residue of the national policy.
All three domains get equal attention in the policy. All linguistic communities,
big and small, get a place in the policy, not just the majority community. Cross
border communities could have common functionality at their level on to
which the national level functionality is super-imposed. The negative features
of the traditional language policy mentioned earlier will not manifest itself
because the individual, the community and the nation are not moving in
different directions.
The domain shift brings with it a structural change in the agency of policy
making. The government has been the exclusive agent to make policy. The new
global and ethnic forces constraining the freedom of the government to make
policy for the nation have already been mentioned. In the new approach, the
government is one of the three agents along with the individual and the
community. The individual is free to make his or her decision (i.e. policy) of
language use and so does the community. The constraint is that the policies
made by the three agents are in concert. For the three agents of language policy
to function in relative freedom the control mechanism in the polity must be
decentralised. A good candidate for decentralised control is the school system.
The community has control over the school and decides language choice in
education accommodating individual and national preferences.
The role of the government in the overall language policy is neither central
nor independent. In addition to making that part of the policy that safeguards
national interests, it assumes other responsibilities like facilitating the
community and the individual to make decisions on language use, synchro-
nising the decisions made at the three levels and balancing the language rights
of the individual, the community and the State.
There is another aspect to the decentralised language policy making.
Decisions about policy must be well informed. Otherwise they may not be in
the interest of their makers themselves. Individuals and communities
without power may accept the negative perception of their language as defi-
cient and useless inculcated by others in power and this may bias their
decision about the use of their language. They may further be enticed by the
rewards of the language of the powerful and mesmerised into believing that
the rewards are automatic when that language becomes dominant in their
language repertoire edging out others. This calls for programmes for creating
The Official Status of Languages 117
• Legislate on linguistic matters on the basis of respect for the wish of indi-
viduals to use their own language in public and in private, and according to
the principle of the right to maintain and develop one’s own language.
• Structure societies on the basis of respect for the wish of linguistic commu-
nities to use their own language in education, in the administration of public
services, in the sphere of justice and, in general, in all spheres of public and
private activity.
• Explicitly recognise, in the constitution or in the supreme judicial ordinance,
the co-official status at state level of all the languages of the territory, or at
least the official status of each language in its area (autonomy, province,
federation, canton, city, etc.).
• Provide real and effective administrative and financial support on the part of
the authorities for putting into effect educational and language-use projects
in the public sphere and the administration.
• Establish and further a body to control these measures in each linguistic
community, administered by the community itself.
• In those cases in which a community is divided over various states, promote
the community’s own supra-state body for the coordination of the different
linguistic and cultural programmes.
• Publicise and spread existing positive practices and models, to which end we
hereby appeal to linguists and members of all the planet’s social and scien-
tific communities to increase their efforts in this direction, either through
organised encounters or through academic and social diffusion.
• Exchange experiences and coordinate the efforts by states, state organisa-
tions, supra-state organisations or popular initiatives working in this field.
• Establish an international body of an informative type both to denounce viola-
tions of linguistic rights and to mediate in the solution of any problems arising.
Chapter 4
The Use of Languages in Public
Administration
Why is it important for a language to have access to public administration?
The use of a given language by governmental institutions always brings prestige to
it because it is associated with the power wielded by the political and administrative
structures. Administrative uses, and especially in writing, have furthermore
developed specific registers and styles in languages which have access to them.
Consequently, it is logical that any linguistic community should want to be able to use
its language when dealing with administrative bodies.
Given the political structure of states, many languages have not been able to
exercise any administrative role. This non-use, of course, does not imply any intrinsic
shortcoming in the language that cannot be overcome with use. It is important to
emphasise, furthermore, that forms of use can be very varied, from informal oral use
to the most specialised written use. It is also important to bear in mind that according
to the characteristics of the administrative organisation, depending, for example, on
whether it is run by members of the community or outsiders, the possibilities for
using the language can be considerably increased or decreased.
In the information gathered, it can be seen that use of a language in public services
depends directly on its official status. But this is not a sufficient guarantee. There can
also be examples of communities in which, in spite of lacking the desired legal status
for their language, it is at least tolerated and members of the community can use it for
some administrative purposes.
In this chapter we shall analyse the relation between the official status of a
language and its use in administration, with special attention to whether or not the
use reported is written or oral.
119
120 Words and Worlds
Despite its low population density in pre-industrial times, Siberia (including the
Russian Far East) is home to substantial linguistic diversity. Apart from recently
introduced languages like Russian, the following families are represented:
Uralic (western Siberia), Turkic (southern Siberia, also Yakut (Saha) in eastern
Siberia), Tungusic (central and eastern Siberia), Mongolic (southern Siberia), as
well as the so-called Paleo-Siberian (Paleo-Asiatic) languages: Yeniseian (central
The Use of Languages in Public Administration 121
Malabar (India) and Tibetan (China). These languages make up another 6% of the
total of languages.
Languages without official recognition. There are languages that in spite of lacking
official or co-official status are nevertheless used in public administration. These
make up 1% of the sample languages, as reported by, for example, the informant for
Acholi in Uganda:
It is used in administration, since most people do not express themselves well in
English in official documents, and especially in the sphere of the rural commu-
nities, Acholi is used a lot in writing. (Acholi, Uganda)
Languages with normalised oral use and incipient written use in public
administration
Five percent of the sample languages show normal oral and some sporadic written
use in public administration. Some (1% of the total) are languages which in spite of
being official or co-official state languages are used very little in writing. This is the
situation of, for example, Guarani in Paraguay, Urdu in Pakistan, Belarusian in
Belarus and Maltese in Malta. The accounts of the informants on Urdu and Maltese
are revealing in this respect:
Maltese is the national language, and co-official with English according to the
Constitution. It is the language of the Parliament and the Law Courts. It is spoken
generally in all administrative levels, but most of the writing is carried out in English.
(Maltese, Malta)
Urdu is the national language. Yes, it is used in offices in verbal form, very rarely in
written as mostly the written language is English. (Urdu, Pakistan)
Others (2% of the total) are languages that while co-official in their territory or part of
it are barely used in writing in public administration. Some examples of these are Igbo
(Nigeria), Ndebele (Zimbabwe) and Dai (China).
The Igbo language has an official status. It is one of the three major languages
alongside Hausa and Yoruba taught in the school system – primary, secondary and
tertiary levels. It is used to some extent, mostly in the spoken form. Official documents
in the country are usually written in English. There are, however, a few instances
where these documents may be translated into the three major languages: Hausa, Igbo
and Yoruba. (Igbo, Nigeria)
In the Xishuangbanna and Dehong Dai Autonomous Prefectures, Dai is an official
language and has the same status as Chinese. Dai is used in administration along with
Chinese. At the prefectural and county levels, Chinese is used more; at the township and
village levels, Dai is used more. In terms of writing, Chinese is mostly used. Dai writing
is only used for certain important documents or when there is a necessity to inform those
living in townships or villages. (Dai, China)
The Use of Languages in Public Administration 123
Finally, there is another group of languages (2% of the total) which while not
official or co-official are also used in public administration, though their written
use is very limited.
no explicit recognition, which is the case of Uitoto (Colombia), Cabecar (Costa Rica)
and Fongbe (Benin).
Formally they are co-official and in practice tolerated or even rejected by the dominant
sector of white Creole society. In the public and private administration the Aymara
language is not used, either orally or in writing. (Aymara, Peru)
According to the new political Constitution of 1991, ‘The state recognises and protects the
ethnic and cultural diversity of the Colombian Nation’ (Article 7). ‘The languages and
dialects of the ethnic groups are also official in their territories. The teaching in commu-
nities with linguistic traditions of their own will be bilingual’ (Article 10). Even so, the
language is not used at all by the administration.” (Uitoto, Colombia)
In 1987 this language – and 5 others – was raised to the rank of national languages that
must be promoted as a priority in Benin. Fon is not in use by the administration.
However we must point out a movement of hope since at the level of the Beninian
parliament, some deputies can only understand their own national languages. These
deputies are starting to claim that the parliamentary sessions should also take place in
Fon. (Fongbe, Benin”)
This large group has given rise to accounts from informants in which it can be seen
that they are not aware of any tolerance of their languages by public adminis-
tration. Contrary to their wishes, the speakers come up against obstacles imposed
by the administrative authorities that hinder the use of the language by
government services.
The language is not official yet. To this day, Portuguese is the only official language of the
islands. There are however efforts being made to endow Kriolu with a joint-official status.
In terms of acceptance of the language, a survey I conducted on the islands in the summer
of 1997 showed that the overwhelming majority of the people interviewed not only
accepted the language but also favoured its officialisation by the side of Portuguese
(Capeverdean Creole, Cape Verde)
Bantawa is not allowed to use in administration (Bantawa, Nepal)
France denies the existence of linguistic minorities on its territory. The notion of
community other than the French national community is banished from the French legis-
lation that only recognises citizens equal in rights and considers the affirmation of specific
community rights as discriminatory and contrary to the principle of republican equality.
Article 2 of the French Constitution, as modified in 1992, states that the language of the
Republic is French. The written use of Breton is banished from public administration. Its
oral use is anecdotal or confidential. (Breton, France)
These figures are surprising, because a careful reading of them could suggest, for
example, that in many situations recognition of official or co-official status for a
language in its territory or part of it is more symbolic than real. We need only note that
while 19% of the languages in the sample are co-official in their territory, only 6% of
The Use of Languages in Public Administration 125
them can possibly be used in writing normally in dealings with the administration
and 2% only show incipient use (see Table 5, column 2).
From all this we can conclude that only 13% of the languages in the sample
show real normalised use in public administration, regardless of their official
status. Of course, we must not forget the 5% which are said to show incipient
written use. Any achievement, any presence of the language in a medium such as
the administration, must always be defended and backed up if we want to
preserve linguistic diversity.
However, in the face of these facts, we must make an urgent appeal to the adminis-
trative and public authorities for practical measures to encourage the use of all their
languages in public institutions.
In analysing the use of languages in government services, it can be seen that in
many situations the recognition of official or co-official status for a language seems
more symbolic than real. We need only note that while 19% of languages in the
sample are official or co-official, less than a third (6% of the total) show any degree of
normal written use in dealings with governmental institutions. Furthermore, there is
a symbolic 2% of the total of languages that only use writing in public services
sporadically (see Table 5, column 2).
This does not mean that oral use is not important. In fact, the informants them-
selves mention that insofar as citizens have access to administrative or to government
bodies, they use their own language, sometimes because they express themselves
better than in the official or administration language, and at others because they want
to exercise their right to use it. These, of course, are acts that show a considerable
awareness or linguistic vitality that very often has nothing to do with the official
status of the language.
Although contact situations between languages have traditionally been
considered a problem for administrators, it is urgent that administrative bodies
should look on multilingual situations as normal and they must be managed as such
by the administration as well. Just as in education the simultaneous use of more than
one language need not be an obstacle to communication if one can appreciate the
value of diversity.
In any case, every effort made for languages to figure more prominently in political
and administrative bodies will always be positive both for the prestige and for the
development of new linguistic forms in each language. Because of all this, it is
important that we appeal to the administrative and public authorities so that they
take every measure available to them and protect this fundamental right with imagi-
native measures, taking advantage of the innovations to be found in technology and
always bearing in mind that the basic object of the administration is to ensure the
greatest well-being for its citizens.
126 Words and Worlds
Censuses with linguistic data have been with us for a long time. Certainly a few
countries have had language questions in their censuses for the better part of the
20th century (eg. Canada, India, Soviet Union) but even fewer in the 19th
century (eg. Canada, India, Belgium). Other countries have been late arrivals on
the scene and have only shown an official interest in such data in recent years
(e.g. Spain, USA) and others have gathered language data in the past but have
not done so in recent times (e.g. Belgium).
To broaden the scope of what has been called linguistic data above, we could
include in this discussion not just language data per se, but also data on ethnic or
national groups as well. In doing so, we would ipso facto add many more countries
to our list of those gathering ‘linguistic’ type data or what would be better termed
ethno-linguistic type data. As language here defined is spoken by people, and
people are themselves regrouped by longstanding ancestral and cultural relation-
ships, data on these quite intact human groups can often shed some light on their
linguistic affiliations (ibid. Kloss and McConnell, volume 1, Introduction).
Obviously, broad ethno-linguistic links exist, but these need not be on a uniquely
one-to-one basis, as an ethnic group can easily be found to speak more than one
language on the one hand, and on the other, one language can often be spoken by
several ethnic groups. This state of affairs has come about through a long
historical process of diffraction and assimilation of languages. Here horizonal
(geographical) space, involving also geographical barriers to communication, is
paramount in the diffraction process. On the other hand, assimilation results in
the loss of a language by a group, so that a language initially spoken by one group
is lost and another language takes its place. Hence, the language spoken first by
one group is later spoken by two or more. Here vertical (social) space is para-
mount, in that a number of languages may come to be used in a social space,
resulting in the spread of some and the contraction of other languages.
When we try to make these less than neat associations between closely
interknit groups and their languages, it is usually presumed that we are
speaking of the first language learned in childhood and still spoken, which is usually
referred to as the mother tongue. Between the mother tongue and the ethnic
group then, there is some kind of intimate consociational relationship (an
ecological community with a common mother tongue), which in many cases
lasts from generation to generation, and which allows one not only to link, but
almost to identify, the one in terms of the other. This is not nearly so much the
case for other-than-mother-tongue languages (second, third, forth, etc.
languages), which have a much more tenuous relationship with the ethnic
group and which are usually determined by conditions of social proximity
The Use of Languages in Public Administration 127
Apart from the usual standard type of data relating to: (i) mother tongue, i.e.
‘the first language learned and still spoken’, (ii) second or other languages spoken
(able to keep up a conversation in the language), there are sometimes questions
about whether languages are read or written. There are also, but only very occa-
sionally, questions on speaking a language in a particular contextual situation,
which constitutes a very useful dimension, e.g. ‘Language most often spoken in
the home?’, as in more recent Canadian censuses. The most recent census in
Canada, i.e. that of 2001, will still add further questions of this nature, namely,
‘The language most often spoken at work?, The second most used language at
work? and ’The second most used language at home?’. This type of question is
important, as it relates directly to the functional or utilitarian aspect of language
and not just to general language skills, which are largely assumed in the func-
tional context. Second, it includes in the functional aspect one of frequency or
dominance. Language function is a whole different area of study not centred on
the individual speaker and his/her language skills, but on dominant or coor-
dinate language usage in a specific ‘social’ territory. This type of data has only
been superficially covered in language censuses, but when it has been used there
or elsewhere, has given rise to challenging comparisons and promising analyses.
Very little data of this nature has come out of the conventional census, probably
because such data raises sensitive questions of language role and utility/function-
ality, that can lead to further embarrassing questions on language community
rights, to language spread, maintenance and loss, and to language domination.
However, sociolinguistic research on language communities has generated a large
amount of data over the past 40 years, although much of it is based on case studies
that give neither a wide coverage or a strong comparative basis. One such study
that has these qualities and which covers several hundred languages spoken on
several continents is: The Written Languages of the World: A Survey of the Degree and
Modes of Use (Kloss and McConnell 1978, 1989, 1989; McConnell et al. 1995, 1998,
2000). Here the data that has been gathered is based on the same questionnaire
(with limited local adaptions) with information on 8 social domains (govern-
ments, schools, mass media, industries, etc.) and in each of these domains on a
number of levels. This has allowed us to create a functional portrait that is both
descriptive and quantifiable.
THE POTENTIAL FOR LINGUISTIC DATA IN CENSUS
If it were not for the political impediments and objections raised against the
collection of linguistic data in censuses, this type of data could go a long way to
solidifying language and linguistic community rights and to adding to the main
outlines of an ethnographic and geolinguistic patterning of the world’s
languages and peoples. This framework, once established, would also allow us
to study in a more serious vein the internal interaction of this patterning
The Use of Languages in Public Administration 129
(language and community contact) against the backdrop of other types of social
and economic interaction in order to better evaluate more seriously the effect of
the one on the other. It is only then that any serious kind of prognosis or
prediction can be undertaken. Unfortunately both linguists and sociolinguists
in the recent turn of century events could not resist the temptation to predict the
demise of most of the languages of the world (Hagège, Crystal, Krauss, etc.).
However, it is certain that basic linguistic and sociolinguistic portraits of most of
the languages of the world that are required for this framework are simply
either not available, are out of date or are incomplete.
So in spite of the pitfalls in language census data, some of which are
mentioned above, the census still has a role to play in gathering data of this
nature worldwide. And this role can and undoubtedly will become ever more
important, once this data is not just at the service of individual nation states, but
at the service of worldwide institutions, the aim of which is to foster the dissem-
ination of important and useful and even critical ethnolinguistic data on the
peoples and languages of the world.
Grant D. McConnell
Laval University, Canada
130 Words and Worlds
131
132 Words and Worlds
You have come to the village of the Ena Wene Nawé, an Arawak people of the
Juruena river, Mato Grosso, Brazil. In 1974 they had their first visitors from the
“others”. At the beginning of 1978 I am in their midst and I am writing my notes
in a notebook on my knees. The natives watch the movement of my wrist and
the birth of the signs lining up from left to right with curiosity. One day Kawair°
asks me if my companion will be back soon; another day, I am asked if the
woman we left dying in the village has died yet. Writing, they think, can predict,
prophesy, bring the distance near and leap across time.
One day I take a book with me containing mythical stories of the Paresi, another
Arawak people with long contact with “civilisation” and once visited by Claude
Lévi-Strauss. I have been with the Ena Wene Nawé for some years now, and I have
never before read aloud what I write in Portuguese. What sense could they make
of that bla-bla-bla of mine? But for whatever reason, today I decide to read aloud.
When I pronounce words in a similar dialect, they immediately understand. And
then one of them, realising that I do not know enough of the language to give such
a long account so well, snatches the book from me intrigued…and listens to it.
There is no doubt I saw the voice, the voice was inside the book.
Going from orality to writing is not an impersonal act. Someone has to specif-
ically transmit the voice to the hands and from the hands to a sign, written,
drawn, lined up vertically or horizontally, and transmitted back to the eyes.
While there is a taste of language that is relished, savoured, is moistened with
saliva or dries in the throat, there is also writing that is touched, though it would
take an almost superhuman sense of touch to make out the relief in writing
unless it were cuneiform or glyptic or some other form of graffito. But essen-
tially, writing makes it possible to see words and to hear what we see, since what
we hear is endowed with visibility. In orality and writing all the senses that are
strengthened and enhanced on the basis of utterances intervene. Today we
know that no word can be uttered that cannot be at once time and space. But
what is really universal is the language of the mouth, which we call oral and
which no human society can do without.
The experience by which I happened to assist at the birth of reading in a
village filled me with wonder and fear. It all began as a game, but then I began to
wonder how it would end. How often they took my notebook from my hands
and filled the lines from left to right with drawings – graphemes – that were
different but fairly repetitive – that is, discrete units of an almost closed series of
figures, an attempt at a kind of alphabet. An attempt to imitate? Probably.
In what were to become early pages of writing there was not as yet, it seemed,
any intention of mastery, as Claude Lévi-Strauss thought he had discovered
Language and Writing 133
when that Nambikwara Indian, precisely in the same area where I was now
with the Ena Wene Nadw, appropriated writing, trying to make use of those
scribblings as an instrument of power. Before my eyes, though, was a barely
gratuitous act and – why not? – an amusement. This has been the common
paradigm of the history of writing in the peoples who have adopted it. Not
always, but it presents a way in which writing can emerge and be accepted
which would perhaps not be very traumatic for those peoples and languages
who adopt it.
Death in books?
The Yanomami refer to letters with the word kanasi, which means “vestige,
corpse, remains, sign or hint”. In fact, writing can be all these things: the corpse
of a dead body, the waste remains of empty words, but also the vestige of a
memory, the hint of future life, a sign of battle.
According to accounts of people’s first encounters with letters and books, the
situation created is not a very hopeful one.
Pedro Mártir de Anglería and Francisco López de Gomara speak of the rever-
ential fear of the natives before these newcomers who “made paper speak”.
Written paper, understandably, seemed almost as fearful and as terrible as the
firearms that wounded and killed from a distance, since it brought and issued
words of life and death over even greater distances. Written paper was the
instrument of great powers that came from far away, through voices that were
never heard but that were “seen” in the picture on the paper.
According to one account from 1614, at the time when the Jesuits in Paraguay
were carrying out their “Reducciones”, the Guarani distrusted these men who
spent so much time reading their breviaries. The Jesuit writes, “Throughout the
Paraná they spread [the idea] that we were spies and false priests and that we
brought death in our books”. The Jesuit chronicle also reports that one Guarani
youth, on seeing “the priest was praying for the book in his hands, conceived
that the tupa kuatia, as they called books or paper, revealed his betrayal; because
they have conceived that, when they see that we communicate through letters,
these speak to us and reveal that which is secret and foretell the future”.
The notebooks and field diaries of ethnographers who have had experiences
of first contact with indigenous societies record similar reactions. The neolo-
gisms created by the natives themselves to express the novelty of written paper
are revealing. The Guarani called letters kuatia, a name with which they also
refer to the drawings and paintings with which they adorn themselves: ava
ikuatia for “the man written with paintings”. The Guarani-Chiriguano called
paper tupa pire, “divine skin” or “skin that casts spells” (shamanistic).
The truth is that writing and literacy have become an unavoidable task of
globalisation. In fact, there may be no greater globalisation today than writing,
134 Words and Worlds
though in such a range of forms that those of us who are of one language are
illiterate before another.
Only the market is perhaps more globalised than writing itself, but the
market economy could hardly become widespread except through a system of
letters and numbers.
The debate over the death throes – the struggle and approaching death – of
the voice in the face of writing had a lofty exponent as far back as Plato himself.
Must we continue to mistrust writing? Is it still in most cases an instrument of
domination? And even worse, the death of words?
But would it not still be possible to play with letters, like voices seen and
painted? Writing is a visible support for the voice and not necessarily its rival,
although at present its dominant fixation is sought.
Bartomeu Melià
“Antonio Guasch” Centre for Paraguayan Studies, Paraguay
Similarly, no-one is in any doubt that the prestige of written language is associated
with the social, religious and political history of most communities. As Landaburu
points out (1998), it is the possessors of technology (scribes, priests, officials, jurists,
etc.) who have overvalued the use of writing, taking advantage of the position of
power this use gave them. It is therefore logical that the mastery of writing is also
considered an important asset to social liberation.
Although the values attributed to writing can be questioned, we nevertheless know
that society – and this includes all the informants in our research – considers written
language essential for a language to subsist and to acquire the prestige necessary to be
passed on. It is therefore not the object of this review to dismiss or detract from writing.
It is, however, important to stress that writing does not constitute a necessary condition
for a language to be considered an invaluable asset of the cultural heritage of humanity.
TOTAL 100%
The figures in Table 6 provide important information for assessing the state of
languages as regards written use. If we only looked at the answer to “is the language
written or not?”, we would be reduced to the information provided in the first line of
the table, which tells us that more than 80% of the languages analysed are used in
writing. However, because of the extreme differences to be found in the act of writing,
we also need to look into the information that has been obtained on standardisation
and on written literary traditions. Of course, we need to go back over what is
considered standard language and on the possible misinterpretations of the question
on written language. Suffice it to say, for the time being, that only a third of all
languages, those that claim to have a standard language and a standard literature,
show a relatively normalised use of writing.
Writing is a factor to which informants attach great importance. Generally it brings
prestige to the language, especially when there is an ancient written tradition to fall
back on, as shown by informants of Sindhi, Breton and Tibetan.
The Literary tradition is as ancient as the language itself (10,000 years). Poetry: Shah-
jo-Risaco, Sachal-jo-Risalo. Texts: Mirza Kaleech Beg Allama I. Kazi and others.
(Sindhi, India)
136 Words and Worlds
The Breton literary tradition is very ancient. Originally oral (bardic tradition), it appears
in writing in the twelfth century. This inspired the Matière de Bretagne by Chrestien de
Troyes. Since the creation of the Gwalarn literary movement in 1925, novels, short novels,
poetry and plays have not ceased to appear. (Breton, France)
There is an abundant collection of traditional folk literature in the Tibetan language. This
includes mainly folk songs, myths, legends, stories, narrative poems, long songs and
heroic epics. The Story of King Geser is a Tibetan heroic epic which consists of over 100
sections and which has over 50 different versions. Tibetan operas consisting of over 10
different plays and several Tibetan ballads are also very popular throughout Tibetan
regions. (Tibetan, Tibet)
In many cases, writing has begun recently – in the last century – as in the case of
Zhuang, Jingpo and many other Chinese languages, or many African languages like
Somali or Bamanankan. Very often, and this would be the case of the examples given,
the beginning of writing coincides with colonisation and even, sometimes, seems to
have been induced by it. This does not lessen the value attached to its presence and use.
It has a phonetic script based on the Latin alphabet which was created in 1957. Among the
Zhuang people another form of writing based on Chinese characters is used for native
poems and plays, but the shapes of the characters vary between regions. It has a rich
corpus of literature. Most of them have been transmitted orally down through the genera-
tions. Since the creation of the Zhuang writing system, these traditional works have grad-
ually been published. (Zhuang, China)
There has been a written system since 1972; there are poems, songs, dances, stories.
(Somali, Somalia)
The Jingpo writing system, which was based on the Latin alphabet, was created in 1899.
(Jingpo, China)
The known use dates from 1930 through Kaarta’s Bamanankan (writing called ‘masaba’).
(Bamanankan, Mali)
A separate mention is needed for the writing systems adopted by different
linguistic communities. The processes some languages have been through in the
adoption of different codifications (alphabetic, syllabic, ideographic, etc.) constitute
interesting aspects of the cultural experience undergone by the respective commu-
nities. These circumstances, however, are in many cases the reflection of the partic-
ularly troublesome historical situations that so many communities have suffered
and still suffer.
Examples of this type are the writing in the Abaza language of the Russian
Federation, which according to our informant, was until 1938 based on the Latin
alphabet and after this date on the Cyrillic alphabet; that of the Malay language of
Malaysia, which has two written forms, Latin and Arabic; that of Kirgiz, which in China
has writing based on Arabic signs and in Kyrgyzstan on Cyrillic; Meitei, in India, which
Language and Writing 137
The Summer Institute of Linguistics prepared literacy reading-books in this language but
they were used very little. The Central Bank of Guayaquil has produced publications on
mythology which are hardly used either by speakers. At present the Confederation of
Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) is publishing material which is being
used in the bilingual schools. (Colorado, Ecuador)
The development of writing in each language will nevertheless depend on the ideo-
logical, economic and institutional resources the community itself can manage.
The fact that all known languages are equal as regards their degree of
complexity and potential does not mean that they are the same. Each language
achieves that degree in its own way; no two languages are the same in this
aspect, each one has its own grammatical personality within the common arena
that defines human languages. Every single one of the languages of the world is
an original and efficient contribution to the rigorous demands of expression and
communication amongst human beings and communities.
Juan Carlos Moreno
Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
because they contain much philosophical knowledge and provide us with insight about
how the ancients viewed the world. (Namuyi, China)
Written forms include a phonetic script based on the Latin alphabet, as well as the new
Latin Lisu script created after 1949. There is a wealth of literature which includes
‘Genesis’, ‘The Shepherd’s Song’ and the ‘White-Haired Bird’, as well as the Bible and
Christian hymns of praise. (Lisu, China)
Of course, widespread languages that are official state languages and that have an
extensive literature in production today satisfy all three conditions.
This group also includes languages that are currently undergoing recession or have
had a flourishing literature in the past but have lost that condition for one reason or
another. In this group, there are also languages whose written use is just beginning
and has not yet extended to all the community of speakers.
Writing processes, like any other linguistic activity, are dynamic by nature.
Situations can change due to a number of circumstances. Informants seemed to
consider it a good thing to be able to write a language and to do so as often as
possible and for as many uses as possible. The survey also reflects the difficulty
involved in this practice when the language is in decline. Bearing in mind the pride
and satisfaction which arises from possessing written texts, especially for
minorised languages, it is important to emphasise and appreciate the effort made
by these communities.
Similarly, we have been able to confirm that in spite of having a written code, many
languages hardly have any written work and that neither writing (nor reading), at
least in their own language(s), is as yet a normal practice in that linguistic community.
Similarly, it is known for a fact that our figures also confirm the existence of
languages which have a written literary tradition and which nevertheless have not
accepted a standard variety for all the written practice of the linguistic community as
a whole. These account for approximately 20% of this group. The example of Uma, an
Indonesian language, illustrates this situation.
If you mean standard orthography used in all literature, yes, there is standardisation. All
literature that has been produced is in the Kantewu (Central) dialect, and the established
orthography has been used. But if you mean is there a standard dialect or standard
written form used by all dialects, no. Other dialects accept Kantewu dialect better than
they would any other dialect, but many people would still prefer to read their own dialect.
(Uma, Indonesia)
On standard language
The concept of a standard language is a Western notion usually associated with the
written language, as it is through writing that the corresponding rules are normally
established and fixed. It is nevertheless important to remember, as Moreno Cabrera
says in this same work, that “the process of standardisation of a language or groups of
linguistic varieties does not introduce any new elements that would fundamentally
modify the quality of that language and make it superior to the varieties”. It is also
true, however, that the adoption of certain formal regularities, be they lexical,
morphological, orthographical, etc., can bring stability and thereby increase the
chances of identification and cohesion the language gives the group. The standard,
however, insofar as it is usually built from forms used by the elite (see Bronckart in
this same text), also raises problems for its adoption by the community as a whole.
Whatever conception our informants have, almost half the languages in this sample are
standardised, according to the information they have provided. On the other hand, the
other half are not, although 10% say they are being standardised at the present moment.
As we pointed out above, the concept of standard language is not unequivocal. For
example, for a large number of informants a language need not necessarily be used
habitually in writing to be considered standardised. In fact, 20% of the languages that
claim to have a standard language are hardly used in writing, but are languages of a
fundamentally oral tradition. The standard, in these cases, is associated with the oral
use, and is a variety which receives general acceptance within the community.
The following list sums up the reasons given in the survey to support how the
standard language came about:
• The standard is based on one of the dialects although it is influenced by others. The
case of Waffa or Yele, in Papua New Guinea, corresponds to this criterion since one
variety of the language is said to have been accepted as standard.
Language and Writing 143
Halbi spoken in and around Jagadalpur is considered a standard one. All India Radio
broadcasts programmes in Halbi. The only local newspaper of Bastar Dandakaranya
Samachai publishes News in Halbi in Nagarisaint. Hence, this standard variety is
recognised. Hence, Halbi spoken in the central part of Bastar is considered the
standard one. (Halbi, India)
• And although sporadic, there is no shortage of associations between the concepts
of standard language and artificial language. In the same way, there are those who
speak of changes in acceptance of the standard.
During the 1950s, the vernacular form used in Jinhua town in Jianchuan Country was
considered to be the standard form. However, over the past few years, it has been
replaced by the vernacular used in Xizhou Town in Dali City. (Bai, China)
However, most accounts considered that having a standard variety is good for
prestige and especially for allowing the use of language in writing. The disparity of
opinions confirms the range of circumstances that can affect the creation and devel-
opment of a standard variety. It is also very important to point out that, as the infor-
mation shows, the standard variety is not essential either for written use or for
literary production and even less so for the survival of a language. The informers
seemed to be clear that it is their use, both orally and in writing, that ensures the
survival and development of languages.
In the same way, it cannot be said either that the existence of a standard variety
necessarily ensures written literary production. A wide range of situations can arise
in the development of languages and their written varieties, be these considered
standard or not. Within the group selected, the languages with a standard that never-
theless lack a literary tradition account for 35%.
• Functional norms are related to the conditions of use of a particular natural language;
they indicate the choice of signs and of texts that, regardless of any intrinsic
value judgement, seem more accurate or more suitable in a determined situ-
ation of communication, to express content or comment on an activity.
• Cultural norms are related to the presumed quality of language productions, and
therefore largely depend on aesthetic judgement. They can translate into a
comparison of languages, leading us to consider that some of them could be more
complete or more logical or “nicer” than others, and also leading us to consider
that the best languages could be those that both possess a writing system and
have been the subject of technical descriptions. Cultural norms generally give
more importance to the characteristics of written forms compared to oral forms
and, within written forms, they favour a subgroup of a literary nature.
• Theoretical norms result from the steps made towards language knowledge in
philosophy or in linguistics. In philosophy, an important thread claims that
the structures of languages are but the direct translation either of a logic of
the world or of a logic of thought, both of universal status. In this perspective
diversity and change are disturbing phenomena and hence they remain
under-analysed and de facto undervalued. In linguistics, many works of
empirical analysis of languages have been carried out but none of the models
built on these bases could pretend to give a full and homogenous vision of
their characteristics. Yet researchers often tend to consider that the only
existing language properties are those they manage to describe, which again
entails a depreciation of some varieties, particularly oral ones.
• Political norms are linked to centralisation and education measures under-
taken by the States. Relying on the concept of State unity and citizen equality
prevailing from the end of the 18th century, they translate into the definition
of a standard language that would be a kind of common language elaborated
from multiple varieties in use, and that would serve at the same time as the
146 Words and Worlds
In as far as all human activities are subject to social evaluations, the production of
linguistic norms is in itself an ineluctable process and it would be illusory to
pretend to interrupt or suppress it. But there is a risk of confusing these judgements,
whose grounds are often questionable, with the very reality of languages and
their functioning. On the other hand, these normative judgements are everyone’s
responsibility, and it is therefore legitimate and necessary to discuss and control
them, and particularly to try to differentiate between those norms that are useful
for the development of languages and their users, and those hindering them.
From this point of view, and on the basis of the data collected in this Review, it
is convenient to question and fight against the judgements that issue from
simplistic “preconceived ideas” or from “interested” enterprises (cultural,
philosophical, scientific or political ones). This drives us to assert that all
languages (and their varieties), whatever the magnitude of their dissemination
and use, have a potential linguistic resource that is equal in rights, and that they
are the witnesses of the multiple ways humans have to elaborate their
knowledge of the world and regulate their social interactions, and in this sense
they constitute a major aspect of human heritage. This also drives us not to over-
estimate the role played by writing systems. The creation and development of these
systems do entail deep changes in the social structures and in the cognitive func-
tioning of individuals. But every language has the capacity to survive, to enrich
and to play its part as a social mediator independently from the existence of
writings that only reflect part of their properties and are only recent technical
constructions. This finally drives us to encourage a switch in the all too frequent
relationship existing between theoretical elaborations and the effective charac-
teristics of language functioning; languages should not be masked or rejected in
the name of philosophical prejudices or because of insufficient descriptions or
scientific analyses. On the contrary, such positions and procedures must be
permanently corrected, according to the progress of our knowledge of the prop-
erties and operating conditions of all human languages.
On the other hand, there is no point in questioning the usefulness of what we
call functional norms. As far as it fits in with varied and complex social inter-
action processes, the production of signs and texts in all languages is submitted
to conditions of use that all speakers must learn and master so that they can
fully assume their part as members of a community. Therefore it is necessary to
Language and Writing 147
The literary tradition is still very new and poor, consisting mainly of poetry (religious),
folklore and public education. (Burushaski, Pakistan)
Although there are religious and educational texts, we cannot speak of the existence of a
literary tradition. (Triqui, Mexico)
However, it is important to properly understand, and the accounts are a good illus-
tration of this, that however incipient and precarious the writing experience is, it is
always considered a factor of prestige for the language. Similarly, no one – at least in
our results – decries the possibilities this condition offers for development, though
the obvious shortcomings can, very often, lead to discouragement and frustration.
Also, it is essential to insist on the fact that, whether or not a language has a written
form, there is no linguistic reason for looking down on it. On the contrary, in contrast
to the written forms of most languages, which are recent productions, all languages
have millenarian oral literary traditions which are the repositories for their particular
interpretations of the world and which make most valuable contributions to the
cultural heritage of humanity.
The language has a rich literary tradition. Firstly, there are many folk songs and fairy
tales. Folk songs are sung during weddings as well as funerals. Secondly, the Lingao
people have their own unique brand of Lin opera and puppetry. Some classic Chinese
operas have also been adapted for the Lingao language. (Lingao, China)
As there was no written form historically, its traditional literature has been transmitted
down through the generations in oral form. There is an abundant collection of different
kinds of oral literature, including legends, stories, fables, proverbs, historical poems, and
folk songs. There are historical poems concerning the creation of the world and the origin
of man. (Va, China)
There is no written tradition in this language, there is only an oral tradition. There are
some stories and legends of the payas, but they are all written in Spanish, with a few
names of animals, plants and people in Pech. The most important are Gods, heroes and
men in the Pech mythical universe (1991) by Lázaro Flores and Wendy Griffin. There are
no stories written in Pech, not even bilingual. (Pech, Honduras).
Map 8 shows language diversity in Mexico and Central America.
Language and Writing 149
“All persons should therefore be able to express themselves and to create and dissem-
inate their work in the language of their choice, and particularly in their mother tongue;
all persons should be entitled to quality education and training that fully respect their
cultural identity.” (Article 5 of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural
Diversity of 2 November 2001)
Are the languages taught in schools more important than the ones that are not taught?
How can a language be taught if the teachers do not know it or are not trained to teach
it and there is no teaching material in that language? Can children learn two or three
languages without harming their academic training? Why spend money on teaching
a minority language if it is hardly used for communicating and all the new thinking is
done in another language? What does it mean to maintain one’s own language and
what does learning a new language do for one?
In attempting to describe the situation of languages in the world, it seems essential
to approach the educational situation. Nevertheless, education adds nothing intrinsic
to a language. All languages have developed and been transmitted during the course
of history independently of the teaching institutions that may have grown up around
them. The dominant languages are the ones that were able to take advantage of schools
earlier and more effectively as a way of furthering their use and development. But the
efficiency of the dominant educational policies has also, in most cases, increased
linguistic uniformity, the loss of languages and cultures, and forced the abandonment
of identities forged over thousands of years. These losses and the uprooting and social
marginalisation resulting from them are factors that have been underestimated or
silenced to the greater glory of policies of national unity aimed at maximum linguistic
and cultural uniformity in the nation-state and its colonies or satellites.
What is more, this educational policy has created a monolingual school model,
widespread in many parts of Europe and the whole of the Western world, which has
posed enormous contradictions in bilingual or plurilingual communities, as well as
150
Language and Education 151
for all the stateless languages or those with few speakers. School and prestigious
education have been associated with the dominant language, which in many cases is
none other than English.
Nevertheless, in the twentieth century, there have also been linguistic policies that
have promoted diversity, educational policies that have included teaching of and in
various languages and whose chief objective has been to encourage bilingualism or
plurilingualism. Furthermore, the growth of the educational sciences, and of educa-
tional linguistics in particular, shows that bilingual and plurilingual education not
only benefit the individual and social development of schoolchildren but also the
educational system itself.
In this respect, it is worth remembering some of the guidelines of the action plan for the
implementation of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2 November
2001), to which Member States are committed. We have singled out objectives 5 and 6:
–“To safeguard humanity’s linguistic heritage and support expression, creation
and diffusion in the greatest possible number of languages”:
–“To further linguistic diversity – respecting the mother tongue – at all levels of
education, wherever possible, and stimulate the learning of several languages from
the earliest age.”
This chapter presents the difficult situation facing many of the world’s languages,
and which according to the accounts gathered is partly due to the lack of access to the
educational system or to their inadequate treatment by it. It also reports on the possi-
bilities the educational system could offer for reappraising, recovering and devel-
oping languages. Of particular interest are the presentations of the models developed
in different parts of the world and the significant testimonies gathered through
informants on teaching initiatives being undertaken in favour of their languages. The
chapter ends with recommendations of interest to the various political and cultural
agents responsible for furthering education and linguistic and cultural diversity.
Nahuatl language who go where there are speakers who teach them orally and in writing.
(Nahuatl, Mexico)
Children learn songs and phrases in community activities/cultural centre. (Cupeño, USA)
Others go even further and as well as reporting on informal experiments in furthering
their teaching and use, clearly express their wish that the language be introduced into
the formal educational system.
This language is not used in education. But we have been demanding education in the mother
tongue. Some informal application in education has brought better results. (Chepang, Nepal)
In some cases they even report real prohibition, always against the express wish of the
community.
The Mon community has an Education Committee in order to teach Mon language in
their community. But in the state run schools, it is not allowed even as a subject of study.
(Mon, Burma)
There are also plenty of accounts of situations in which although the law allows the
use of the language, in practice it is not included at school.
Teachers are permitted to use the language for explanations to students in the lower
grades of elementary education. But the medium of instruction is Pilipino or English and
many teachers do not speak the language. (Some) teachers who are native speakers would
like to use the language at least in first grade and/or as a subject of study in other
elementary grades. Materials are available. But the provincial supervisory structure of the
school system has not been very encouraging – to say the least. (Yakan, Philippines)
The language is supposed to be used as a medium for bilingual education as well as a subject
in elementary education. However, for various reasons this remains on paper. (Kuvi, India)
Other accounts speak of languages which were once present in the educational
system but are no longer so.
Bilingual schools were begun about 20 years ago; but I think it is all in Portuguese now,
both the R.C. Mission school and the school in Sai Cinza, begun by a Baptist missionary
(now retired). (Munduruku, Brazil)
It was used for some months when a vernacular pre-school was going on. But the school
fell apart when the teachers were discouraged by not being paid from the community. But
the use of the language in education might resume when the time is ripe for doing so.
(Meramera, Papua New Guinea)
Finally, let us hear from those informants who indicate that although their language is
not today present in the educational system they hope it will be in the future.
Teachers are being trained to use Mapudungun as a vehicle for teaching as well as a
subject for learning. (Mapudungun, Chile)
The new educational policy plans its introduction at the primary level. (Comorian, Comoros)
Language and Education 153
Possibly in the future, at the community school in the language area it will be used as the
language for education for preparatory and grades 1 and 2. (Yale, Papua New Guinea)
The Education Department wants to teach the first three years of schooling in the Narak
language. (Narak, Papua New Guinea)
The accounts gathered are only a small sample of the many linguistic communities
there are that have no access to education. When the population goes to school but
their own language is not present, it is difficult to imagine what benefit these children
can obtain from these schools. The negation of identity involved in a situation of this
sort is unimaginable for the majority of the citizens belonging to communities with a
dominant language. These citizens have grown up thinking that education can only
be transmitted in certain languages or that it is best if it is done only in the dominant
language. In many cases, this is also the opinion deliberately instilled into citizens
belonging to communities with minorised languages that are not reflected in the
educational system. The arguments are extremely twisted: some people consider that
this avoids problems of communication; we could also mention the argument that the
social development resulting from learning the dominant language is best for both
communities, of whatever language; others say that there are not enough resources
for every language to be taught at school.
The right to an education in one’s mother tongue constitutes a fundamental right
recognised by UNESCO since 1953. Nevertheless, most linguistic communities
cannot exercise it.
This principle, however, still plays a decisive role in the educational policy to be
developed for all the world’s linguistic communities and especially the smallest. Its
implementation would allow the development of languages not only by increasing
their use as such, but also because, in general, it gives rise to positive attitudes
towards them.
Indeed, although all languages are equal from a linguistic point of view, their prestige
and the attitudes surrounding them suffer badly if they are not taught at school.
They call it a ‘dialect’ and look down on it as a language and as a means of expression.
Nowadays, school teachers have forbidden the children from using Chipaya.
(Chipaya, Bolivia)
The tension between the unitary features of the Union and equally strong
regulatory powers of the States is also reflected in the education scenario of
the country.
Bringing education into the concurrent list of the constitution and handing
over primary education to the Panchayats are two such examples. The latter was
154 Words and Worlds
possible by the 73rd and 74th Amendments of the Constitution in 1992, which
for the first time, recognised local Governments.
Culture, language and education are social capital for development.
Whether one looks at education as enrolment or retention, as availability of
teachers or textbooks, adequacy of infrastructure or of instructional aids, it
would demonstrate the quality and quantity of a society’s engagement with
itself and with others.
The contradictions in perception about rural and urban schools are as follows:
education ruins the rural children, it spoils the urban; provides more infor-
mation and less skills; considers working with hands inferior to working with
machines; and the present day education results in alienation, anomie and
culture perception blindspots. The distinction is between ‘being’ and
‘appearing’. Language is at the root of these contradictions.
About 3000 mother tongues approximating to 200 and 700 languages in India
as against 35 languages at Primary stage, 28 languages at Upper Primary stage,
25 languages at Secondary stage, 20 languages at Senior Secondary stage, used
as medium of education in schools (All India 6th Education Survey, 1998,
NCERT) demonstrate that as one climbs higher in the education ladder, the
greater is the demand for fewer languages. At the University level, the medium
is English or the dominant regional language.
The emphasis on English is due to the colonial mind-set developed during
200 years of British rule. Colonialism came to India with the traders searching
for markets. It claimed to civilise the uncivilised. It remained to develop the
under developed, to protect their environment and empower the weaker
sections and finally to globalise them. Globalisation is not only a search for
global market, but also a search for marketable talents. Language and education
remain instruments for continuation of the colonial process in India and the
third world.
Developing a knowledge/learning society in a plural world necessitates
interdisciplinary, interactive communication between subjects and media
languages. Linking memory with thinking abilities will link indigenous
knowledge systems with the modern. Languages would continue to play a
critical and crucial role. Multiple languages must develop twin focuses, cooper-
ative, intercultural education at home and competitive marketable education
for the world outside.
Dr. D. P. Pattanayak
Former Director, Central Institute of Indian Languages, India
Language and Education 155
they have of speaking, the time they have for explaining; they have another pace
of teaching, everything is planned in the heads of the elders, that is our world.
Many pupils bring those formulas into the classroom. This form of wisdom of
the elders is the point of reference for a school in tune with nature; it is the
contribution by traditional knowledge making itself present through the
indigenous language.
Isaac Pianko Ashaninka
Acre Organisation of Indigenous Teachers, Brazil
Table 7 classifies and sums up the answers received regarding the use of languages in
teaching. The list is not necessarily in hierarchical order. At any rate, the authors of
this Review cannot establish it. We are merely trying to reflect the situation from the
accounts we have received. We are also presenting some examples of these accounts.
Group 2 Exclusively oral use (as an instrument for the teaching given in 7%
another language)
Group 6 Present throughout the system, though not throughout the 12%
population (sometimes the system is bilingual)
Total 100%
As can be seen in Table 7, the languages used in education present a wide variety of
situations and their distribution also varies. As well as those languages said to be
present in teaching without details of their level of usage (1%), it is worth pointing
out, first, that the languages in group 2 are used as secondary languages, as a tran-
sition to the acquisition of the language promoted by the school. The informants
express themselves clearly. This use is aimed at a quick and successful introduction of
158 Words and Worlds
young people to the other language, which is the one “used” for teaching. Neither the
informants nor the schools seemed to value oral use in itself as a way of developing
their own language.
Only in grades 1 and 2 of primary schools as a supplementary educational tool in trans-
lating text. (Pumi, China)
In the past it was used as the language of instruction in primary schools. With the recent
promotion of Mandarin Chinese, Cun is only used as a supplementary tool in beginners’
or elementary classes. (Cun, China)
In the language classes it is used orally to explain the content of the class being given.
(Adyghe, Russia)
Indigenous education has various forms. Perhaps the young child’s first
education is the one he or she receives in the home. All the experience passed on
by the father or mother is education. After that, education is also participation in
festivals, in rituals the community has always held. Children are also there, not
as though it were a school for learning in, but as an event that comes along for
the children to learn from. That is what we know as traditional education and
the indigenous language always forms part of it.
Recently there has been talk of differentiated school education, of
indigenous school education. Another type of knowledge that indigenous
peoples are acquiring is related to the knowledge of writing and reading.
Previously, children learned orally, now they are learning from writing. At
school they learn to read and write, enquiries are being made amongst the
teachers so that pupils have that knowledge and so that this knowledge is
taught in the schools. This is an incentive for children to start to think about
new investigations with the elders. It is called school education when the
knowledge is learned from writing.
It is very positive work. I have heard my pupils who have more contact with
whites say that that they did not know or had never thought that our people had
such and such a story. Because for them our past did not exist. But with this
work we are doing through the enquiries by some of the teachers the pupils
eventually realise that we also have our own stories. The whites have stories of
ancestors but so have we. One important moment in our past is the conquest of
the land. The conquest of education, health and the environment will also in the
future be our past.
Language and Education 159
one of music, to show the Kaxinawa people that Portuguese is not the only
language that can be written. The indigenous language can also be recorded.
Recently I wrote 12 stories like the ones in Shenipabu Miyui. Some are an
earlier version of the published ones. And that is very important because close
contact with the Portuguese language had altered the stories.
Today we think that this language is not finished, that we are going to keep it
going. If it did not disappear when it was oral, now that it has been recorded it
will be even more difficult.
Joaquim Mana Kaxinawa
Acre Organisation of Indigenous Teachers, Brazil
Group 3 includes those languages taught as a subject carrying more or less weight in
the syllabus or curriculum. These amount to 8%. This is a traditional approach to
learning second or foreign languages.
However, there are differences within this group that should be pointed out.
Although in most cases they are given very limited oral use restricted to the basic
grades, in some cases, as the accounts show, it seems to be a first step towards making
the language an instrument of teaching.
It is hardly used as an instrument of teaching, only as a subject in some syllabuses like in
the schools under the management of the Directorate General for Bilingual and
Intercultural Education. (Chuj, Guatemala)
Teaching medium and subject of study in elementary school, i.e. Classes preparatory and
vernacular components in higher grades are being planned. (Boazi, Papua New Guinea)
Attempts are being made to try and have the language used as the subject of study in
primary school teaching and later it is hoped it will take on the role of an instrumental
language. (Kokama, Peru)
Group 4 includes those languages that are used as a teaching medium, though only at
pre-school level and during the first years of primary education. This group, which
accounts for more than a quarter of the languages in the sample (26%), itself includes
many different situations. In general, these are languages recently introduced into
teaching. Very often the introduction has been thanks to popular initiative and is not
supported by the authorities.
These valuable initiatives, however, rarely embrace the whole of the population
speaking the language in question, as they often tend to be restricted to certain
areas or communities. The reports also show the various difficulties they have to
face to get their language implemented with full rights in the world of teaching.
The lack of involvement by the authorities, government obstacles, even new
Language and Education 161
associations and Breton language teachers associations. Around 13,000 children are
initiated into the language as a subject. Around 4,700 children are taught in Breton at
least partially. (Breton, France)
The Tamazight language was not used in teaching in any North-African country
until 1996–1997 in Algeria. In this country it is taught at the end of basic education
and in secondary education. In Morocco, in spite of King Hassan II’s promise to
introduce it in primary teaching in his speech of 20/8/1994, nothing has yet been put
into practice. In higher education, Tamazight is only the object of research.
(Tamazight, Morocco)
Before civil war Somali was the medium of instruction up to secondary level. Higher
Education was in Italian and English. Now most secondary schools have switched to
English medium. Quite a number of lower and upper primary schools have Arabic or
English medium. However in all educational institutions there is a lot of spoken use of
Somali. (Somali, Somalia)
Group 6 includes those languages used throughout the educational system. In some
cases they may not all reach all sectors of the population. There are also cases which in
spite of legislation in their favour, as the languages enjoy official or semi-official
status allowing their use in the educational system, this legislation is not fully
enforced and the demands of the population are not properly attended to. However,
this group includes languages which are generally felt to be in a proper or normal
situation for proper development of a language at school. These account for 12% of
the sample.
Whereas we have seen that 7% of the languages in our sample are official and 19%
are co-official in their area (see Chapter four), the figure mentioned before (12%) indi-
cates that co-officiality does not ensure proper treatment of the language in the school
system either.
In basic and intermediate education the use of the language tends to be like the social char-
acteristics of the area in question, with a clear tendency to use Castilian, even among
children whose initial language is Galician. At university the number of students speaking
Galician drops considerably. According to the law, the predominant mother tongue must be
used in infant education, while taking care to teach the other one; in the rest of non-
university teaching the possibility is established of teaching 50% of subjects in Galician. It
is important to say that the law is not being kept in these two cases. (Galician, Spain)
Welsh is both a subject and a medium in schools at all levels but precise practice varies
depending on the local authority. (Welsh, Great Britain)
Both Russian and Belarusan are compulsory in the secondary school system. Actually,
40% of the children are taught on the basis of Belarusan and 60% on the basis of Russian.
In the higher education system, especially in technical universities, it is practically impos-
sible to be trained in Belarusan. The number of hours devoted to the study of Belarusan in
universities diminishes year after year. (Belarusan, Belarus)
Language and Education 163
According to Table 7, the figures in our sample seem fairly hopeful since they reveal
that the sum of languages with some sort of use in teaching reaches 67%. However,
the real scope of this activity is substantially less. At the very least, certain clarifica-
tions are needed. Without going outside the sample, we can say that generalised use
of the language throughout the educational system does not seem to occur in more
than 12% of cases. And as we have seen, most minorised languages do not fall into
this group.
This initial analysis reveals the presence and/or treatment of different languages in
the educational system. It has been barely possible to observe the schooling condi-
tions of the language communities. Do they receive an education suited to their
needs? Do the members of the community become bilingual speakers or is their bilin-
gualism or pluringualism reinforced?
At the end of the twentieth century the globe retains a rich linguistic heritage of
an estimated 6000 languages. Not as rich as some earlier periods in history, the
current wealth of languages world-wide is threatened – seriously threatened – if
projected language loss eventuates. In his recent text, Language Death, David
Crystal estimates rationally and conservatively that up to 90% of these
languages could disappear during the next hundred years.
This would be catastrophic as I believe that the loss of even one language is
tragic. Whatever reasonable steps that could be taken, should be taken to arrest
this anticipated deterioration of the linguistic wealth currently enjoyed across
the globe. The solutions are many and must be put in place immediately. Global
awareness-raising of the issue at all relevant levels – governmental, political,
family community, education, culture, NGO associations, electronic and digital
media, to identify but a few – must be undertaken without delay to mobilise a
global conscience to protect and retain the world’s languages.
In this context, education has a major role to play. Where educational policy
and practice are satisfactory to excellent, education becomes an effective vehicle
to further the cause of languages. Where these essentials of society are less than
adequate, the necessary upgrading should be accompanied by the irrevocable
message that languages are critical to global society, operations and culture, and
must be nurtured, defended and maintained.
As a result the promotion and teaching of languages in the educational field –
whether at the primary, secondary, tertiary or adult level – should be a priority.
The identity of languages taught would be a local concern, but one would
expect adequate coverage of the first language of the majority of learners,
164 Words and Worlds
abandon the languages and cultures that have shaped the identity and integrity of
people and communities.
As stated in the Resolution approved by the United Nations General Assembly of
9 November 2001, teaching the language, history and socio-political philosophy of
different civilisations is one of the Action Programmes. Similarly, the UNESCO
Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, as we have seen, places special emphasis
on pluringualism as a way of making cultural diversity accessible to everyone. In this
respect, also, UNESCO’s Programme and Budget Plan for 2002–2003 specifically
considers “support to networks of experts and research institutions for counselling
Member States and UNESCO on important issues to do with education in human
rights, linguistic pluralism and multilingualism in education”.
Many people live with bilingualism and pluringualism quite naturally. In India, in
the Amazon, in Central Europe, in the Caucasus, people have traditionally been
familiar with several local languages so as to coexist in a plurilingual and pluricul-
tural environment. Sixty-four percent of the communities consulted in our research
said that most of their members were bilingual and in 10% of cases most of the
members of these communities were plurilingual. In other words, most of the
members of the different linguistic communities are not monolingual. These commu-
nities could be the best prepared to face the need for the plurilingual proficiency
today’s world increasingly demands of its inhabitants.
These communities show that coexistence and communication between groups
with several languages is possible and that plurilingualism does not lead to a lack of
communication or to a loss of cohesion within the group, the community or the State.
India is a good example in which to observe rules of behaviour that seem strange to
the eyes of Westerners and that can provide answers to some apparent contradictions.
It is possible to have a multiple identity without any risk to personal integrity. The
ease with which codes are alternated or even mixed, the freedom and lack of purism
in being able use several languages at different levels of proficiency and for different
objects and purposes (Annamalai, 2001) could be a realistic way of dealing with rela-
tions between people ever more remote and diverse without renouncing linguistic
diversity. Any form of relations between different codes is more interesting, demo-
cratic and natural in the history of humanity than the uniformity we seem to be
having forced upon us.
Education must therefore face another challenge. The mother tongue is not enough.
Knowledge of at least one other language must be ensured, and in many cases it will
be necessary to confront plurilingual education.
When the object is bilingual or plurilingual proficiency, we need to take what
plurilingual communities have traditionally done as our model. New languages are
learnt like new instruments, as new skills for new purposes. In these circumstances,
learning a new language does not involve the gradual loss of the mother tongue
(Annamalai, 2001).
It is also important to stress that languages are basically instruments for oral
communication. When it comes to education, however, written forms are given
166 Words and Worlds
priority. School is associated with the literacy of its speakers, the system of writing,
the existence of a written literature and text books written for schools. These demands
are an added obstacle to increasing the role of the school in the survival of languages.
Without detracting from or abandoning writing, why not encourage greater oral use
of languages at school? Why not place greater value on what really has most commu-
nication value and is linguistically more fundamental – that is, oral use?
Knowing that languages are fundamentally used orally, that to encourage this use
we hardly need the most sophisticated resources of language (writing, written liter-
ature, books, spelling rules, etc.) and that the new technologies allow an infinite
number of oral uses with a great power of attraction (telephony, radio, television),
why are schools subordinated to the written form of languages?
Written language must not be surrendered or even underestimated. But the fact
that a language is only just beginning to be used in writing does not justify a poor or
limited use of that language at school.
During the course of the second half of the twentieth century, various bilingual and
plurilingual educational programmes and models were developed in different parts
of the world.
Throughout the whole of the nineteenth century and for large part of the twentieth,
pedagogical theorists and educational politicians were decidedly opposed to
bilingual teaching. This was partly because the educational renewal propounded
continuity between family and school experiences and therefore defended the
mother tongue as the medium of education. The chief reason, though, was the
influence of what has been called linguistic nationalism, which established a close
relation between language, culture and nationality and the importance of language
as a factor in the development of identity, whereas early bilingualism threatened to
divide it. After the Second World War, the globalisation process has multiplied situ-
ations of contact between languages and the early need to know foreign languages
and all this has worked in favour of bilingual education. Among the various
examples of successful bilingual education the best-known was the St. Lambert
Experiment with children whose family language was English and who were
taught in French. The success was so complete that the opposite opinion began to
become widespread, that bilingual education is in itself a good thing. And this is
equally false. Bilingual education takes many forms, can have very varied objec-
tives and can only succeed inasmuch as it has the right means for the desired ends.
In certain situations where languages are in contact, as happens in the city of
Brussels with French and Dutch, two school systems are set up according to the
language of origin of the pupils. In this case we cannot speak of bilingual
Language and Education 167
education. In other cases, as often happens in the United States with the population
of immigrant origin, pupils speaking the lesser language are offered the chance to
use it at school, either until they master the main language, in this case English, or
else as a way of preserving their language. In other cases, and this happens today
in those parts of Spain that have their own language, the object of bilingual
education is that all students should master both languages whatever their family
language. This can take place through a single model of school or with more than
one model from which parents can choose. Obviously, in all these cases the object
of bilingual education is to increase social cohesion while respecting the rights of
speakers of different languages. Equally obviously, a system of this sort can only
succeed insofar as it is supported by democratically expressed social consensus.
In truly plurilingual countries such as Luxembourg, bilingual, or in this case
trilingual teaching cannot be considered an educational option so much as a
strict necessity. And the success of the results shows how easily pupils can learn
in more than one language when the conditions are right.
A different situation from these is when the object of bilingual education is the
acquisition of foreign languages. Modern education has generalised the use of
communicative methods in the teaching of foreign languages, but after a certain
limit, which is soon reached, the most effective way of making progress in the
foreign language is through its use as the teaching medium. There are plenty of
examples today of schools that above a certain level offer some teaching in a
foreign language, such as, for example, English.
But the presence of a foreign language in the educational system can have
other objectives as well as ensuring its mastery. In schools for civil servants in
the European Community, where pupils come from a wide range of linguistic
and national backgrounds, familiarity with other languages is intended to
increase their open-mindedness and strengthen their European conscience.
Miquel Siguan
University of Barcelona, Spain
The literature for the descriptions of educational models for bilingual proficiency of
schoolchildren is increasingly abundant (Baker 1993, Skutnabb-Kangas 2000,
McLaughlin 1984, Cummins 1995, López 1996). Not all so-called bilingual systems,
however, have the object of training bilingual individuals. Skutnabb-Kangas (2000)
describes up to 10 types of supposedly bilingual education systems. Only five of them,
the so-called strong models, can guarantee proficiency in more than one language. We
shall single out two of them: the maintenance model and the immersion model.
The maintenance educational model for minority languages involves schooling in
the mother tongue through bilingual teachers at the same time as the majority
168 Words and Worlds
language is also learnt as a second language. These programmes are therefore far
superior to the traditional submersion models, which school in the dominant
language without taking into account the pupils’ own language. In this type of
teaching, teachers are generally unfamiliar with the schoolchildren’s mother tongue
and in most cases it involves the loss and discredit of the minority language. As far as
the maintenance model is concerned, it is important to stress the important experi-
ments in bilingual education being developed throughout Latin America with the
Bilingual Intercultural Education programmes. Maintenance models, for example,
are the bilingual multicultural education programmes being developed in Bolivia for
Quechua or Aymara (Hornberger & López 1998). The experiment now being
developed by the Brazilian Comisión Pro Indio do Acre de Amazonía is another
example of a highly suitable treatment of local languages in educational activities
through the training of indigenous teachers themselves (Lindenberg-Monte 1998).
In Latin America there are endless experiments in education being developed in
favour of the local languages. Their contributions constitute a real revolution in
education and are cause for hope, both for their maintenance of the languages and the
prestige they give them and in the educational innovations, teacher training, comple-
mentary oral and written use, and approach to interculturalism that they encourage.
The immersion educational module uses a language other than the mother tongue as
the medium of instruction. The programmes are always approved by the parents,
teachers are bilingual and are familiar with the child’s language. In general, these
immersion programmes allow a second language to be learnt far more efficiently than
traditional programmes for L2 teaching. They have been particularly effective in the
teaching of minorised second languages such as Maori in New Zealand (Benton 1996,
Skutnabb-Kangas), Basque in the Basque Country (Spain and France, Sierra et al.),
Catalan in Catalonia (Spain, Artigal), Mohawk in Canada (Hoover 1992), Breton in France
(Gwegen 1999) and Welsh in Great Britain. They are also used in situations in which
languages are a contextual minority, such as French in Canada (Lambert 1974, Genesee
1987) or Aosta, Italy (Floris 1988), Finnish in Sweden (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000), etc.
Thanks to the immersion model applied to minorised languages it is possible to
extend learning of these languages beyond the community itself and, especially,
recover them amongst members who have lost them. They further bilingualism, inte-
gration and social peace, and therefore the maintenance of minorised languages
otherwise condemned to disappear.
Papua New Guinea has about 820 local languages, with 16 extinct and 77
threatened. Only 3 languages have over 100,000 speakers, 10 over 50,000, 70
over 10,000, 330 over 1000, 360 between 100 and 1000, and about 80 under 100.
Language and Education 169
Not only small languages are threatened, but also some larger ones. Speakers
are very proud of their languages, cling them as symbols of their ethnic identity,
though 90 per cent know the national language Tok Pisin as the second
language, which until recently had little influence on the maintenance of local
languages. Bi- and multilingualism is very widespread. The last 20 years have
seen a sharp increase in marriages between partners speaking different
languages because of greater population mobility. The family language became
Tok Pisin then. Electronic media use Tok Pisin, English and a few major
languages. Elementary education uses only about 30 major languages. Young
speakers increasingly regard small minority languages as unimportant and
prefer Tok Pisin. This has lead to endangerment and extinction of the former.
Academics and politicians try to stop this through media propaganda, with
little effect as yet. Descendants try to revive some recently extinct languages
using studies of them by linguists. The introduction of oral elementary
education an hour every day to linguistically separated groups of pupils of
different mother tongues in their own languages in a polylingual class as a
supplement to the main education with literacy in a major language, is a possi-
bility for raising the respect of children speakers for their own languages and for
reviving and preserving their failing languages. It would also correspond to
UNESCO’s view that every child ought to get some basic education in its
mother tongue. Another important means of revitalising and maintaining
threatened languages has been found to be their study by outside and local
linguists and the production of language materials in them which is greatly
welcomed by their speakers. UNESCO has supported this activity from
1992–1998 through grants awarded to applications received by the International
Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies – ICPHS (UNESCO), but this
funding has been discontinued which lowers the chances of language mainte-
nance, revival and survival, unless other organisations giving grants for such
linguistic work step in, which may be likely seeing the present great interna-
tional interest in the study and maintenance of threatened minority languages.
Stephen Wurm
The Australian National University, Australia
plurilingual in the course of their life. Social life, work, commerce, science and politics
all have considerable influence on the learning of regional, state or international
languages. It is important to stress that any language learning process constitutes an
asset to training and culture which is increasingly valued and necessary. Learning
another language brings direct access to another culture, substantially increases the
capacity for understanding cultural heritage and improves communication power.
Advances in educational linguistics, audiovisual and computer technologies and
access to the media allow substantially faster and more efficient language teaching.
Although all these experiments take place basically in the case of second languages
which in their context act as dominant languages, nevertheless there are also cases in
which thanks to specific educational programmes languages which may be in a
minority situation can be learned as L2 or L3. The fact that members who have lost
their language or that members of other communities learn a minorised language is
also a source of prestige for this language. Of course, if this option is to play a decisive
role in the recovery of a language, it must be of a social nature, and school is one of the
means used to this end. This is the purpose of education in any language recovery
programme, and its influence will be positive, and sometimes decisive, so long as the
community integrates the educational initiative in a more general and complete
recovery plan. In these cases, the identity value attributed to a language, and the
possibility for social integration learning it allows, is decisive for the success of the
initiative. The examples of Hebrew, Maori, Basque, Welsh and Catalan (Fishman
1991) and the initiatives reported for Triqui, Kaxinawa, Mapudungun, Sami, etc.
show that, though difficult, it is not impossible to revive a language and that
education can be an important tool for achieving this object.
acquire the language on the part of adults and/or the convenience of doing so
and becoming literate in Basque also varies widely in the three areas of the
Basque linguistic community. Learning the language and literacy must therefore
be seen in this varied and sometimes contradictory setting. As we shall see, in
recent decades the acquisition of language and literacy has played an important
part in this community.
In general, we might say that the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) is
where the best organised plans for positive promotion have been set up, both
through private social initiatives and through the Administration’s official
public initiatives, but conditions for this between 1940 and 1975 were especially
difficult. Neither before nor during those decades could teaching of the
language to adults or Basque literacy for speakers use the general school
system, the cultural institutions or the media. Only a stubborn effort by the
community managed to open a breach in the status imposed.
Various socio-cultural factors came together to reactivate the social foundations
of the language. Amongst them were a few worthy individual initiatives (fifties),
the teaching in the Seminars of the Catholic Church, which included courses in
Basque (fifties), the creation of the Basque Schools and their social milieu
(Ikastolak), the introduction of spoken and written journalism (sixties), the
massive secularisation of already literate Catholic seminarists (who became new
agents of literacy: 1968…), the spread of the children’s literacy press (1959, 1966)
and the offer of radio programmes promoting the language (1966), amongst others.
To all this can be added, in the sixties, as basic factors, the economic devel-
opment of areas with a high proportion of Basque speakers (with a twofold
rural/industrial domestic economy) and the growing discredit of the Franco
regime’s educational and cultural policy. Thus possession and mastery of the
language emerged more and more as a liberating factor and an instrument for a
more harmonious future for the country. Political resistance and cultural
creativity came together in a single movement.
In this context, there was a proliferation of modest local initiatives for Basque
literacy and language learning (at first, Gau-Eskolak: extracurricular evening
classes), also helped by a wide range of social movements and after 1966
gathered under the protection of the Euskaltzaindia (Basque Language
Academy). In 1975, a broad network of euskaltegiak (Basque language and
literacy centres) came together as a general coordinating association (AEK) and
began operations alongside other professional centres of the same nature. At the
end of the seventies, annual enrolment at these centres reached about 30,000 (of
which 91% were for Basque language and 9% Basque literacy).
In response to the growing importance of this phenomenon in society, in the
following decade (the eighties) the authorities (in this case, the Basque
172 Words and Worlds
by the fact that greater knowledge of the language also has a positive effect for
the real use of the language.
After almost forty years of private efforts by society (1960–1980) and by social
institutions – private and public (1980–2000) – two objectives can be seen to
have stimulated the linguistic community in this field: that of recovering the lost
language and that of achieving full social normalisation of this minority
language. The awareness of and esteem for the cultural and identifying value of
the language have been decisive in the process of learning, as well as that of
literacy. This was evident in the seventies and recent surveys have confirmed it
once more (Perales 2000). The will of society and of the political institutions has
collaborated in both senses with noteworthy effect, especially in the BAC.
Joseba Intxausti
Basque Country, Spain
At the time this World Review is going to press, the position paper ‘Education in a
Multilingual World’ has been published by UNESCO (2003). The ideas expressed in
this document are in line with the recommendations of this chapter.
Chapter 7
Languages and the Media
The use of a language in the media has a fundamental effect, both from the internal
point of view of the language itself, and from the external point of view of the status
of the language.
On an internal level, the media are responsible for the development of specific oral and
written genres, as well as the corresponding discursive, grammatical and lexical forms.
Oral and written forms in the media can have so much influence that the linguistic
varieties they use are the fundamental points on which many of today’s standard
languages are based. So-called British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) English is the
classic and most paradigmatic example of this.
From the point of view of status, the media also contribute decisively to the prestige
and vitality of languages and can do so negatively or positively. Absence from the
media, incorrect, derogatory or disparaging use, would be the most negative
extremes of endless ways of damaging a language in the media.
On the other hand, the presence and correct (suitable) treatment of languages in the
media is today a fundamental way for them to develop a formal and public discourse.
In other times, it was religious and festive rituals that provided the necessary commu-
nicative contexts for developing this type of prestige.
Subsequently, using the language in the media not only fulfils its specific object of
allowing communication between members of a linguistic community, but also
increases the prestige of the language between people inside and outside the
community. In this Review, Xavier Albó puts it as follows: “…if speakers of a discrim-
inated language find it is used in favourable contexts in the social media, their self-
esteem grows and even the dominant elite can come to accept its presence”.
All of this shows how very important it is for languages to have access to the media
and therefore how important it is to promote cultural and linguistic diversity in the
media. Those languages present in the media acquire greater prestige in their own
community of speakers and outside it and are better situated to face up to the
tendency towards linguistic and cultural uniformity and ensure their survival.
In this chapter we shall start with the controversy there is over the consequences that
the growth of the media is going to have for the future of languages. The second section
analyses the way in which languages can be present in the media. The third section
covers the factors that enable or restrict the presence of languages in the media. The
175
176 Words and Worlds
fourth section analyses the importance of developing media in each of the languages of
the community. Finally, a series of recommendations to the authorities, the linguistic
communities themselves and to institutions, on the subject of the media is presented.
the language is used in press, radio or television. It is important to remember that the
questions were open, so we have been able to gather some information about their
use in Internet.
More than half (53%) of the languages analysed in the research carried out are
present in some kind of media – that is, they are used as a medium of expression in the
media – although there are enormous differences in the means at their disposal and in
the frequency with which they broadcast. As regards their presence in the media,
languages can be classified in three main groups:
First of all, languages that are usually present in all the media (radio, television,
press and even the Internet). In this group are the more widespread languages of the
world, such as English, Arabic and Spanish, and most official state languages. In
other words, the languages of the dominant cultures that in many cases use the media
as an instrument of linguistic and cultural dominance.
The second group contains those languages that have gained access to the media
but do not have either the media presence or the political and economic power of the
languages in the first group. Furthermore, the languages in this group do not form a
homogeneous group as there is a gradation to be seen in them going from languages
habitually used in all the media to languages used from time to time and only in some
local media.
European languages such as Latvian, Catalan and Icelandic are found in this
subgroup. These are languages which lack the power and the extension of the
languages in the first group but which have media productions and are habitually
present in the press, on radio and television and, in most cases, also on the Internet.
Some are even official state languages.
This group contains also languages that are habitually present in some media,
both oral and written, but that are not used in all the media or else are only sporad-
ically present. Examples can be found in an Amerindian language like Aymara,
habitually present on the radio and occasionally on local television but absent
from the press, and the Gikuyu language of Kenya, which has a press and radio
but no television.
Besides this, those languages whose presence in the media is reduced almost
exclusively to local radio can be found, though this presence can vary from being
daily, weekly or monthly to being only sporadic. This subgroup includes, for
example, the Maya language Achi, which is used by two radio stations in the region
for one hour a day; Mon, in Burma, which has a radio programme of half an hour
every week, and Kom, in Cameroon, which is used in five programmes a week
lasting half an hour on the station in the provincial capital. Amongst languages
sporadically used in the media we can include Lakota, spoken in the United States
and Canada, and Meriam, in Australia. Both languages are used sporadically on the
tribal radio stations of each community.
We present below some examples of the languages that the informants sent us,
without generalised presence in mass media.
178 Words and Worlds
The third and last group is made up of languages which have no presence in the
media, such as Guiqiong, in China, Tayo, in New Caledonia, and Yeyi, in Botswana
and many others.
As has been said before, almost half the languages from the sample studied (47%)
have no access to any communication media. In other words, they are languages
which in most cases have been marginalised by the dominant cultures and which on
many occasions have been denied access to the media. In this respect, it should be
pointed out that, on many occasions, the dominant cultures and languages have
prevented development of the media in these languages and have used the influence
of the media to achieve linguistic and cultural uniformity of the territory around the
language proclaimed official or national.
Some languages which informants said that are not used in the media are the
following ones:
Achang, Achuar, Aiwo, Akoye, Alsatian, Amahuaca, Athpare, Awa pit, Awajun,
Babole, Badyara, Baheng, Baima, Balanta, Baniwa, Bao’an, Bargam, Bariai,
Languages and the Media 179
from informants, even of languages with few speakers, saying that in recent years
they have been able to develop written and oral media.
Frisian is hardly used in the media. The situation is as follows: There are three minutes
a week on the local public radio station. The radio station does not seem to be willing to
increase the broadcasting time. On one private radio station there are occasionally
longer programmes. There is no Frisian on television. In the local newspaper there is
one page per month with articles in Frisian and Low German. In the Danish
minority’s newspaper, Flensborg Avis, there are occasional articles in Frisian.
(Frisian, Germany)
Nevertheless, all the linguistic communities analysed expressed a clear wish to
maintain, develop or create media of their own, though they also show difficulties
which very often are difficult to overcome. Above all, the lack of financial support is
one of the main obstacles to the development of the media. There are many linguistic
communities which, although they have the awareness and the wish to develop
media of their own, do not do so because of a lack of financial resources.
There are radio and television broadcasts in Runyoro. There was a local newspaper,
Enyunorí Yaítu, but it has stopped for lack of funds. Now there are only occasional
publications and text books (a few), because most of them are written in English.
(Nyoro, Uganda)
Map 9 shows the languages spoken in Tanzania.
community of speakers. Written media obviously call for an alphabet and a system of
spelling; audiovisual media require technological and financial means that are not
always accessible to linguistic communities, though it should not be forgotten that
they facilitate their use for unwritten or barely standardised languages or languages
lacking the creation of graphic systems.
The media are one of the most powerful instruments for standardising,
changing or consolidating languages and cultural identities. Present in the
landscape and in the intimacy of every home, they shape values, attitudes and
even identities, like a fine rain that eventually penetrates the being’s every
pore. At the same time, by their very nature, the mass media reflect the global
environmental pressure more insistently than other institutions – such as
school – and can pose a threat to the identity and language of subordinated or
marginated groups such as indigenous peoples, immigrant workers, refugees
and other excluded groups.
In Latin America, the indigenous languages entered the media late and very
incompletely. It was not until the fifties that the transistor radio made it possible
for communication to overcome obstacles such as bad roads, lack of electricity,
illiteracy or monolingualism and radio stations or programmes in the main
indigenous languages began to emerge, sometimes with ample audience partic-
ipation, especially in countries with few languages spoken by many and with
less state control of radio stations. On commercial television and in the daily
press, progress is practically nil, while the little that has been done in cinema
and video is very scattered.
The use of one language or another in the media, as well as easing or
obstructing understanding, plays an important expressive role, especially in
those media that appeal to the feelings by means of sound and images. If
certain languages and cultures are ignored in them or only appear in the
context of crime or with pejorative connotations, their marginalisation is
increased and their disappearance hastened. But if speakers of discriminated
languages find them used in the media in favourable contexts, their self-
esteem grows and even the dominant elites can eventually come to accept
their presence.
For any media to strengthen its positive role in favour of minority languages,
the general setting and contextualisation of all its programmes must reflect the
plural reality around it positively; its use of languages, images and content must
show the country or the area in a positive light as an intercultural and
plurilingual reality.
182 Words and Worlds
Radio, according to the accounts gathered, seems to be the medium that has seen
most development, even in linguistic communities with more modest means. It is
the most readily accessible media form and therefore the most widespread. The
figures are clear in this respect: 44% of the languages analysed are used on the radio;
only 26% have access to the written press, and 23% of the languages have some
presence on television.
The reasons for the predominance of radio are easy to imagine. It is less demanding
technically and economically than the other media, and in principle it has no need for
a written use of the language. Also, it does not require the literacy of its audience
(Anashin 2000). It is therefore foreseeable that linguistic communities and especially
those with most awareness of their situation will continue to make widespread use of
radio. In this respect, radio is a medium to take very much into account in any imple-
mentation of linguistic planning policy.
The proportion of languages with a television presence (23%) is half the number
with radio presence (44%). The technical and economic demands for developing the
necessary technology mean that many communities, especially the smaller ones with
fewer resources, have serious problems when it comes to gaining access to the tech-
nology needed to develop this sort of media. However, there is no denying that tele-
vision can play an important part in the survival of languages. Television could be of
great help for communities wanting to bring prestige to their language and
encourage its use, or implement programmes for language teaching at a distance,
especially amongst geographically dispersed linguistic communities. One interesting
experience in this respect were the Yukateko language classes given on the Mexican
channel Azteca 13.
Languages and the Media 183
The Internet, just like television, calls for infrastructures and technologies that are
not often within reach of all linguistic communities. With the increased use of
graphic elements, the difficulties and the costs involved in image treatment are
creating added difficulties in its use. Increasingly sophisticated means are required,
which very often are not available to linguistic communities. What is more,
inequality in access to technologies in turn leads to greater social privileges for those
linguistic communities with more power. Thus the socio-economic gap between the
rich communities, who can develop, promote and impose their language, and the
poorer communities, who have no alternative but to accept the cultural and
linguistic influence forced on them, gets wider. We must not forget that the mastery
of these technologies gives real cultural and political power to the great world
powers and the private interests behind them, particularly in relation to populations
who do not have proper education or are not in a position to classify, interpret or crit-
icise the information they receive (Delors 1997).
In addition, everything seems to suggest that more than half of what there is on the
Internet today is in English (Miège 2000). If we add to this the fact that the main
Internet browser software can only read the characters of the Latin alphabet (World
Communication Report 1997), it seems there is no other way but to accept the point of
view of certain authors who point to the Internet as one of the most important instru-
ments of cultural uniformity (Virilio 1997).
However, we must not forget that the Internet is furthering previously
unimagined remote communications networks and that it is one of the most active
technologies that can allow the use of certain languages, especially when speakers
are subject to increasing situations of mobility (migrations and job transfers).
Furthermore, it gives communities or individuals speaking the same language
greater opportunities for bringing pressure to bear or organising in favour of their
language. The Internet makes it possible to debate, reach conclusions and organise
without costly and unnecessary travel (Myers 1999). One obvious example is the
Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights signed in 1996 in Barcelona, to which
were added, with the help of the Internet, proposals from different centres and
organisations all over the world.
It must be remembered that, in so far as it allows interactivity, the Internet is a good
way of imparting distance teaching. It is likely that in future on-line study courses on
the subject of languages will be commoner and cheaper, thus foreseably contributing
to their reinforcement and development as the World Communication and
Information Report notes (UNESCO 1999).
During the 31st session of the General Conference of UNESCO, November 2001,
UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and the Main Lines of an
Action Plan was adopted. In this action plan, the following objectives were estab-
lished among others:
184 Words and Worlds
The General Conference recommends that Member States bring this recom-
mendation to the attention of the authorities and services responsible for public
and private works on ICT policies, strategies and infrastructures, including use
of multilingualism on the Internet, the development of networks and services,
expansion of public domain information on the Internet and intellectual
property rights issues
Finally, the importance of the World Summit on the Information Society that took
place in two parts should be stressed. During the first, in Geneva 2003, the
Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action was adopted, to be reviewed in the
second part, Tunis 2005. This Declaration affirms that:
9) Media
55. We reaffirm our commitment to the principles of freedom of the press and
freedom of information, as well as those of the independence, pluralism
and diversity of media, which are essential to the Information Society.
Freedom to seek, receive, impart and use information for the creation, accu-
mulation and dissemination of knowledge are important to the
Information Society. We call for the responsible use and treatment of infor-
mation by the media in accordance with the highest ethical and profes-
sional standards. Traditional media in all their forms have an important
role in the Information Society and ICTs should play a supportive role in
this regard. Diversity of media ownership should be encouraged, in
conformity with national law, and taking into account relevant interna-
tional conventions. We reaffirm the necessity of reducing international
imbalances affecting the media, particularly as regards infrastructure, tech-
nical resources and the development of human skills.
(…)
189
190 Words and Worlds
modern civilisations. There is no doubt that the ideology inherent in the religion of a
linguistic community affects greatly the status, corpus, and acquisition of a language.
Taken into account the language choice each makes, religions can be divided into
two large groups. On one hand, some religions keep the use of the ancient language in
which the revealed text was delivered by the divine force. On the other, another
group of religions use texts not revealed directly by God, but rather texts delivered by
wise masters based on personal experience. The former are called Religions based on
Revelation and the latter are named Religions of Wisdom. This way of looking at reli-
gions and classifying them by their origin helps us understand the language choices
made in many religions of the world.
Religions based on Revelation are the Religions of the Book (Islam, Judaism and
Christianity), and others such as Hinduism. In this group we should make a further
distinction between the religions that take the Revelation as dictated directly by the
divinity – as in the case of Islam – and the ones that consider the received text as inspired
and, therefore, subject and allowed to be localised to the historical, psychological and
cultural circumstances of the receiver – Judaism, Christianism and Hinduism.
All these religions have been and are often still associated tightly with the use of
certain languages: The Qu’ran is considered a text descended (munzal) on
Muhammad; it is the literal transcription of Alà’s words and should not, therefore, be
translated or interpreted – although there are examples that differ from this general
idea. Since this text is written in Classical Arabic, it can only be read or recited in this
language. Use of other languages is only allowed during the Friday sermon or in other
less formal situations. Map 10 shows the areas where Tamazight varieties are spoken.
Hinduism also prevents its sacred texts from being translated and these are read in
another classical language, Sanskrit, language of the ancient Vedas; Judaism has also
used a classical language, Classical Hebrew, to pass on the revealed texts. All these
three languages share the fact that they have not been transmitted naturally from
generation to generation, but have rather been kept incorrupt, away from any
possible language change, due, in fact, to their exclusive use in the religious domain.
The case of Hebrew is worth mentioning as well, not only because of the impressive
recovery process that took place in Israel during the last century, but also, and what is
more impressive, for the fact that a classical language only used in the religious
domain at the time spread its use to all situations, creating the whole range of
linguistic varieties needed in a normalised language.
Finally, there is no sacred language in Christian religions, although some
languages, such as Latin and Greek, have been granted the highest status, despite the
fact that they were not spoken by the Founders.
In fact, we can observe the major role played by religion in language choice and in the
creation and spread of writing systems when we examine, among others, language
planning decisions through history in Europe. Between 867 (Council of
Constantinople) and 1054 Europe was divided in two clear cultural worlds. This
division was related to religion and language (Hagège 1992: 133). In Western Europe,
Christianity used Latin in all religious services by the 11th century, even in places where
Language and Religion 191
there had been no Latin tradition, such as Ireland or Germany; moreover, languages of
Western Christianity not written before adopted the Latin alphabet. In the meantime,
Eastern Europe started to translate religious texts to Gothic and the Orthodox Church
later adopted the Cyrillic alphabet, which was based on Old Slavonic, the language
spoken by the monks who created it: Cirilus and Methodius. The two major writing
systems used in Europe today are, therefore, a direct consequence of the divide between
Western and Eastern Christianity after the Fall of the Roman Empire.
Another religion division among Christians in the 16th century also lets us see
differences in language choice. The Protestant Reform brought the translation of the
Bible to High German, and later to other vernacular languages. In addition massive
literarisation in vernacular languages allowed the spread of Protestantism, which
provoked a reaction from the Catholic Church, which also felt forced to undertake the
education of the elites and the literarisation of the general population, and started to
give vernacular languages a status that they never had before, using them together
with Latin in religious texts (Baggioni 1997: 108). In fact, the standardisation of small
European languages such as Basque or Gaelic began in this context, when they started
to be used in the written form of catechisms and doctrines. However, it was not until
the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) that the Roman Catholic Church allowed the
use of vernacular languages in Catholic mass. Until then, mass was held in Latin.
Therefore, it is important to highlight the critical role that writing the sacred texts in
vernacular languages has, and the consequences that the choice of an orthographic
system have in the future of many languages. In Western Christianity the Latin alphabet
was generalised, but this phenomenon has also been common in other religious
contexts: for instance, languages written in other characters shifted to Arabic script
because of religious reasons. Arabic alphabet was used to transcribe languages previ-
ously not written down until the expansion of Islam, such as Turkish, Urdu, Malay,
Swahili, although nowadays some of them (Swahili, Malay or Turkish) use the Latin
alphabet (Calvet 2001: 171). The Hebrew system has also been used to codify languages
such as Yiddish, Ladino and varieties of Arabic and Persian (Spolsky 2004: 49).
The relation between language and Religions of Wisdom is less close. Religions such
as Buddhism, Taoism, or Animism, and all their variants, have texts that gather the
reflections of their wise masters; these texts do not constitute the revealed (by divine
force), but rather the experienced (by wise masters). The language used in these
canonical texts is not the only key to interpretation, but rather it assists the believer to
create a lifestyle that ultimately makes it possible to get to sense illumination or
ecstasy. Wisdom is not the start-point structured in a sacred language (as in
Revelation cases), but rather an arrival-point.
The language has the instrumental value of allowing communication (Buddhism)
or the value of invocation (Animism). Therefore, there is no close relationship
between a specific language and Wisdom religions or paths, these being more open to
the use of vernaculars. Buddhism has also encouraged translation from the original
Sanskrit, Prakrit and Middle Aryan texts into Chinese or Tibetan, for instance. Our
Mon (Myanmar) informant confirms us that:
192 Words and Worlds
Buddhism has a great influence on the Mon community, in terms of culture and liter-
ature. (…) in the Mon community the religious service and ceremonies are completely in
Mon language. (Mon, Myanmar)
As other religions, Buddhism has also contributed to the spread of a writing system;
as the religion spread through Asia, many communities adopted its writing system,
Brahmi, or adaptations of it.
The Brahmi writing system is the base for most systems used in India, with the
exception of the ones spread through Islam. The Devanagari script, a system derived
from original Brahmi, is currently used in India not only to transcribe Classical
Sanskrit, but also to write Hindi. Another form of Brahmi, the Gupta script, is used to
transcribe the Tibetan language. In addition, the Brahmi system was adopted in
China and Japan when Buddhism spread there. The Chinese classical script was
spread with the expansion of Buddhism in Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Later, many
small local languages used Chinese characters for transcription (Calvet 2001: 99).
Last but not least, Animist communities are the most likely to use their vernacular
language, to the point that some languages are only used by the certified person, shaman
or another, as the language of invocation. Kallawaya, a language of Peru, for instance, is
an almost secret and sacred language, not naturally transmitted in the community, but
only used by the Kallawaya when they practice traditional medicine (Girault 1989: 13).
least until the 18th century, when the prestige of these three lingua francas started to
decrease and the use of Spanish in religious and administrative domains accelerated.
(Ortiz Rescaniere 1992: 12. See also Cerrón Palomino 1987 and Meliá 1992).
The increased use of Spanish, not only in the religious domain but in all public
domains, caused the substitution and loss of many American languages. The accul-
turation feeling perceived by the communities as a consequence remains until today,
as reported by many informants. The Mam testimony is only an example:
Christian religion has contributed to kind of acculturation that makes people drop their
religion or their own spirituality and shift to the Catholic or Evangelical religion; on the
other hand, due to religion, religious document have been currently translated; in addition,
they sing and use the [Mam] language in ceremonies. (…) In the practice of Mayan spiri-
tuality, the Mam language has always been the oral means of communication; however,
Christianity started to use Spanish, both orally and in written form; Mam started to be
used not long ago and it is reinforced with Spanish. (Mam, Guatemala)
As in the situations already mentioned, the spread of the new religion contributed to
the creation of writing systems for many languages that were not written at the time,
and even the adoption of the Latin alphabet by languages that already had their own
system, such as Nahuatl, language that already had a different script in the Amoxtli
codex – books related to the religious and historic tradition of the old indigenous
world (Leon Portilla 1993: 20).
Another typical pattern is that carried out during the British colonisation of Asian
and African territories: missionaries used vernacular languages, together with local
lingua francas and English in education with the purpose of spreading the Christian
religion (Ferguson 1982: 102). This language policy obviously favoured the spread of
English and local lingua francas, causing also a threat to small local languages.
Other patterns of colonisation, especially recent ones, gave up on the idea of spreading
the religion of the colonisers. During the French colonisation in Africa in the 19th
century, the French tried to colonise through the language, so that all the “civilised” ones
would be French speakers (Spolsky 2004: 71). In this case the role that the French
education system played in the status of the European language in the colonies is crucial.
To finish, we must note that the spread of a religion or religious factors alone cannot
be held responsible for the marginalisation and even loss of hundreds of languages in
the former colonies. However, without underscoring the economical and social domi-
nance that usually co-occurs with linguistic and cultural domination, we must stress
that the spread of religion in colonial settings often goes hand-in-hand with the
spread of the language, culture and world view of the colonisers, who always want to
impose their ways over the colonised peoples’ ones.
translation of their holy texts and the use of vernaculars in religious practices are not
always consistent when applying this policy. Quite often, current religious ideology
does not prevent them from using vernacular languages; however, according to some
of our informants, religious practice is conducted in the language of the missionaries
or religious leaders, producing language shift for the local community. The use of a
language in the religious domain gives prestige to a language; similarly, it is common
to choose a prestigious language in the religious domain to the detriment of those
with lower prestige. Consider the following testimony:
Since 1859–1860, the Pech have been Catholic, as they were converted by the Spanish
Jesuit Manuel de Jesús Subirana. The Pech communities are attended by Catholic
priests who use Spanish as the only ritual, official and communication language. The
church, along with schools, have historically been the institutions that have most perse-
cuted the Pech language and have strengthened Spanish as the official and only
language. (Pech, Honduras)
The members of the communities often report explicitly that they would rather use
their vernacular language in religious rites and ceremonies:
Until the mid eighties, all the Reef Islanders were Anglican. Since that time, many joined
evangelical fellowships (e.g. Church of the Living Word). (…)The services are largely
conducted in English, a language most Reefs people do not understand. If a message is
preached, the preacher will use Aiwo or Pijin or both. All the written materials (Book of
Common Prayer) are English exclusively, though the people have expressed a strong
desire to have this translated into Aiwo. (Aiwo, Salomon Islands)
In addition, it is important to highlight that in some situations language choice –
whether to use the local language or impose a more prestigious one – seems to reflect
a sort of competition among different religious organisations trying to gain adepts in
the same linguistic community:
Catholic Church promotes in a way the local language in all religious ceremonies. There
are hymnbooks and missals in Achi and the New Testament has been translated.
Protestants act differently: they reject the use of the local language and prohibit many of
the Mayan traditions in the community. Protestants use the [Achi] language neither in
written form nor orally. (…) In the Mayan religious practices the language is used 100%,
but there are no written texts. (Achi, Guatemala)
Like the Achi informant, many others noted that, whereas religions not originating
from the region weaken local languages, practice of the native religion strengthens
ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity (also Crystal 2000):
If it is a traditional ritual, the [Maninga] language is used exclusively. The cultural cere-
monies are often influenced by Islam and the phrases and prayers are sometimes in
Arabic. (Maninga, Côte d’Ivoire)
Language and Religion 195
But sometimes it is often difficult to establish clear-cut differences between the new,
global, religions and traditional ones. Several informants report cases of syncretism
between the two.
In the western dialect area, the Muya people practise Lamaism, and have built many
temples there. In the eastern dialect region, only some of the Muya profess Lamaism, so
there are not many temples or professional Lamas. In addition, the Muya people still
adhere to animistic beliefs and often hold religious activities such as worshipping nature
and sacrificing to spirits. (…) In Lama temples in the western dialect region, Tibetan is
used in religious activities instead of Muya. In the eastern dialect area, Muya is used in
such activities, but is sometimes used together with Chinese and not Tibetan. Thus, Muya
in the western dialect region tend to be much more fluent in Tibetan than those in the
eastern dialect region. (Muya, China)
In addition, it seems that the tendency today is for many religious organisations to be
more tolerant towards local languages, as pointed by our Desano informant:
As for most indigenous groups, the traditional religion, often in syncretism with the
Catholic religion, is bound to the everyday life of the indigenous people. Birth, death,
sowing, harvesting etc. are reasons for religious celebrations in the community.
Concerning other religions, Catholic missions acted as commissioned by the government
of Colombia to “civilise” the indigenous people till 1974 and it was common to have
boarding schools where children were forbidden to use their language. Nowadays, the
Catholic Church assists in the official education through administration contracts and
they are diminishing their offensive against indigenous traditions and the language.
(Desano, Colombia)
However, it must not be forgotten that for many reporters the change that has taken
place in many religions is apparent; members of foreign religions have learnt the
language and produced texts written in the local language so as to promote a subse-
quent transition to the dominant language. Quite a few people have pointed out that
the use of the local language in religious acts, rites and practices always has the ultimate
object of continuing acculturation or leading them away from their own original beliefs,
cultures and languages. Many of our reporters perceive that religious leaders have no
interest in supporting or strengthening local languages. In general, their goal would be
to increase their membership and power in the community:
The Tolupan of La Montaña de la Flor have traditionally been Catholics, but the
presence of the Protestants of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) from 1950 to
1980 has led most of the Tolupan of the Cipriano group to join this religion. The
linguistic influence of the Protestant religion was quite considerable during its 36-year
presence, as they did the first texts in Tol, studied the language and prepared the
dictionary. They also began an educational programme for transition from the Tol
language to Spanish. Curiously, the ILV [SIL] implemented a contradictory religion
and language policy; on one hand, it studied the Tol language in depth and produced
196 Words and Worlds
endless written texts, but on the other, it encouraged the transition to Spanish in its
religious and educational programmes. (Tol, Honduras).
Accepting the fact that the main goal of religious organisations in the former colonies
is to gain adepts to their beliefs and religious communities, there seems to be a contra-
diction in the language planning conducted by many. As noted by our Tol informant,
among others, on one hand, there is great interest in documenting indigenous
languages, especially in respect to their structure and lexicon. Very important efforts
have been undertaken to codify writing systems for many languages. What looks
necessary corpus planning to reverse the minority status of “powerless” languages is
often perceived by the communities themselves as an effort to bring speakers to the
mainstream, so that they are assimilated by the more powerful linguistic and cultural
group, and not as an effort directed toward the maintenance of indigenous languages
and cultures. Even more strongly, the work conducted by many proselytiser groups is
often perceived as a move towards linguistic, cultural, and religious uniformity for
the benefit of the economically, politically, and socially more powerful.
Written and oral use of the languages of the world in religious practices
In the same way that all languages have their literature, most languages have also
developed verbal forms, texts, either oral or written, and more or less ritualised, to
express the sacred, supernatural or magic. It is not surprising, therefore, that most of
the languages analysed in the World Languages Review should be used in religious
practices. To be precise, more than 80% of the sample languages were reported to be
used in religious ceremonies and rituals, at least orally.
In fact, religion is the social domain in which languages are most used. Indeed, in
many cases, the language survives only as a liturgical language. This is the situation
in the African Fongbe community, whose essentially animist traditional religion
sustains the language through worship, ceremonies and sacred songs. It is also
important to note that traditional religions generally make exclusive use of the
language of the community, as in the case of the Akoye language of Papua New
Guinea. Other examples are that of Fon (Benin) and Guiqiong (China):
Fon speakers are mostly animists, a traditional religion that uses the language in its
cults, ceremonies, sacred songs etc. (…) Fon is used in religious practices and cults, but
only orally. (Fon, Benin)
The Guiqiongs are animists and believe that there are spirits in heaven, earth, fire, moun-
tains and water. When natural disasters strike, they will invite religious practitioners to
sacrifice chickens, pigs and sheep in order to placate the spirits.(…) When their religious
practitioners offer sacrifices, they use the native language, but some of the ancient reli-
gious terms are not comprehensible to the general public. (Guiqiong, China)
Indigenous religions most generally have a exclussive oral tradition and, as pointed
before, are the most common domain for language maintenance. Consider the Hayu
and Mapudungun cases:
They have an indigenous religion.(…) It is spoken and sung in local ceremonies.
(Hayu, Nepal)
Native religion practice revitalises Mapundungun and the Christian religion prevents it
from use (…) The [Mapundungun] language is used in practices and religious cere-
monies, it is used exclusively orally when Mapuche practices and religious ceremonies –
in other words, the rites of the natives themselves – are carried out. (Mapudungun,
Chile, Argentina)
Not surprisingly, the written use of languages in religious practices and rites drops
considerably with respect to their oral use: rather less than half of the languages are
used in the writing of the religion. Even so, it must be pointed out that this figure for
written use in religious practices is quite high in comparison with general written use,
which in most cases does not exceed 30% of languages.
One of the reasons that might explain such a high proportion of written use of
languages in religious practices is that, as mentioned before, the more widespread
198 Words and Worlds
religions, the so-called “religions of the book”, are based on sacred texts in written
form, whether they are maintained in the original language or, most often, translated
into other languages. The written use of many languages is, in fact, restricted to the
translation of sacred texts. As already mentioned, religions that encourage translation
of the holy texts have played a central role in the use and, in some cases the devel-
opment, of the written form of many of the world’s languages.
Although recognising the benefits that written use of a language in the domain of
religion provide for the standardisation and even social prestige of many
languages, we must stress that for a language to remain healthy and not in danger
of disappearance written use must be promoted also in other formal areas, espe-
cially in the field of education, media and public administration, as claimed else-
where in this Review.
Closing remarks
There is no doubt that religion plays a crucial role in sociolinguistic issues. On one
hand, the fact that a language is used in the religious domain in itself grants that
language a status and prestige not granted to languages not used in this setting. We
must remind ourselves, though, that the fact that a language is not used in the
reading of the sacred texts and in the rites and practices of the religion of the
linguistic community does not necessarily imply language loss. However, when reli-
gious associations not only do not use the language of the community, but also wish
to acculturate it or when the language different from the local one is more
“powerful” or prestigious – often as a consequence of the social, economic or reli-
gious status of the carriers of the new religion – the low or lack of use of the local
language in religious practices can, in fact, contribute, together with the other
aspects, to language substitution.
On the other hand, the importance of religion and religious associations in
corpus planning must also be stressed. As discussed thorough this chapter, the
standardisation – codification of writing systems and other kinds of standardis-
ation, for instance – of many oral languages was carried out for religious purposes.
We must also point at the efforts conducted by many religious organisations in the
field of education in general, and especially, literarisation, despite very harmful
efforts to prohibit the use of some languages in religious schools, as reported by
some of our informants.
In sum, religious ideology alone cannot account for the different attitudes held and
linguistic measures implemented by religious organisations. Situations sharing a
certain religion can be completely different with regards to tolerance for linguistic
diversity and promotion of minority languages.
Finally, when examining the current situation of languages and trying to predict
their future, religious aspects cannot be taken in isolation; we should rather consider
economical, political, and social ones along with them, since the factors that may
affect language shift or maintenance are various and interrelated.
Language and Religion 199
200
Transmission and Intergenerational Use of Language 201
transmission. Erosion is said to happen when there are segments of the population of
certain communities that do not teach the younger generations their own language.
The erosion is absolute when there is a total break in the transmission. The chances of
a language of being replaced by another depend on the degree of alteration in the
natural method of transmission.
Indeed, a large number of researchers who have tried to understand the problems
involved in the unequal relations between languages have stressed that the alarm
must be raised immediately. There are an enormous number of situations in which
the natural setting for children’s socialisation is breaking down and this is reflected,
amongst other things, in the fact that parents are no longer passing on their language
to their children.
Krauss (1992), for example, analyses the position of languages in relation to the
proportion of children who learn them, and if the trends are not corrected, he foresees
that up to 90% of languages could disappear during this century. Wurm (1996, 2001)
suggests that the scale of the threat of a language’s disappearing is closely related to
the proportion of children who speak it, and on this basis he proposes a classification
which basically indicates that if the language of a community is not widely learnt by
the children or by a large proportion of them (which should reach at least 30%) then it
is in danger or at least potentially threatened.
The expression “in danger of disappearance” refers to a gradual process of decline
which can lead to extinction after going through intermediate situations which are
ranked according to the level of deterioration from “languages in potential danger of
extinction” to “languages in serious danger”, “dying languages” and finally “extinct
languages”. According to this author ’s criterion, at least 50% of the world’s
languages – that is, more than 3,000 – are currently in danger of extinction, in serious
danger or dying.
McConvell (2001) also proposes that the classification of the danger of extinction
of languages can be determined according to the population groups that speak
them. He proposes the following categories for discussion of types of language: (a)
the language chiefly spoken by children; (b) the language understood by adults,
though not necessarily transmitted to children, (c) languages spoken only by older
people, but understood by adults, while children no longer even understand
them. All of this suggests that the number of people making up the age groups
who know and use a language is a basic indicator of the danger of extinction
facing the language.
Thus the basic objective of the proposals for revitalising languages in danger of
replacement or extinction relies on ensuring their intergenerational transmission.
One of the most representative theoretical writings on this issue is the one
presented by Fishman (1991), whose proposal for countering the trend towards
language shift centres on the need to ensure the means for preventing the break in
intergenerational transmission, and in those cases where the shift has already
taken place, on influencing the factors that can help recover the natural trans-
mission mechanism.
202 Words and Worlds
The Euromosaic Report derives from a report commisioned by the Task Force
Human Resources, Education, Training and Youth in 1993 (later DG XXII and
now the DG for Education and Culture) to investigate the current situation of
the dozens of minority language groups within the European Union. The
expression “minority language groups”, or communities, refers to territorially-
defined linguistic groups other than those of the speakers of the dominant or
official state languages in the member states.
Two previous studies had been commisioned in the 1980s. A new report was
urgently needed both because of the rapidly changing legal, institutional and
social situation in a number of these communities, and because a methodologi-
cally sound study would allow a comparative understanding of them. The
objective of the chosen project was to relate the current situation of each
language group to its potential for production and reproduction, and the diffi-
culties encountered in doing so.
Various social and institutional aspects were considered, whereby a language
group produces and reproduces itself. Seven central concepts were focused
upon, and empirical measures were sought for them. The primary agencies of
these processes were identified as the family, education and the community. The
motivating force involved the concept of language prestige and cultural repro-
duction. The link between ability and use involved the concepts of institutional-
isation and legitimisation.
The final version of the Euromosaic report, which was produced by the
Institut de Sociolingüística Catalana (Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona),
Centre de Recherche sur le plurilinguisme (Brussels), and Research Centre
Wales (Bangor), highlights the shift in thinking about the value of diversity for
economic deployment and European integration. It argues that language is a
Transmission and Intergenerational Use of Language 203
Language transmission
The figures analysed are representative of general trends. According to the informants in
our research, only 53% of the languages analysed are widely and normally transmitted,
thus confirming the hypothesis that there is a serious risk of language shift.
No answer 4%
Total 100%
204 Words and Worlds
In 23% of the communities analysed transmission exists but the influence of prestige
languages is already perceptible, as transmission is only maintained in the more
impermeable nuclei. The case of languages whose transmission is practically inter-
rupted refers to languages whose change is imminent, since only in exceptional cases
is the language transmitted within the family. This situation affects 8% of the
languages analysed. Finally, the figures returned show that 12% are not transmitted at
all, so that it is foreseeable that these languages will disappear along with the last
remaining speakers.
Indeed, the fact that in 43% (23%, 8% and 12%) of languages transmission has been
altered is itself cause for serious concern. But it should also be pointed out that even
generalised transmission of a language in the present generation does not necessarily
ensure its survival, since transmission can be altered in the next generation – that is, in
a very short period of time.
Of course, transmission is not interrupted simultaneously and completely in all the
family nuclei of the community, except in exceptional cases or physical aggression.
In the cases of physical aggression, the change in the transmission trend tends to be
radical, but in situations of extensive language contact the onset of shift is preceded
by the presence of the external language in spheres bordering on the family nucleus.
In other words, the outsider language first of all occupies formal or official spheres,
that of work relations, and gradually begins to be adopted in the private sphere of the
family group. That is why it is said that the external influence for linguistic change
takes place chronologically and tends to progress from the external sphere towards
the family sphere.
All of this suggests that if external pressures for the use of the prestige language
intensify – which is something quite likely in view of the trend to uniformity to be
seen in the spheres of external use – the change will affect private relations, so that it
can be foreseen that many of the languages that at present are being transmitted
normally could begin to be interrupted.
Old people 65
Adults 59 54
Young people 54 44 36
Children 49 42 35 38
In a global analysis of the figures, always applying the necessary precautions to extrap-
olation, we see that the use of the languages among the older generation is higher
(approximately 65%) than the percentage of languages at present being transmitted
(approximately 53%). The widespread use of the languages in these generations
assumes that they have received it naturally. This figure shows that in at least 10% of
languages transmission has been interrupted in the space of a single generation.
The use of community languages shows a marked drop among the younger gener-
ation to 36%. We can therefore see that in two generations the percentage of use has
dropped to half. In other words, there has been a marked acceleration in the tendency
to change observable in the first generation and widespread by the second.
This fact is particularly alarming because it shows the gap there is between
knowledge and behaviour as regards one’s language. If at least 53% of languages
have been transmitted in the normal way, the level of use among the younger
generation, 20% lower, suggests that the trend to substitution will increase in the
next generation.
Figures for the use of language among children (38%) are slightly higher than those
of the group immediately preceding them – that is, young people (35%). This fact,
which could in theory be a positive sign, does not seem to be a sign of recovery either,
since the use of languages between adult generations and children, which in
language transmission situations seem to be the most favourable, shows a marked
decline. The figures confirm that adults speak their own language amongst them-
selves (54%) more often than they do with children (42%), even if they have trans-
mitted it. All of this suggests that this increase is more likely to be due to the fact that
children are less exposed to the majority language, as they have not yet had access to
spheres with more influence from outside agents, which are principally school and
the surrounding social sphere.
here again because the informants associate them with the idea that the interruption
of intergenerational transmission is a cause of risk to the language and is one of the
consequences of the threats and risks facing the speakers of threatened languages.
Languages that are not transmitted naturally in the family are being replaced by
languages of supposedly greater prestige. These languages can be a territory’s official
language, the more widespread languages in prestigious social use or the languages
spoken by the more influential groups in the region.
The reasons for interruption most frequently mentioned are closely interrelated
and in general refer to: (1) Pressure from other cultures or languages, (2) Government
pressure to acquire the official language or implementation of the educational system
in a language different from that of the community, (3) Demographic factors
involving displacements (migrations abroad or migrations from country to city) and
the effects of mixed marriages.
1. Pressure from other cultures or languages is mentioned by a large number of
reporters as a cause of interruption in language transmission.
A detailed analysis reveals that the influence of modernisation and urban devel-
opment are considered the most influential causes. Urban development involves a
move to a new lifestyle, considered more attractive and economically more prom-
ising, which causes a change in lifestyle and in many cases a complete break with
traditional culture. This change shows up more strongly in the younger generations,
since the expectations of entry into the professional and social world lead to the
adoption of foreign habits:
This language was passed down from generation to generation in the closed feudal soci-
eties of the past, leading to its preservation until now. However, over the past century,
modern civilisation has gradually penetrated into these closed village communities, and
those of the younger generation of Jiongnai have left their homes to enter modern society.
After the implementation of the reform policies and the opening of China’s doors to the
outside world, Jiongnai villages have been exposed to new objects, new concepts, and
modern technology as well as to new words. Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) is gradually
replacing the previous southwestern dialect and is now being used in schools and public
meetings. Thus, the Jiongnai language, with its small number of speakers and limited use,
is gradually heading towards extinction. (Jiongnai, China)
When important changes take place in ways of life, immediate changes can take
place in linguistic habits. The history of linguistic diversity clearly shows, for
example, that changes in the language-territory relationship are decisive in the life of
languages, to the extent that the adoption of a sedentary lifestyle by nomadic
peoples often tends to involve language substitution, as in the case of the Gypsies of
Romania, the Fulani of northern Nigeria and the Maku of the Amazon jungle, to
mention only a few.
2. Pressure to acquire the official language is mentioned explicitly in numerous
cases (sometimes the pressure is attributed directly to the government) and appears
closely linked to negative linguistic attitudes, which involve first a drop in use and
Transmission and Intergenerational Use of Language 207
The reply given by the reporter for Chilcotin, a language spoken in Canada, clearly
sums up the part played by schools as a system of pressure for the abandonment of
the language, in the case of the parents, as well as the part played by schools as an
element acting in favour of recovery, in the case of the children:
Although earlier educational pressures on today’s parents when they were at school led to
their language being abandoned, the children now often learn the language only in the
Chilcotin classes at school or with their grandparents. (Chilcotin, Canada)
We must remember that many places have opted for a bilingual or multilingual
teaching system allowing use of the local language while learning others for specific
intergroup or international relations purposes without losing their own language.
3. Migratory movements and mixed marriages are two of the demographic factors
indicated as causes for the interruption of language transmission.
Both the migratory movements outside the territory and the immigration of
speakers of more powerful languages into a territory are factors that influence the
decision to transmit the own language or not. However, the factor most often
mentioned as the cause for the interruption of transmission is the movement of the
rural population to urban areas. It is in the urban environment that the influence of
external factors for change is more marked. Direct dealings with administration, the
influence on the value of the language of the labour market and commerce, the more
influential media and social relations, added to modernisation, make a decisive
combination for the attitude of speakers of less prestigious languages.
At the same time, bearing in mind that young people are more likely to make this
sort of migration to the cities, the tendency to drop the habits of the community is
more marked. The following could be illustrative examples of these phenomena:
The transmission of this language from parents to children is obvious. Nevertheless, a
considerable number of inhabitants – some 2000 who have settled in cities like Pucallpa,
Yarinacocha – no longer do so, and replace it with Castilian. (Shipibo, Peru)
The language is transmitted from generation to generation, especially for the people from
the rural areas. On the other hand, those who settle in urban centres replace it with
Swahili or English. (Loogoli, Kenya)
Normally, yes [the language is transmitted], but in many cities there are now families
who speak to their children in Maghrib Arabic in the belief that this will help in their
schooling. This process of forced Arabisation is replaced by Hispanicisation in the case of
families of Berber origin in Melilla. (Tamazight, Morocco)
The language is still stable in the family for those who do not live in big cities or inter-
marry with other ethnic groups. (Songorong, Chad)
Another very frequently mentioned cause is the phenomenon of mixed marriages.
Transmission and Intergenerational Use of Language 209
A large proportion does [transmit the language], but another proportion doesn’t, because
they marry Spanish-speaking mestizos who because they don’t speak the Bora language
speak mostly Castilian with their children. (Bora, Colombia)
The increase in marriages between Norfolk Islanders and foreigners is one of the reasons
for the decline of the language. It is still considered bad manners to speak Norfolk when a
member of the family or community only speaks English. (Norfolk, Norfolk Island)
Mixed marriages have a wide range of effects on the life of languages, although the
immense majority of reporters only mention their negative influences. Furthermore,
there are indications that in societies that have traditionally been multilingual due to
the formation of couples belonging to different linguistic descents, in recent decades the
traditional strategy has been changed to one of the adoption of a dominant language, be
this the language of one of the spouses or the official or dominant language of the
region, which may not be the language of either of them. In the case of Western, basi-
cally monolingual societies, mixed marriages can act in favour of diversity because each
spouse ensures transmission of their language to their descendants.
It is worth pointing out that of the causes mentioned only the last two, migration
and marriage, can be said to respond to communication strategies, while the rest
respond to direct pressures or are attributable to negative linguistic attitudes usually
as a result of these pressures.
One hopeful fact that some informants provided was the value placed on grand-
parents as transmitters of languages to their grandchildren to recover the trans-
mission interrupted by parents with these children.
At present, Pech couples over 40 speak Pech at home but it seems that in younger
couples the grandparents are the only people who speak Pech to the children (Lara 1997).
(Pech, Honduras)
Huambisa is transmitted by grandparents to parents, then to children and then to the
grandchildren. In some cases transmission relations arise from grandparents to grand-
children. (Wampis, Peru)
Finally, it is important to mention some undoubtedly subjective accounts which
nevertheless have the added value of conveying the pleasure of speaking one’s
own language.
Lingao will be passed down to future generations, because the local people like to use it
everywhere. The local people use it in markets, cadres use it in offices, teachers use it in
schools, and children grow up speaking it. (Lingao, China)
Since the last century, all the researchers in La Mosquitia (Nicaragua) have pointed out
two things as regards the Miskita language and its use: (1) That the Miskitos are very
communicative with all ethnic groups and with foreigners and speak and teach their
language to those wanting to learn it (Herranz, 1996: 436–437). (2) That Miskito women,
even those married to Ladinos or other ethnic groups such as the Tawahka, always teach
their children Miskito (Herranz 1996). (Miskito, Nicaragua)
At present, no other language is likely to completely replace it as the Derung people like to
use their native language. (Derung, China)
• Emphasise the importance of language and culture for the individual’s sense
of identity and self-esteem.
• Discourage language substitution, by pointing out the widely demonstrated
ability to harmoniously integrate the knowledge and use of more than one
language by one person or social group.
Transmission and Intergenerational Use of Language 213
214
Linguistic Attitudes 215
One’s attitude to one’s own language involves one’s own personal identity linked
to the social group one belongs to. That is why it is especially interesting to identify
the reasons why some people’s attitudes lead them to use another language in situa-
tions of multilingualism. Furthermore, it is interesting to find out what motivates
someone to learn a new language, in what spheres it is used, and why it can replace
one’s own in spheres originally occupied by the latter, even to the extent of aban-
doning it. In particular, we shall attempt to identify the reasons why people show
negative attitudes to their language.
One of the factors that researchers consider fundamental in shaping linguistic atti-
tudes is whether or not the language has some sort of official status – that is, the
official character of the language or the relative position of prestige it occupies with
respect to the official language and other languages in contact with it. In addition,
other factors have to be added such as the preservation or loss of the community’s
cultural identity and the attitude shown by members of the linguistic communities
with which they come in contact.
In addition, we have to take into account changes in the life of communities and in
the use of languages as a result of the process of urbanisation, migrations and the
introduction of mass media, along with pressure from the hope of social promotion
expressed in the need to use the majority languages.
In this chapter we shall be analysing the attitudes of speakers to their own
languages and the attitudes of speakers of other languages with which they come into
contact, in relation to the factors mentioned above. The comparative analysis of the
data will make it possible to classify them into two large groups, which though not
closed, will make it possible to speak of positive and negative attitudes to languages.
for reasons of social promotion. This is the case of widespread languages in their
areas of influence that are being adopted by speakers in many regions, very often to
the detriment of their own language. One example was provided by the informant for
Norwegian, who said that “the attitude to the language presents no problems, as its
use is taken for granted. However, the insecurity historically attached to everything
Norwegian can sometimes lead to an emphasis on the use of Norwegian, or, more
often, to an irrational lack of self-esteem leading to an unnecessary and insecure use
of English.”
The most widespread behaviour is the following: attitudes to the languages of
greater prestige are positive and the tendency to learn these languages will depend on
the advantages their use involves. This is the case of some multilingual contexts,
where identification with the influential group stands out. For example, in the case of
Sena, declared a national language in Mozambique, it is reported that speakers use it
as a means of communication, especially in cities where other languages are also
used, and that the speakers themselves see it as a language respected by the other
communities, precisely because of its status as a national language.
One’s attitude to one’s own language depends on the pressures brought to bear on the
language to maintain it or abandon it. Whereas the great majority of opinion surveys
favour survival, it is obvious that historical pressures have given rise to behaviour
inclined towards the replacement of people’s languages by others of greater prestige
for pragmatic reasons, in spite of people’s declared pride in their language. The
account of languages like Hani, in China, could illustrate this statement:
The Hani majority believes that the language is a symbol of their nationality which must
be preserved. However, as there is a feeling that it is used in limited situations, they would
like to learn Chinese too. Furthermore, Hani is not necessary in school exams, so it would
be preferable to study Chinese or English. (Hani, China)
Another aspect worth stressing is the view people have of the attitude to their
language on the part of speakers of other languages, which shows the importance of
the relationship between linguistic status and attitude. By way of example, the
reporter for Yoruba, a Nigerian language with national status and clearly
spreading, states that, “the members of the community are proud of their language,
but even so, they realise that there are more advantages to using English than to
using Yoruba.” However, referring to other linguistic communities under its
influence, this same reporter says, “the attitude (of speakers towards the Yoruba) is
positive, particularly in the communities of the small Nigerian languages like
Baruba, Ebira, Ijaw and Urhobo.”
At the same time, the promotion of certain languages to the detriment of others
gives rise to many accounts of resentment. For example, whereas speakers of
Pulaar express feelings of pride in their language, they say that “there is a certain
ill-feeling amongst other groups who see them as chauvinists”. A similar case is
that of the Viri language, reporting that “members of this community have a
218 Words and Worlds
positive attitude to the promotion, development and use of the language, espe-
cially since the language has spread to other languages”, adding that speakers of
other languages “have adopted it in public spheres, such as the fields of trade and
commerce, especially in residential areas.” All of this confirms the value of status in
the attitude to a language.
As regards languages with no official status, while expressing positive attitudes
towards their own language, as in the case of Tumbuka, informants note that other
communities have attitudes of “indifference, due to the fact that this language is not
official in the administration at a national level”.
However, it is important to point out that linguistic attitudes to one’s own language
are not the same in all members of the community. One fact that stands out is that
even in those accounts expressing pride in one’s identity and an explicit wish for the
survival of the language and culture of the group, there is deep concern over the loss
of this awareness by the younger members of the communities. School, the media, the
dominant culture and emigration to urban areas are seen as being the chief causes for
the attitude of indifference to or rejection of the local language by younger members.
The accounts of the informants for Aymara, in Peru, or Sabaot, in Kenya, could serve
to illustrate this situation:
Speakers of 40 years of age or more identify with their culture and communicate in this
language. Those between 20 and 35 use Aymara and Spanish with a tendency to cultural
mixing. Those under 20, because of their nationalist, castilianising schooling, follow
urban behaviour patterns. (Aymara, Peru)
Most people like the language, especially those of middle age and above. But it is losing
popularity among educated young people. (Sabaot, Kenya)
Furthermore, accounts of differences between the attitudes of urban and rural popu-
lations abound. One illustrative example could be the account by the informant for
the Achi language of Guatemala:
The attitude to the use and knowledge of the language among the majority in the urban
area is negative, as they are under greater pressure to learn Castilian. This is the symbol of
development, of acceptance by the dominant class, of a source of employment. People in
the rural areas have a greater appreciation for the language; the children learn it from
birth; it’s the official language in the community. (Achi, Guatemala)
However, we want to stress that most of the accounts gathered express opinions in
favour of maintaining and using the native language, even in spite of being at a disad-
vantage with other languages or being subject to opinions that go from indifference to
contempt or prohibition:
Speakers of Chipaya take great pride in their language. They feel that it is the original
language of the world. And yet the members of other communities call it a dialect and
despise it as a language and a means of communication. Nowadays, the schoolteachers
have forbidden the children to use Chipaya at school. (Chipaya, Bolivia)
Linguistic Attitudes 219
[The situation of the language] doesn’t seem to matter to some; others (particularly a few
of the older people) want to pass the language on. My feeling is that until there is a ‘Bardi
Culture’ the language isn’t so important, but this point of view may not represent the
majority point of view. I think the One Arm Point community is worried about drugs,
alcohol and preventing suicide and unemployment and other social issues; the language
doesn’t rank very high because there is a generation or two that don’t use it and because
there are other concerns. (Bardi, Australia)
And nevertheless, the figures collected seem to suggest that when these conditions
improve there is great interest in relaunching language learning along with rein-
forcing native cultures.
The change in attitude referred to is also noticeable in some minority linguistic
communities in Western Europe, where it has been possible to maintain cultural
identity, and linguistic policies are beginning to allow a certain flexibility, making it
possible to promote measures to revive languages, as in the case of Breton in France:
After four generations of shame and linguistic rejection and of an image marked by a
negative Breton identity (linked to linguistic repression led by the schools of the
Republic), mentalities are changing. Today the dominant feeling is that a valuable asset is
being lost and that there is an urgent need for action. According to a survey held in 1997,
88% of people think the language must be preserved, 72% believe it has a future and 80%
are in favour of its teaching. (Breton, France)
Negative attitudes
We have deliberately gone into the extremely worrying facts about people’s negative
attitudes towards their own language in some detail, as they indicate an almost irre-
versible trend towards linguistic substitution.
The effect of traditional state policies and the progress of some expanding
languages is endangering the survival of countless languages which are in a situation
of lower prestige.
Because of this, it is not surprising that, along with expressions of affection for the
language, some of the accounts gathered by reporters speak of the shame they feel
when using their language and of the fear of stigmatisation because of their
language, a feeling which can even become scorn when the language has suffered
severe loss of prestige.
Truly dramatic ideas were returned by the reporter on Kaqchikel, for example, who
said that “after 500 years of rejection and extermination of the Kaqchikel language,
today the majority of the members of the community rejects the preservation and use
of the language”, or on Mam, of which it is said that “there is rejection of the language
due to the lack of its implementation and use by the Administration, especially at the
educational level”, or of Pech, where “until 1990, the attitude of the majority of the
population was one of fear and great reserve in speaking outside the family setting or
relations of friendship with other speakers of the language”, or of Tol, whose
Linguistic Attitudes 221
informant says that “all the work of researching the Tol of La Montaña de la Flor until
1985 showed that the Tolupans of Yoro and La Flor felt shame when speaking Tol.”
The accounts of indigenous populations gathered in this Review show that native
languages have come under enormous pressure, and that although many communities
are beginning to demand respect for their linguistic rights, many populations still show
negative feelings towards them. The lack of prestige towards the indigenous language is
a feature we see repeated in most areas where minority indigenous populations coexist
with majority groups speaking the official language. We might remember that people
can even deny belonging to a linguistic community, as Abbi (2000) shows when he says
that “the feeling of inferiority, the awareness of the low status of the mother tongue in
society, anxiety to be associated with the superior masses, all discourage people from
declaring the language used in the family setting their own. This is especially true in
many Munda and Dravidian tribes. Research has shown that even languages that have
been declared lost are still used in the domestic sphere. The low prestige associated with
these languages has brought about this change in loyalty”.
And non-indigenous populations heighten this feeling through their attitude:
The members of the surrounding communities would like to bury this language or absorb
it. (Lai, Bangladesh)
But this pressure is not exclusive to indigenous populations. In most of Europe, too,
language communities in the minority have suffered the consequences of outright
assimilation policies on the part of states that have in many cases generated attitudes
of indifference towards the minority language or its loss, or shame over the stigma
involved in its use. There are some who feel the language should only be used in the
family sphere, in the case of the informant on Friulan; who show indifference due to
the influence of schooling in French, like the reporter on Occitan; or who even express
scorn, as the informant for Corsican reports.
From what has been said above, we can deduce that establishing hierarchies in the
status of languages generates attitudes of rejection towards one’s own language and
towards the languages of other communities. Similarly, the attitude to a language
depends directly on the relation established with the group it represents. It is also
possible that when groups with different mother tongues maintain balanced rela-
tions, the tensions between the two different communities diminish. This is one of the
basic factors that have allowed language communities with small populations to keep
up their cultural identity and their language today.
The hierarchical effect of languages is confirmed when we note the fact that all the
dominant languages in the sample analysed for this Review are learned by other
people or adopted as second or third languages. The behaviour observed in the
learning of second and third languages also shows the influence of the hierarchies
established between languages. Thus dominant languages are learnt with greater
frequency, but those of less prestige are only learned by certain people.
Societies that are traditionally multilingual show that the tendency to uniformity –
one which is becoming extremely widespread in recent decades – does not take place
222 Words and Worlds
in all societies and is not a natural one. The greater the multilingual tradition, the less
the aggression between the different languages in contact.
The reported figures indicate that relations between communities of similar status
are less hostile than those established between majority and minorised languages.
According to Abbi (2000) and Annamalai (2001), for example, relations among the
different languages in multilingual situations like India are linked to the nature of
multilingualism itself in the area. This is characterised by its social acceptance, and
people learn other languages in the course of socialisation, for communicative,
economic, cultural and religious needs, since languages can have a functional distri-
bution with respect to these functional uses.
Expressions of solidarity between communities show up time and again. This is an
encouraging fact. It could be that if initiatives are begun in favour of respect for
different identities, the self-esteem of communities in a precarious situation might
recover; experiences in similar situations might be shared and natural solidarity
between groups of similar status might arise. All of this with the object of modifying
the attitudes of dominant communities. Indeed, though no language can survive
through the incorporation of speakers from other communities, the fact that its
language is learnt by people outside the group has very positive effects on the pride
and consideration attributed to it. The learning of minorised languages by non-
natives should be encouraged. Only in this way can balanced linguistic and cultural
relations be established in the face of the linguistic and cultural uniformity with
which we are threatened.
recognition and have not been widely used in education. They often co-exist in
a diglossic relationship with their lexifiers, where the pidgin/creole assumes
the L(ow) functions, i.e. is used at home and non-official domains, and the
lexifier functions as H(igh).
Negative attitudes to pidgins and creoles, particularly at school, have had a
number of unfortunate social consequences. Research has demonstrated the
futility of constant correction of non-standard language use in the classroom
without respect for the students’ home language. When teachers tell children
not to speak pidgins and creoles because they represent a ‘lazy’ way to talk or
because they are ‘broken’ English, French, etc., mixed emotions of shame and
resistance are often the result. To deny the validity of any language is to deny the
validity of the people who speak it.
Although it seems at first glance paradoxical that pidgins and creoles persist
at all despite correction and negative public opinion, speakers do attach positive
value to these languages as markers of solidarity and intimacy. As children
approach adolescence, the use of non-standard speech varieties often increases,
indicating the effects of peer group allegiance, and resistance to mainstream
authority structures which endorse the standard. One manifestation of this can
be seen in the extension of pidgins and creoles into domains generally reserved
for the lexifier language, in particular in literature and in school. A number of
creoles such as Krio in Sierra Leone have vibrant literary traditions, and are
being increasingly used in the classroom.
Suzanne Romaine
Merton College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Surely, just as the extinction of any animal species diminishes our world, so does
the extinction of any language. Surely we linguists know, and the general public
can sense, that any language is a supreme achievement of a uniquely human
collective genius, as divine and endless a mystery as a living organism. Should
we mourn the loss of Eyak or Ubykh any less than the loss of the panda or
Californian condor? (Krauss 1992)
Languages evolve on the basis of sometimes imperceptible changes that take place in
different ways. These changes can be caused by widely varying factors such as
strategies for adaptation to the social milieu, group identification or the influence of
external linguistic contacts. In addition, they can be induced through deliberate
strategies or can take place spontaneously.
If a moment comes in this evolution when the varieties are no longer perceived as
part of the same language and are considered different languages, we can say that
these languages’ evolution has led to the disappearance of the original language.
We are speaking of well-known cases of languages for which there are plenty of
written accounts, such as the so-called classical languages, which are no longer
considered living languages today. They have evolved into multiple languages, some
of which are still alive, while others have become extinct. It is difficult to make even
an approximate calculation of the number of languages that have disappeared in this
way, since many of them have left no written evidence at all, but in any case the
number far exceeds that of the languages still spoken. It is also important to point out
that the languages that are spoken in the world today are the product of evolution
and would not be recognised as the same languages if we were able to go back far
enough in time. In other words, they have become totally differentiated from earlier
languages. Rather than languages disappearing, in these cases we speak of language
transformation (Hagège, 2000).
In this Review, however, the subject is the disappearance of languages in perhaps
far more dramatic terms. We want to put the emphasis on disappearance through
225
226 Words and Worlds
extinction or replacement and try to identify the factors that have most influence on
the falling into disuse of a language. If we accept the metaphor of the death of a
language, obviously these factors will be a direct threat to languages.
When one language is in contact with another which is expanding more powerfully,
then it is subject to extinction depending on different factors such as history, politics,
economics, culture and demography. It is therefore impossible to pick out a single
decisive cause that can be universally generalised, as each situation depends on its
own history and idiosyncrasies. It is easy to realise the enormous differences that exist
between languages in contact in stigmatised indigenous communities under pressure
from powerful economies and between indigenous communities under pressure from
other indigenous groups or between communities with high historical and economic
prestige under the influence of internationally dominant languages. Indeed, the
causes and effects vary enormously from one situation to another.
language is in danger due to the small number of speakers and the ageing of the
population, as well as the lack of official recognition and support.”
However, although the physical fact of the disappearance of the last speakers
affects individuals, the fact is that there have been direct causes that have led to
these speakers’ isolation. This is why the disappearance of the last speakers is not
in itself considered the cause of death of a language, so much as the certification of
this death.
The object of this section, therefore, is to determine the causes giving rise to the
threats facing languages. Analysis of specific situations confirms the idea that there
are many causes for the death of a language. Furthermore, the way the speakers
themselves perceive this question is significant and must be taken into account.
The information received has been analysed in detail, not only taking into account
the factors referring strictly to the threats facing languages, but also with an eye to
causes referring to historical factors and the dangers facing the communities them-
selves. In fact, many informants put forward the same arguments, both for the
languages and for the communities, in trying to explain the dangers or threats they
see or suffer in their environment. We are convinced that in this way the information
presented will be more complete.
Table 10 groups the causes of threats or dangers mentioned by the informants in
five categories:
Causes (%)
POLITICAL FACTORS 46
(Colonisation, linguistic policies, official status)
DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS 27
(Reduced number of speakers, reduction and ageing of the
population, mixed marriages, migrations for economic reasons or
because of conflicts or deportations)
PHYSICAL AGGRESSION 8
(Natural disasters, epidemics, physical aggressions)
OTHERS 3
TOTAL 100
228 Words and Worlds
Political factors
A detailed description of the political causes that have affected languages would be a
task beyond the scope of the present work. However, it should be remembered that
the endangered situation of most of today’s languages is a direct consequence of
economic and social factors, for centuries governed mainly by political interests.
In all periods of history there has been displacement of populations as a result of
military and political invasions, which has given rise to induced or directly imposed
linguistic changes.
The large movements associated with language shift, some of which have already
been indicated by Fishman (1971), are as follows.
Vernacularisation of government, technical, educational and cultural activity in
Europe. In other words, the establishment of the vernacular languages as a symbol of
state unity during the construction of the European states. It can be said that this
tendency towards one state/one language was accentuated after the French
Revolution and was the cause of the weakening of countless languages spoken in
these areas. Furthermore, this idea was subsequently widely accepted by states under
construction during the post-colonial period.
The Anglicisation and Hispanicisation of the populations of North and South America,
respectively. The colonisation of the American continent by European states brought
with it, in addition to the extinction of languages through the physical extermination of
many indigenous communities, the widespread Castilianisation of the region and later
the Anglicisation and Frenchification of the regions of the north. The action of the
colonising states was different in each region and all sorts of particularities can be found.
However, we can say that following the military domination of the population, apart
from physical extermination the linguistic policy implemented was based on the impo-
sition of the state language. There have of course been periods when states have not been
able to avoid using certain local languages with the object of achieving long-term goals,
both economic and religious. This has even led to some local languages being spread by
the conquerors themselves. This is the case, for example, of Nahuatl and Quechua in
Central and South America respectively. We must not forget, however, that just like
today, the spread of these indigenous languages led to the replacement of other local
languages of less prestige. In North America, the process of conquest has been even more
troubled in demographic terms. The result is that the indigenous communities have been
restricted to reserves, with hardly any chance of integration into the dominant society.
When a language dies, the richness and fullness of human life suffers a
reduction. Languages are long in the making. They are repositories of human
history, carrying evidence of earlier environments and practices that a people
The Threats to Languages 229
may no longer remember and of contacts between peoples who no longer live
anywhere near one another. The degree to which languages resemble each other
can reveal ancient separations or minglings of peoples. Languages bear witness
to the many ways in which human cognitive faculties have perceived the world,
sorting and categorising human experience. Each language has unique lexical
content and unique ways of patterning that content grammatically.
Even languages that are considered well known – represented by whole
libraries of lore and literature, captured in extensive grammatical treatises – are
never fully plumbed. There is always more latitude for differences in the way
individual speakers or groups of speakers put such a language into play than
can be recorded, and there is always scope for creative elaboration of linguistic
resources beyond what happens to have been remembered or preserved. Little
known languages – never treated in any studies, their poetic and traditional lore
unfamiliar to anyone but their own speakers – are lost, when they die, to
humankind’s awareness of its own full range of expressive and elaborative
verbal capacities.
When a language dies, the community of people who once spoke it (if they
have not all died as well) has lost the richest and most direct connection to their
ancestral heritage. Not their identity, necessarily, since identity can be marked
by other special features (distinctive clothing, music, foods, and the like). Lost to
memory and self-knowledge, rather, are such things as ability to perform the
sacred songs and ancient chants whose rhythms and meanings are fully
expressed only in the ancestral language; speech that embodies unique gram-
matical and lexical categorisations reflecting distinctive cultural orientations;
remembrance of the culturally specific names of places and figures important to
their history; deep familiarity with locally unique plants and their nutritional
and medicinal value. No language translates fully into another. Always there
are large or small expressive and conceptual losses when a people ceases to
speak its ancestral language and goes over to speaking another.
It can appear, sometimes, that a person chooses to abandon their own
language for another. But choices are not always “free” choices, and under-
lying such apparent choices are, in most cases, severe historic pressures:
outside political control, economic subjugation, social discrimination. What
is needed, fundamentally, is to alleviate the pressures. Around the world
today, peoples who recognise that their languages have almost slipped away
are making heroic efforts to save those languages, and with them their
rightful heritage.
Nancy C. Dorian
Bryn Mawr College, United States of America
230 Words and Worlds
Other than this, the colonisation of Asian and Australian territories by the French and
English has also given varied results. By way of example, following withdrawal of the
French from the region of Indochina, hardly any tradition of using the colonial
language remained, yet in Australia and other places the indigenous populations have
been almost wiped out, so that the overturn in the demographic correlation prevents
the natural reproduction of their languages and seriously endangers their survival.
Within this section it is worth remembering the colonisation of the American and
African continents by other European states, such as Portugal and France, which
broadly speaking followed the steps described above.
At the same time, it should be pointed out that direct action by states in economic
matters has also led to the rise of new languages. These are the languages arising in
communities of African slaves taken to America and of their descendants, who through
contact amongst themselves and/or on the basis of European languages have produced
many Pidgin and Creole languages in large areas of the Caribbean and South America.
The adoption of English and French as internationally widespread elite languages,
particularly in Asia and Africa should also be taken into account. This is a feature of post-
colonial periods, when the majority local population has not had access to the language
of colonisation. The great majority of states have adopted the European language as their
official language. Although in many cases local languages have been made official, the
fact is that the European languages are still used by the economic and prestige elites, as
they are used in administration and at school, wherever schools are generalised.
The forced Russification of populations under the control of the Soviet Union has
resulted in the deterioration and disappearance of many local languages. Similarly,
displacement of Russian populations to republics that have recently acquired
political autonomy also produces contacts between linguistic communities that are
demographically difficult to manage.
It should not be forgotten either that in many parts of Africa and Asia local languages
have been adopted for government, technical, educational and cultural activities. In
consequence, the official languages of the colonial periods have been displaced.
However, this does not prevent many other local languages being relegated.
In terms of the political causes generating a threat to languages, the first factor in the
action of states refers to the official status each one grants to the language spoken in
its territory. Political factors manifest themselves from the expansions described
above to those that materialise in the use of languages in all public services – that is, in
the administration itself, at school, in the health services and the media.
In other sections of this Review a more detailed study has been made of these
areas of use and their influence in the use of languages. Here, though, we want to
provide the information supplied by those affected with reference to actions of a
political nature.
The lack of institutional support for a language can take many forms: from the
express prohibition to use the language, which would be an extreme situation, to a
subtler lack of support which can take the form, for example, of not complying with
existing legislation. The following is a list of the aspects mentioned by informants:
absence of any form of official status or recognition of linguistic rights; express prohi-
bition of using the language; absence of the language in the media, at school and in
the administration; and the absence of linguistic policies in favour of preserving the
linguistic heritage.
The lack of support in the sphere of education and even the express prohibition of
using certain languages in schools is often mentioned in the informants’ observations.
This is the case, for example, of the Yeyi language of Botswana, where according to
our informant, “The government today prohibits the use of any language other than
English or Tswana. The government banned the use of the languages that were taught
in schools before independence. Yeyi was banned and the people who developed its
spelling were imprisoned.”
The consequence of the absence of institutional support is that the language
becomes excluded from public life. This exclusion also affects the media, a sphere
which is considered by some informants to be a source of danger for the language,
either because the language itself is not present in them or because they are used to
spread the dominant language.
Demographic factors
It seems obvious that languages with many speakers have more chances of surviving
than those with few speakers. In this respect, it is important to remember that 96% of
the world’s population speaks only 4% of the world’s languages and that 55% of
languages have fewer than 10,000 speakers. Furthermore, the eight most widespread
languages are spoken by more than 2,400 million people.
Nevertheless, the fact that a language has a large number of speakers is not enough
to ensure its survival. It is enough for some especially virulent action from outside to
come at some moment in history for the community to decide to adopt a new
language. Grinevald (1998) reports, for example, that Quechua, an indigenous
language spoken in the Andes Mountains by a population of from 8 to 12.5 million
people, “has no guarantee of survival in many areas, in spite of the projects under
The Threats to Languages 233
way for planning the corpus. There must be planning of the status to counter the
pressure from Spanish in socio-economic incentives.”
The theory of ethno-linguistic vitality put forward in 1977 by Giles, Bourhis and
Taylor proposes different variables of the language to be taken into account. The
factors involved are related to the community’s economic, social and historical status,
as well as the status of the language itself. It proposes taking into account demo-
graphic variables referring to the distribution of speakers in the territory (the concen-
tration and proportion of speakers of the language), absolute and relative numbers,
mixed marriages and migrations (immigration and emigration). Finally, it proposes
taking into account institutional support (or its absence) in official spheres (presence
of the language in the administrative services, schools, media) and unofficial spheres
(areas of work, religion and culture).
Amongst the various external factors to be considered, here stress will be put on the
analysis of the demographic factors to be found in the societies with languages in
contact. It is very significant that demographic factors, accounting for 27%, are the
second group of factors most mentioned as a source of danger to the language.
Along with the absolute number of speakers of the language, their proportion with
respect to the total population occupying the region in which it is spoken also has a
decisive influence. Indeed, if contact between languages with different economic
statuses comes about through demographic invasion, it will be much more difficult
for the members of the local community to maintain their language. Even when the
language enjoys official status, population figures could prevent this official status
from being effective. This is the case, for example, of Balkar, whose informant says
that “the small percentage of Balkars in the republic (9.4%) does not allow full reali-
sation of the language’s status as a state language”. However, if the contact occurs
exclusively amongst the elites, it is likely that the community will be able to maintain
its own language, at least for a time.
But it is also true that small communities have managed to keep themselves safe
from economically and politically more aggressive cultures. These are languages that
are “viable but small”, in the words used by Kinkade (1991), which are spoken in
“isolated communities or communities with a strong internal organisation, who are
aware that their language is a distinctive feature that reinforces their identity”. We can
offer the account by the informant for Tanimuka, a language spoken in the Amazon by
some 600 people which seems to have great vitality, amongst other reasons thanks to
the fact that “there are strong settlements, though they are not big, which are quite
remote, in the forest. The danger lies in the fact that people are beginning to migrate
and come down close to the white population of the Caquetá River.”
The effect of mixed marriages between linguistic communities of different social
status is also decisive. Though it may not be a direct or necessary consequence, it is
extremely usual for the language that is transmitted to the new generation to be the
one with the higher economic and social status, in detriment, of course, of the less
favoured language. The example of Sorbian, a Slavonic language spoken in Germany
by about 50,000 people, could illustrate this: “Unfortunately, in many Sorbian-German
234 Words and Worlds
marriages (and also in Sorbian-Sorbian marriages), the parents do not pass on their
mother tongue (Sorbian) to their children. Many parents think it is difficult for their
children to learn two languages from the start and they reject Sorbian because they
think German is the more important and useful language”. The factor that could
change this tendency is the feeling of family or group identification, which could lead
to its being passed on along with the more dominant language.
The drop in the birth rate and the aging of the population are further factors whose
effect is alarming. These factors, along with the effects of mixed marriages mentioned
above amount to a total of 17% of the risk factors mentioned by our informants.
Migratory movements are another of the most influential demographic factors,
whether caused by economic reasons or others. Although throughout history we
know of tragic forced displacements of whole populations (we need only remember
the dark age of the slave trade between Africa and America), the nineteenth and espe-
cially the twentieth centuries were characterised by the extreme cruelty and abun-
dance of these displacements. The industrialisation of the nineteenth century
produced massive migration of whole populations to the main economic centres and
the twentieth century has witnessed mass migrations due partly to rapid urban
development and partly to endless wars, armed conflicts, forced deportations and
displacements for economic purposes, which have lead to the collapse of society in
large parts of the world.
Indeed, the migration factor deserves a special mention, as it constantly arises as
the cause of the threat to languages. In fact, the phenomenon of migrations is a trans-
verse issue, as they are caused for political and military reasons as well as for
economic reasons. These migrations are mentioned as a chief cause of danger to the
language in 10% of the answers to the survey, although they do not necessarily
involve the loss of the language for the affected group. This can happen, though, and
this is why it is given special prominence in this chapter on risk factors and threats.
For example, it has been seen that the various migrations and displacements to
cities are amongst the causes of the interruption of intergenerational transmission
usually pointed out by informants. In several cases these displacements are asso-
ciated with a change in lifestyle. Although the behaviour of immigrant communities
varies according to their vitality, if the receiving community has a language of greater
prestige, the general trend seems to be towards the loss of the language in the third
generation of immigrants.
Analysing the factors that lead populations to migrate is complicated. We need
only remember that the number of displacements as a result of armed conflicts,
according to the Report for the year 2000 by UNHCR (United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees) was of 22.3 million people, of which 18.3% correspond
to internal displacements and more than 52% to refugees. It is obvious that, apart
from the human tragedy involved in such a situation, maintaining social and group
structures will be very difficult and it is foreseeable that many will have their chances
of survival as linguistic communities seriously reduced.
The Threats to Languages 235
(1) It begins with the political, economic or social pressure exerted by people who
speak the dominant language and can be either explicit and coercive or else
underlie subtler pressures. Gradually it takes the form of hints of socio-cultural
changes which include modernisation, land development, modernisation of the
educational system, the influence of other cultures, the influence of religion, the
lack of cultural autonomy, assimilation or loss of cultural identity, subordination,
loss of prestige and social discrimination, marginalisation and social degra-
dation, as well as degradation of traditional living conditions.
(2) The result is a period of bilingualism, which forms the second stage of the
process. In principle, people acquire the new language without losing compe-
tence in their original language. However, this bilingualism begins to decline as
the original language gives way in the more prestigious spheres of use, the ones
that suggest social or economic improvement. Unequal bilingualism develops,
characterised by the gradual shift in the spheres in which language is used, until
it is totally assimilated. Accounts of these situations reflect over and over again
that speakers of minority languages constantly feel the pressure of the other
language, first through the public spheres (school, media and government
services), and then in the private sphere of family relations.
The Yerava language, spoken in India, “is being replaced by more widespread
languages like Kodagu and Kannada. The community were once slaves and most
of them now work in forestry or in coffee plantations. It is under threat because it
is not seen as suitable for work. It is a ‘language for the home, only used in this
domain or field’”.
The Threats to Languages 239
(3) When identification with the new language becomes widespread in the younger
generations and the original language is no longer necessary because it does not
respond to the new needs and can even be a cause of stigmatisation, the third
stage of the process is complete. This sequence of events tends to be accompanied
by a feeling of shame over the use of their old language on the part both of
parents and children.
The informants frequently mentioned that a dangerous situation arises through
the existence of bilingualism. In fact, the supposedly monolingual state model
spread by the colonial countries, as well as the generalisation of the monolingual
school as a quality educational model, have both struck deep. However, many
communities are bilingual or plurilingual by cultural tradition, and if this feature
is properly managed it can become a factor allowing the survival of languages
without loss of communicating capacity on the part of the communities.
Physical aggression
It has been possible to confirm that in addition to the existence of situations of
extreme injustice affecting languages, these languages are also affected by the
aggression to which the actual linguistic communities are subjected. The actual
speakers of the communities have mentioned physical aggressions as factors threat-
ening their language in 8% of cases.
Physical causes are often responsible for the drastic disappearance of the speakers
as a group. These are the most dramatic situations, on which all sorts of reflections
can be made, as examples are available affecting just about every part of the world.
They can be causes we could call natural, such as seismic movements, floods and
prolonged drought. Examples of this are the collapse of Mount Barba-Bassari in Togo,
which according to our informant wiped out a large part of the population of the
Bassar community, the great famine in Ireland in 1848, and the prolonged drought in
several African countries during the twentieth century.
But as well as natural disasters, avoidable factors such as the destruction of the
habitat by economically more powerful foreign communities or companies, and
others, pose a serious threat. Understandably, the effects of these aggressions can
hardly be classed as natural. We must remember that one of the most important causes
of the drastic reduction in the indigenous population during the Spanish colonisation
of America was death from epidemics of diseases which the colonisers introduced into
regions where they were unknown. We are also familiar with external aggressions of
this type in Africa, such as the smallpox epidemic of 1713, which affected the Nama
community in South Africa. Today, the effects of illnesses that can be easily eradicated
in the West, such as tuberculosis, or are at least relatively easy to control, such as AIDS,
pose an unprecedented physical threat in several parts of Africa and Asia.
The physical integrity of communities is also affected by the impoverishment,
social disintegration and marginalisation arising when these groups are forcibly
displaced due to economic causes such as migrations from the country to the city,
240 Words and Worlds
deforestation, new forms of slavery through the hiring of cheap labour, prostitution,
etc., or from political causes such as deportations and border conflicts.
Direct action and aggression against people have dramatically taken place in
history and still take place today. Examples of important aggressions are those
mentioned, for example, by Lastra (2000) in reference to the murder of natives in El
Salvador in 1932, where the death of 25,000 natives meant the disappearance of all the
speakers of Lenca and of Cacaopera and the almost complete extinction of Pipil.
About this event, the informant on Cacaopera for our research adds that “as a result
of this massacre, most cultural values, including the language, were cast into oblivion
in order to safeguard the natives’ lives”. There are many accounts of aggressions,
such as those carried out by the rubber tapping companies in the Amazon, on which
the informant for Uitot tells us that “the Uitotos, as well as other ethnic groups of the
Colombian Amazon region, suffered the atrocities perpetrated by logging companies
at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many died, others fled from their original
homeland. One large group of Uitotos was taken to Peru as forced labour”.
In short, from the figures gathered we can estimate that a prime danger for the
languages of communities today is based on physical aggression to people in at least
8% of the communities analysed.
LANGUAGES OF NEPAL
There are over one hundred languages and dialects in Nepal. Ethnologue (Grimes,
2000) lists 125 languages including one Nepali sign language). The Population
Census of Nepal 2001 reported 92 languages spoken in Nepal as mother tongues.
In addition to these, some languages were lumped together as ‘unidentified’.
These languages belong to four families such as Indo-European spoken by
79.1%, Sino-Tibetan spoken by 18.4%, Austro-Asiatic by 0.2%, Dravidian by 0.1%
and unidentified 2.2%. The UNESCO Language Survey Report for Nepal has
counted only 60 languages spoken in Nepal. Out of these 11 are Indo-Aryan, 46
are Tibeto-Burman, 1 Dravidian, 1 Austro-Asiatic and 1 Kusunda (Toba, et al.,
2002). According to the census of 2001 sixteen languages have more than 100,000
speakers. These are Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Tharu, Bajjika, Hindi,
Urdu, and Rabamshi of the Indo-Aryan group of Indo-European family and
Tamang, Newari, Magar. Bantawa, Limbu, Gurung and Sherpa of the Tibeto-
Burman family. In addition to these, there are other Indo-Aryan languages such
as Danuwar, Darai, Bote, Majhi, Kumale and Angika, which are spoken by a
small number of people in Nepal. Major languages of India like Hindi and Urdu
are used by educated elites in Nepal Terai. In everyday inter-personal communi-
cation they use Nepali and other Indo-Aryan languages of their locality. Other
major languages of India, such as Bengali, Marwadi, Punjabi, Oriya, Sindhi,
The Threats to Languages 241
tongue and by others as their second language. Linguistic studies of some of the
languages have been undertaken and the major languages are also used in radio
broadcasts and print media. Sanskrit and Tibetan occupy important positions as
languages of the Hindu and Buddhist religions. Nepali Sign Language has been
developed recently for the use of deaf people, and is reported for the first time in
the national census of 2001 as well.
Some of the languages spoken by a small number of people are already
extinct and some other languages are on the verge of extinction. Many of them
are not well described. A comparative study of Nepalese census figures for the
last five decades (1954–2001) show a gradual decrease in the number of speakers
and many of the languages have already disappeared.
It has already been reported that some languages of Nepal are extinct or
nearly extinct. Many of the languages spoken by less than 10,000 are threatened
or endangered. They are some Indo-Aryan languages like Kumal and Bote, and
many Tibeto-Burman languages like Khaling, Thakali, Chantel, Dumi, Jirel,
Umbule, Yolmo, Nachiring, Dura, Meche, Pahari, Lapche, Bahing, Koyu, Raji,
Hayu, Byangshi, Yamphu, Ghale, Chiling, Lohrung, Mewahang, Kaike, Raute,
Baram, Tilung, Jerung, Dungmali, Linkhim, Koche, Sam, Kagate and Chintang.
An unclassified language called Kusunda is also nearing extinction.
There are several reasons for language endangerment and extinction.
Speakers of various languages have been using Nepali as a contact language for
more than five hundred years. The space and domain of the use of Nepali have
been constantly extending. As a language of basic literacy, education, adminis-
tration and everyday communication, people of various linguistic backgrounds
have been using Nepali as their second language and many of them have shifted
to Nepali. Similarly, many of the linguistic groups without written traditions of
their own, have learnt to read and write the Nepali language. Opportunities for
livelihood, better jobs and social integration have motivated a shift to Nepali.
Urbanisation, migration or change of habitat was another reason of language
loss. Speakers of various languages shifted to Nepali or other major languages
after they migrated to new places with a new linguistic and cultural envi-
ronment. The school children use the Nepali language as a medium of
education and socialisation in early childhood and children in some linguistic
communities are not carrying the mother tongues of their parents. Lack of
awareness for language maintenance in some linguistic communities is another
cause of language loss.
Thus there are several factors for language endangerment and death.
Language shift, growth of education in Nepali and English mediums, extension
of literacy in Nepali, wider contacts and constant use of Nepali and other major
languages in communication media, assimilation of small groups in dominant
The Threats to Languages 243
In view of all this, it is surprising to find that an enormous number of languages are
still spoken in spite of centuries and even millennia of aggressive contact with other
languages. One might remember the conscious tenacity of communities like the
indigenous North Americans, relegated to isolated reserves in the midst of the most
powerful community in the world; the natives of the Amazon, faced by physical and
cultural aggression on an inhuman scale; the Australian Aborigines, relegated to the
rank of second-class citizens; or communities that hold out against linguistic change
in contact with expanding languages like English, French or Spanish, such as the
Celtic languages (Breton, Welsh, Scots and Irish Gaelic, Cornish), spoken in regions
under Anglophone or Francophone domination. The tenacity and persistence of these
communities in the face of outside aggression is admirable.
Nevertheless, as Crystal (2000) says, the present situation of danger is one without
precedent: “The world has never been so populated, globalisation processes have
never been so omnipresent and never before has English had so much influence”, so
that the need to take corrective measures on a large scale seems obvious.
The public at large greatly underestimates the “value” of the little languages
scattered here, there and everywhere around the globe. How could their
extinction make much difference to their own speakers, the public asks, much
less to humanity as a whole? Those languages are so tiny and so ineffective in
244 Words and Worlds
accessing the major material rewards of the modern world, that what possible
difference could it make to anyone whether they live or die? On the other hand,
some language-oriented scholars and activists commit the opposite error and
try to substitute language determinism for language dismissal. The loss of even
the tiniest language is considered a world-shattering cataclysm, not only for its
erstwhile speech-community but for humanity at large, which will remain (they
claim) forever devastated as a result of that loss. However, exaggeration is not
necessary to make the point: linguicide, like genocide is a major human tragedy.
It is an evil that diminishes us all and that civilised and ethically sensitised
peoples must struggle to overcome, whether it occurs in their vicinity or half
way around the world.
The indexical relationship between a language and its culture
In order to answer the question posed in the title to these remarks, we must first
consider how a language is related to culture. It is the business of cultures to be
“different”. This self-declared “difference” is experienced by the members of a
culture as uniqueness and as authenticity. Each language is indexically related
(“calibrated”, if you like) to the specifically characteristic objects, values,
concerns, kinship relations, interpersonal roles (rights and obligations) and
environmental features (natural resources, flora and fauna) that its speakers
recognise and that make up their traditionally associated cultural distinc-
tiveness. The seamless fit between a language and its associated daily culture,
its unique and authentic world, is one of the characteristics of life that get lost
when a culture loses its language. Its erstwhile speakers become a human
aggregate that is no longer quite sure exactly what terms to use. An entire popu-
lation thrust into a second language is an insecure population for an entire
generation or more. The “goodness of fit” that previously existed between
thought, language and culture is gone and remains absent until the replacement
language and the modified culture have themselves co-existed and co-
performed long enough and intimately enough in the bereft population to fit
together effortlessly and intergenerationally on their own.
So what do you lose when you (the collective “you”) lose your language?
You lose the ease of navigational certainty in daily life, both personally and
collectively. Many customary and needed terms, phrases and speech events are
no longer operational and many of those that remain feel somewhat strange
and inappropriate in their new settings and with a new language-context in
which to be implemented. New words and phrases ultimately replace the old
ones, but in doing so, the old speech events are no longer what they are. They
are only approximations of their former selves, their exact meanings and even
consensual understandings are uncertain and unshared. When “things fall
apart”, twilight zones replace previous fine-grained certainties until new
The Threats to Languages 245
shared congruencies arise. Even then, the original home is never rebuilt or
reoccupied. In a very fundamental sense, one never again returns to the
original home, with all of its historically meaningful, culturally familiar and
societally distinctive contexts.
Language and culture are symbolically related
Language is the major symbol system of the human species. As such, it is only
natural that a given language should symbolise the particular speech
community with which it has long been intimately associated. We recognise in
it that the community’s very own intelligence, its humour, its propensity for
musicality, its exactness and methodicalness, its originality, sobriety and
honesty, its distinctiveness and its self-recognition. In our own language we
see reflected our history, our major literary creations, our heroes and martyrs,
our generations upon generation of mothers and fathers and assorted kinfolk
(real or putative), the voices of the past and the promises of the future. Our
minds are culturally fashioned so as to discern attributes in our language of
everything that it is theirs. And when we lose our language we lose an entire
world of seemingly automatic and immediate symbolic associations with the
history and attainments of our own slice of humanity; in other words our own
self-concept becomes altered thereby. The turns of phrase that were part and
parcel of the patrimony inherited from gifted kinfolk, historical events,
triumphs of the mind, or ascents to God per se, exist no more, and it will take
untold time for a successor language to develop new ones that are as rich in
symbolic value for anywhere near as many members of the speech
community. The shared symbols associated with a language are the shared
sinews of community and of group identity. That is part of what you lose
when you lose your language.
To a very large extent the language is the culture
We make a huge mistake when we assume that language and culture are as
separate as the two words are. Most of culture is so thoroughly interpenetrated
by its traditionally associated language that the culture without that language
would not be, could not be, “the same”. The body of law, the prayers and cere-
monies, the songs, the proverbs, the folktales, the education, the greetings, the
blessings, the curses, the jokes, the literature…all of these are in and through a
given language (and only in that language) for a given culture.
Of course all of these language-dependent desiderata can be translated,
after a fashion, but a translated culture is not the same at all as the original. It
is like “kissing one’s beloved through a veil”: it does not have the same feel,
the same aroma, the same reality. No culture has ever been fully or success-
fully translated, because languages are not simply interchangeble parts. The
246 Words and Worlds
249
250 Words and Worlds
communities. On the contrary, from the general principle we deduce that preser-
vation of linguistic diversity is a job for everybody, and not something affecting only
those communities whose language is endangered.
Another observation of a general nature is that regardless of the specific circum-
stances of each community, a negative linguistic attitude is a decisive factor in
language shift. For this reason, before taking specific steps towards recovery or revi-
talisation, we need to provide the information necessary to allow a change of attitude,
which must not, of course, be limited to language. In some cases, for example, we see
that a value which is in principle positive, like the link established through language
with one’s ancestors and one’s cultural values, acts as a double-edged sword when
these values are felt to be a limitation of people’s aims. In this sense, the association of
certain languages with modernity, civilisation or progress can have devastating
effects in communities subjected to socio-economic changes of all sorts, such as
tourism, migration or industrialisation.
Actions in favour of a language generally have positive effects on its development,
but in many cases these actions are not enough or do not have the desired effects.
This can be attributed in part to the restricted spheres in which intervention is taken,
but especially to the effect of alienation as a result of certain actions that look on
language as an additional community feature rather than as something intrinsic to
them. For example, in some communities it has been detected that the fact that a
language is protected leads members of the community to neglect their responsibil-
ities. It has also been detected that many communities see intervention in favour of a
language as an instrument aimed at obtaining certain ends. Perhaps the most
obvious example is that of the literacy campaigns carried out as a transition phase to
acquisition of the official language.
The information obtained shows that the diversity of aims of the different planning
agents often contributes to this ‘objectification’ of the language and therefore, as a
general recommendation, it is important to stress the need to establish clear objec-
tives, which must be those of the communities involved, who are, after all, the bearers
of the language. Furthermore, planning must not look on language as an isolated
object, but in relation to the history, the culture and, in short, the life of communities
and their members.
One of the basic objectives of language planning must be to further cooperation
and reciprocity, and to achieve this it is also necessary for those who no longer speak
the language and for members of other communities to take part, together with the
linguistic community itself. Language is a leading instrument of integration and
identification in communities of all sorts, to the extent that in many cases this is the
chief motivation for acquiring a language. The fact that the preservation of a
language is not something affecting only the communities involved suggests that it
would be a good idea to work in this direction to ensure equal distribution of respon-
sibilities and full participation in the preservation of linguistic diversity, which is a
job for everyone. This is not incompatible with the fact that all the decisions or efforts
that go towards the recovery and revitalising of a language should come from the
The Future of Languages 251
communities involved, or should at least have their approval, since they are the chief
agents of this work.
In addition to the general aspects, there is another question that should be empha-
sised. The information analysed shows, openly or implicitly, a series of recurrent
dichotomies, such as language/dialect, monolingual school/bilingual school, oral
language/written language, rural/urban, traditional/modern, official/not official,
minority/majority. These dichotomies, which in many cases add to the alienation of
the speakers and contribute to the perpetuation of conflicts insofar as they are often
merely the reflection of the us/others confrontation, interrupt the continuous nature
that languages and communities tend to have and oversimplify situations which can
only be resolved if we take into account their complexity. For example, in some cases,
rejection of the written form of a language or of its use in the media responds more to
a fear of acculturation than of its actual use, while the often mentioned rejection by
parents of the use of the local language in teaching responds to fear of marginalisation
rather than to rejection of the language itself.
Throughout the Review, in the relevant chapters, alternatives to these dichotomies
have been suggested in the different spheres of intervention.
As regards global treatment of linguistic diversity, some fundamental general prin-
ciples are listed here.
The trend to linguistic uniformity affects humanity as a whole and not just the
individuals and communities whose languages are disappearing.
The preservation of linguistic diversity is everyone’s responsibility.
The preservation of linguistic diversity calls for respect for all languages and
their speakers.
The recovery and revitalisation of endangered languages is a process that takes
in all aspects of the life of a community, including its relations with other
communities, be these neighbouring or otherwise.
The recovery and revitalisation of endangered languages involves doing away
with the hierarchisation of languages, especially in those spheres that are vital
for communities.
The establishment of clear objectives and coordinated action are basic in any
process of recovery and revitalisation of endangered languages.
The recovery and revitalisation of languages cannot depend solely on actions in
isolated spheres, such as education, for example.
252 Words and Worlds
1.2. Education
Education is a fundamental sphere of action for the recovery and revitalisation of
languages, and something those communities concerned with recovering their
languages insist on. Schools, as well as being an instrument for spreading knowledge
and values, are the ideal medium for correcting negative linguistic attitudes and
giving the language its rightful value. As is mentioned in many of the cases analysed,
the presence and use of a language in schools is a factor of prestige, and its absence
consequently contributes to interrupting its intergenerational transmission.
The community must play a part in preparing the curriculum and in deciding the
knowledge and values to be transmitted, especially because the use in teaching of
languages in decline must not take place in isolation if these are to be recovered.
The first urgent measure is that no school should prohibit the spontaneous use of
the students’ mother tongue. Even so, action in this area is neither exclusive nor suffi-
cient, and it is therefore essential that teaching activities should be coordinated with
other aspects of the life of the community. The necessary connection with other areas
must take place in the transmission of the community’s cultural heritage.
Furthermore, this connection must take place at different levels. For one thing, when
the use of the language is limited to primary education, its absence at higher levels, as
well as being a disadvantage to pupils who have studied in their own language,
strengthens the notion that the language is not suitable for high functions. For
another, use of a language in the school curriculum should be extended to all subjects,
so that the study of history, mathematics, literature or any other subject can be linked
to the language and the community. The community must play a part in ensuring that
the teaching syllabus is adapted to each context.
In addition to including the language in a suitable school syllabus, it is a good thing if
materials are created that allow acquisition as a second language of those languages
forming part of the community’s historical heritage, whether through bonds of neigh-
bourhood or because they form part of the same state. Obviously, the preparation of
these materials should also take into account as users those members of the community
to whom the language has not been transmitted and who wish to recover it.
One essential aspect of education is teacher training. In several cases, teachers’
linguistic prejudices were mentioned. These prejudices are passed on to pupils.
Teacher training must therefore include, in addition to knowledge of the language, a
positive attitude towards it.
In some places, the development of bilingual teaching programmes has created a
dichotomy between bilingual schools and monolingual schools which is seen as a
divisive factor in the community and in some cases is seen as a project aimed only at
the indigenous communities, thus strengthening the idea that monolingualism is a
privilege or something natural, while bilingualism requires special treatment.
However, nothing could be clearer than the obsolescence of monolingual schools
and the need to encourage bilingual and multilingual educational models that can
cater for the demands of training in different linguistic and cultural contexts. There
The Future of Languages 253
The educational system must guarantee the use of languages as a basic right of
individuals and communities.
The educational system must dignify and give prestige to languages, through
their use as well as by furthering positive attitudes towards all of them.
The educational system must give special support to those languages which
until now have been marginalised by it.
The educational system must always act in accordance with the linguistic
communities, respecting their wishes, opinions and feelings.
The educational system must help those communities with few resources in the
training and preparation of both the workforce and the material.
The educational system must train people in bilingualism or multilingualism,
both in the case of communities with minority languages and in the case of
speakers of widespread languages.
The chief priority of the educational system in the new millennium must be
approached in terms of language skills.
The monolingual school model is a threat to linguistic diversity.
1.3. Writing
Writing has a great symbolic value which plays a large part in the prestige of the
language. One widespread linguistic prejudice is the tendency to only see as
languages those that have developed a written form. This prejudice undoubtedly has
great influence on the linguistic attitudes of speakers and of members of other
communities, whether neighbouring or not.
In general, writing is seen as an achievement by the majority of informants when
talking of languages whose writing has been developed recently, and as a desire or a
254 Words and Worlds
need in those cases where it does not yet exist. Whatever the case, as we have already
seen in reference to other aspects, communities must play an important role in
decision-making, and in this case the need for a language to have a written form
should come from them.
In those cases in which a written system must be created, it is essential to bear in
mind the systems of surrounding languages, the cultural tradition and the genetic
classification of the language in question. In this respect, systems of writing
created for languages in the same linguistic group can provide solutions and
reflect the common origin of these languages. The cases of different systems of
writing within a single language – alphabetic, orthographic, etc. – tend to favour
division and fragmentation of languages and can be fatal in the case of languages
with few speakers. Therefore, any plans for creating a system of writing must
foresee these risks and consider the creation of written material in the language,
material which can be taken from the oral tradition and that allows the creation of
a written literary tradition. The creation of a written system, therefore, as pointed
out in other sections, must not be an isolated undertaking but one coordinated
with other activities.
One way of avoiding the written/oral dichotomy, which attaches a higher value to
writing, consists in valuing literary, ritual or religious oral literary traditions, as many
informants have shown. Furthermore, nowadays, new audiovisual and computer
technologies, the media and more innovative educational models make it possible to
incorporate oral usages into spheres of prestige which until very recently were
restricted to written forms.
The written use of languages in general confers prestige on them and increases
their chances of transmission and revitalisation.
Written use is only suitable if it is seen by the community as enriching and not
as a threat or frustration.
Written use must integrate a linguistic community’s written and oral tradition
and its cultural heritage.
The authorities should support the written use of all languages, especially
minority languages or seriously endangered languages.
The authorities should provide communities with the right technical means
and economic resources to facilitate and allow the written use of the language.
The scientific community should work in coordination with the linguistic
communities concerning questions regarding the creation of a written form or
of standardisation, when these communities require their assistance.
The Future of Languages 255
extent that the values they transmit cannot be countered in other spheres. The
profusion of linguistic and cultural prejudices, along with ignorance of linguistic
diversity and of the value of all languages, suggests that the training of journalists
should include an understanding of this aspect of the life of communities and the
necessary information for overcoming the linguistic prejudices that perpetuate
negative linguistic attitudes. Until all peoples are able to explain their own history, we
should at least ensure that the intermediaries are, if not objective, at least even-
handed and reliable.
Each linguistic community should have at least one regular radio broadcasting
station. In the case of very small communities, it should at least be possible for
their language to be present in the existing media.
It is also very important to develop the printed press, and the authorities should
ensure at least one regular printed medium. Support should be given to those
media arising in the communities themselves and allowing their members
information and entertainment with a viewpoint of their own.
The use of languages in the new communication and information technologies,
and especially on the Internet, should be furthered.
The chief media should be open to the use of new languages and to combining
the simultaneous use of different languages.
The chief media should respect, promote and confer prestige on linguistic
diversity.
The chief media should fight against the linguistic prejudices that ridicule the
use and promotion of less widespread languages and lead humanity towards
linguistic globalisation.
The chief media should give positive coverage to news about the revitalisation
of languages.
The value of one’s own language and culture in terms of the individual’s
identity and self-esteem must be emphasised.
The ability of individuals to harmoniously integrate knowledge and use of
several languages must be emphasised.
All the territory’s languages must be given prestige through their use and
through campaigns.
The use of various languages must be made possible in large cities where
people of different origins converge.
In communities that live in tourist areas, preservation of the native culture and
language needs to be especially encouraged.
258 Words and Worlds
1.6. Linguists
Linguists are members of the scientific community directly involved in the under-
standing, preservation and furtherance of linguistic diversity.
Although in general it appears that the work of linguists tends to be appreciated by
the community and that knowledge of the language favours integration, in some of
the cases analysed a certain reticence was detected as regards these professionals’
activity, especially when their work was seen as an instrument of professional or
academic promotion rather than as a contribution to society. As a general principle, it
is obvious that the linguist must be aware of the aims of the community and offer
his/her services for that end, and avoid using it as a means to his/her own profes-
sional objectives.
The Review reveals the gap which tends to occur between linguists’ knowledge
and knowledge of the language. In many cases, the description of a language is
directed at the validation of theoretical aspects, rather than, for example, at making
written use or standardisation of the language possible. Even when the two aspects
are not incompatible, in many cases linguists overlook the practical aspects of their
work or its applications in society, and this attitude can give rise to conflicts. For
example, there are languages that have been studied from various theoretical view-
points, but which nevertheless have no language-teaching method that can be used in
schools. Awareness of the difference between linguistics, language knowledge and
language teaching is therefore important if linguists are to offer a useful service to the
linguistic community and not just to the scientific community.
The work of linguists cannot take place in isolation, either, and must, of course, take
into account the surrounding culture. In societies without writing, linguists must
realise that language is not just a formal or functional system, but that, among other
aspects of its culture, it contains the keys to an understanding of the history of
peoples, their cosmovision and their relations with the surrounding communities.
Research in these aspects, along with the recovery of name systems (toponyms,
anthroponyms, etc.) must form part of their work, so that the recovery of the
language involves recovering the history and the culture of peoples.
At the same time, we must not forget the responsibility of linguists as regards the
educational side of their work. By publishing their knowledge, they can do a lot to
help reappraise languages, eradicate prejudices and involve professionals and insti-
tutions who could operate in the field of revitalisation. It is therefore essential to
extend the presence of subjects relating to language loss and recovery, systemati-
sation and exchange in academic centres, institutions, professorships and institutes
concerned with languages and linguistic communities.
the convention could offer proposals or mediation that are difficult to find locally
when conflicts arise. The instruments of the convention would make it possible to
prevent conflicts or defuse them rapidly.
can in the future achieve high levels of development. In addition, human development
involves a transition from an economy-based model of development to forms of
sustainable development adapted to each environment. Languages provide episte-
mologies and values that allow this adaptation.
Each linguistic community must find its place in the global economic world.
People’s languages must, with a view to the future, be considered an added value also
from the point of view of development. Linguistic communities will of course be
open in the sense that their members will also be familiar with other languages, but
they will discover the pleasure of using their own language as the basis of their
specific personality in a world increasingly looking for what is original and unre-
peatable. It does not seem utopian to imagine that, in the same way that the tourist
trade values landscapes or the physical cultural heritage for their originality and
difference, differentiated linguistic experiences will in future also be valued. It may be
that visitors to communities with languages of their own will ask for linguistic initi-
ation so as to be able to enjoy the secrets of unfamiliar cultural universes. Linguistic
communities will discover the economic value of their non-material linguistic
heritage. Cultural tourism will include various forms of language learning.
coming years should take into account linguistic projects expressed by the linguistic
communities themselves. The main aims of cooperation should be guided by the
creation of linguistic scientific competence among members of the linguistic commu-
nities themselves.
it creates distorted virtual realities that are presented as objective and because it
popularises ideas, feelings and values alien to democratic consensus. In this sense,
words in the public sphere very often contribute not to freedom but to domination.
They are words that exert violence. Humanity has the right to free itself of manipu-
lation by the media and of any words that exert violence. Many cultures express the
wish to disarm words.
Languages are open when they do not try to monopolise knowledge. Each
language is an interpretation of reality, but none of them has a complete or definitive
view of the various dimensions of reality. When one linguistic community or a group
within it considers that its knowledge, its writings, its representatives are superior to
those of other human communities, intolerance and violence arise. Languages must
not have any strength other than that arising from their reasoning, from their
usefulness in relation to the challenges of the natural and social surroundings and
from their capacity for exploring the wonderful through their poetic and symbolic
registers. This strength is not the strength that characterises conventional power. With
a view to the twenty-first century, there is a need for speakers without superiority
complexes, and for linguistic practices that facilitate dialogue between their own
viewpoint and that of others within each linguistic community and between different
linguistic communities. Languages, when they are used in a spirit of freedom and
with an open mind, are peace builders. During the twenty-first century, all languages
must become languages for peace.
269
270 Words and Worlds
Benton R.A. 1996. “Language policy in New Zealand: Defining the ineffable” in Herriman, M.
& Burnaby, B. (eds.) Language Policy in English-dominant Countries: Six Case Studies.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 62–98.
Bickerton, D. 1981. Roots of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma.
Blench, R & Spriggs, M. (eds.) 1999. Archaeology and Language III. Artefacts, Languages and Texts.
London: Routledge.
Bloom, J.P. & Gumperz, J.J. 1972. “Social meaning in linguistic structures: code-switching in
Norway” in Gumperz, J.J. & Hymes, D. (eds.) Directions in Sociolinguistics. NewYork: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston.
Bloomfield, L. 1935. Language. London: Allen and Unwin.
Bolekia Boleká, J. 2001. Lengua y poder en òbfrica. Madrid: Mundo Negro.
Bomhard, A. & Kerns, J. 1994. The Nostratic Macrofamily. A Study in Distant Linguistic
Relationship. Berlin: Mouton.
Bratt Paulston, Ch. 1994. Linguistic Minorities in Multilingual Settings. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Brenzinger, M. (dir.) 1992. Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special
Reference to East Africa. New York: Mouton.
Broudic, F. 1999. “L‘évolution des bilingues bretonnants au XXe siècle” in Klask, 5. Rennes:
Université de Rennes.
Bruner, J.S. 1975. “Language as an instrument of thought” in Davies, A. (ed.) Problems of
Language and Learning. London: Heinemann.
Buttitta, I. 1972. “Lingua e Dialettu” in Io faccio il poeta. Milano: Fetrinelli.
Calvet, L-J. 1987. La guerre des langues et les politiques linguistiques. Paris: Payot.
Calvet, L-J. 2001. Historia de la escritura. Barcelona: Paidós.
Campbell, L. 1997. American Indian Languages. The Historical Linguistics of Native America.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carle, R., Heinschke, M., Pink, P.W., Rost, Ch. & Stadtlander, K. (eds.) 1982. Gava’: Studies in
Austronesian Languages and Cultures, Dedicated to Hans Kähler. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
Cenoz, J. & Genesee, F. (eds.) 1998. Beyond Bilingualism. Multilingualism and Multilingual
Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Cerrón Palomino, R. 1987: Lingüística Quechua. Cusco, Per£: Centro de Estudios Rurales
Andinos “Bartolomé de Las Casas”.
Comité of Ministres of the European Union 1992. European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages [Internet] Strasbourg: The Council of Europe. Avalable from http:
//conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/treaties/HTML/148/148.htm [Accessed 30 October, 2004].
Charles, E. 1995. “Idioma nacional y lenguas vernáculas en el Caribe” in UNESCO Medios de
Comunicación y democracia en América Latina y el Caribe. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, pp. 119–121.
Charpentier, J.M. 2001. Paper presented at Melbourne, International Conference; Pacific: A
Language Treasure. Melbourne, Australia.
Clyne, M. 1985. “The Interaction of a National Identity, Class and Pluriglossia in a Pluricentric
Language” in Laycock, D.C. & Winter, W. (eds.) A World of Language, Series C-No. 100.
Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Codrington, R.H. & Palmer, J. 1896. A Dictionary of the Language of Mota, Sugarloaf Island, Banks
Islands. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Comrie, B. 1998. “Haruai” in Pawley, A. Ross, M. & Tryon, D. (eds.) The Boy from Bundaburg:
Studies in Melanesian Linguistics in Honour of Tom Dutton. Canberra: PICS.
Comrie, B., Matthews, S. & Polinsky, M. 1996. The Atlas of Languages. New York: Facts On
File Inc.
Cooper, R.L. (ed.) 1982. Language Spread: Studies in Difusión and Social Change. Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press.
Coulmas, F. (ed.) 1997. The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
References 271
Crochetière, J., Boulanger, C. & Ouellon, C. (eds.) 1993. Proceedings of the XV International
Congress of Linguists, Endangered Languages. Quebec: Laval University.
Cromwell, L.G. 1980. “Bar Kar Mir: To Talk with No Curves” in Anthropological Forum 5 (1), 24–37.
Crystal, D. 1997. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. 1997. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Crystal, D. 2000. Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cummins, J. 1989. “Language and literacy acquisition in bilingual contexts” in Journal of
Multilingual and Multicultural Development 10 (1), 17–31.
Dalby, D. 1998. The Linguasphere: from Person to Planet, Register and Overview of the World’s
Languages and Speech-Communities at the Close of the 20th Century. Hebron (Wales):
Linguasphere Press.
Daswani, C.J. 2000. “Language decay: Lessons from India Sindhi” in Koul, O.N. & Devaki. L.
(eds.) Linguistic Heritage of India and Asia. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages,
pp. 9–63.
Davies, A. (ed.) 1975. Problems of Language and Learning. London: Heinemann.
Declaración Universal de los Derechos Lingüísticos 1998. Barcelona: Institut d’Edicions de la
Diputació de Barcelona.
Delors, J. et al. 1996. Education: The Treasure Within. Paris: UNESCO.
Derbyshire, D.C. 1979. Hixkaryana. Amsterdam: North Holland.
Drechsel, E.J. 1996. “Native American Contact Languages of the Contiguous United States,” in
Wurm, S.A., Mühlhäusler, P. & Tryon, D.T. (eds.) Atlas of Languages of Intercultural
Communication in the Pacific, Asia and the Americas. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Drechsel, E.J. 1997. Mobilian Jargon. Linguistic and Sociohistorical Aspects of a Native American
Pidgin. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dumont, P. 1990. Le français langue africaine. Paris: Karthala.
Dunn, M.J. 1999. A Grammar of Chukch. Canberra: Australian National University.
Dutton, T.E. (ed.) 1992. Culture Change, Language Change: Case Studies from Melanesia. Canberra
Pacific Linguistics C-120.
Dutton, T.E. 1985. Hiri Motu – Iena Sivarai. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea Press.
Eades, D. 1982. “You Gotta Know How to Talk: Information Seeking in South East Queensland
Aboriginal Society” in Australian Journal of Linguistics 2 (1), 61–83.
Eilers, R.E., Gavin, W.J. & Oller, D.K. 1982. “Cross-linguistic perception in infancy: early effects
of linguistic experience” in Journal of Child Language 9, 289–302.
European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL) 2001. Petition to the European Institutions.
Avalable from http://www.eblul.org/ [Accessed 30 January, 2004].
European Commission. 1996. Euromosaic: The Production and Reproduction of the Minority
Language Groups in the European Union. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the
European Communities.
Fase, W., Koen, J. & Kroon, S. (eds.) 1992. Maintenance and Loss of Minority Languages. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.
Ferguson, C.A. 1959/1972. “Diglossia” in Word 15: 325–340. [Reprinted in Gigliolo, P. (ed.) 1972.
Language and Social Context. Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 232–252].
Ferguson, C.A. 1982. Religious Factors in Language Spread, in Cooper (ed.), pp. 95–106.
Fill, A. & Mühlhäusler, P. (eds.) 1997. The Ecolinguistics Reader: Language, Ecology and
Environment. London: Continuum.
Fill, A. 1993. Ökolinguistik: Eine Einführung. Tübingen: Narr.
Filtchenko, A. 2000. A Policy Analysis and Proposals Regarding Prerequisites for Preservation of
Cultural/linguistic Variety in Siberia. Budapest: Open Society Institute Budapest.
Fishman, J. (ed.) 1971. Advances in the Sociology of Language. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.
272 Words and Worlds
Fishman, J. (ed.) 2001. Can Threatened Languages Be Saved? Reversing Language Shift, Revisited: A
21st Century Perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Fishman, J. 1965. “The relationship between micro- and macro-sociolinguistics in the study of
who speaks what language to who and when” in La Linguistique 2, 67–68.
Fishman, J. 1968. Readings in the Sociology of Language. The Hague: Mouton.
Fishman, J. 1971. “The Sociology of Languages” in Fishman, J. Advances in the Sociology of
Language. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 217–404.
Fishman, J. 1991. Reversing Language Shift. Theoretical and Empirical Assistance to Threatened
Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Fishman, J. 1995. Sociología del lenguaje. Madrid: Cátedra.
Floris, P. et al. 1988. “Langues et Savoirs. Due lingue per sapere. Matériaux pour un
apprentissage bilingue à l’école primaire de la Vallée d’Aoste” in Principes et Méthodologie
Vol. 1, Supplément à L’Ecole Valdotaine, 14. Aoste.
Fortescue, M.D. 1998. Language Relations Across Bering Strait. Reappraising the Archaeological and
Linguistic Evidence. London: Cassell.
Franklin, K.J. 1992. “The Pandanus Languages of the Southern Highlands Province” in Dutton,
T.E. (ed.) Culture Change, Language Changes: Case Studies from Melanesia. Canberra Pacific
Linguistics C-120.
Froment, A. 2001. “Evolutionary biology and health of hunter-gatherer populations” in Panter-
Brick, C., Layton, R.H. &. Rowley-Conwy, P. (eds.) Hunter-Gatherers. An Interdisciplinary
Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gallagher, Ch. F. 1971. “Language Reform and Social Modernization in Turkey” in Rubin, J. &
Jernudd, B.H. (eds.) Can Language be Planned? Hawaii: University Press of Hawaii Rubin,
pp 159–178.
Gardner, N. 2000. Basque in Education: In the Basque Autonomous Community. Vitoria-Gasteiz:
Eusko Jaurlaritzaren Argitalpen Zerbitzu Nagusia – Servicio Central de Publicaciones del
Gobierno Vasco.
Genesee, F. (ed.) 1994. Educating Second Language Children: The Whole Child, the Whole
Curriculum, the Whole Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Genesee, F. 1983. “Bilingual education of majority-language children: The immersion
experiments in review” in Applied Psycholinguistics 4, 1–46.
Genesee, F. 1987. Learning Through Two Languages. Studies of Immersion and Bilingual Education.
Rowley: M.A. Newbury House.
Giglioli, P.P. (ed.) 1972. Language and Social Context. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Giles, H. & Johnson, P. 1987. “Ethnolinguistic identity theory: a social psychological approach
to language maintenance” in International Journal of the Sociology of Language 68, 69–100.
Giles, H. (ed.) 1977. Language Ethnicity and Intergroup Relations. London: Academic Press.
Giles, H., Taylor, D.M. & Bourhis, R. 1977. “Toward a theory of language in ethnic group
relations” in Giles, H. (ed.) Language Ethnicity and Intergroup Relations. London: Academic
Press, pp. 307–348.
Giordan H. (ed.) 1992. Les minorités en Europe. Droits linguistiques et droits de l’homme. Paris: Kimé.
Girault, L. 1989. Kallawaya, El idioma secreto de los Incas. Bolivia UNICEF-OPS-OMS.
Glausiusz, J. 1997. “The Ecology of Language: Link between Rainfall and Language Diversity”
in Fill, A. & Mühlhäusler, P. (eds.) 1997. The Ecolinguistics Reader: Language, Ecology and
Environment. London: Continuum.
Gnanasundaram, V. & Elangaiyan, R. 2000. “Endangered Languages in the Indian Context” in
Koul, O.N. & Devaki. L. (eds.) Linguistic Heritage of India and Asia. Mysore: Central Institute
of Indian Languages, pp. 29–44.
Goh, K. 1980. “Report on the Ministry of Education 1978” in Newman, J. (ed.) Proceedings of the
Symposium on Language Planning. Singapore: University of Singapore.
References 273
Goody, J. & Watt, I. 1968. “Las consecuencias de la cultura escrita” in. Goody, J. (eds.) Cultura
escrita en sociedades tradicionales, Barcelona: Gedisa, pp. 39–82.
Goody, J. (ed.) 1996. Cultura escrita en sociedades tradicionales. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Goodz, N. 1994. “Interactions between parents and children in bilingual families“ in Genesee,
F. (ed.) Educating Second Language Children: The Whole Child, the Whole Curriculum, the Whole
Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gough, K. 1968. “Las implicaciones de la cultura escrita en las sociedades tradicionales de la
China y de la India” in Goody, J. (ed.) Cultura escrita en sociedades tradicionales. Barcelona:
Gedisa, pp. 83–100.
Greenberg, J. 1987. Language in the Americas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Grenoble, L.A. & Whaley, L.J. (eds.) 1998. Endangered Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Grimes, B.F. 1996 / 2000. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Grinevald, C. 1998. “Language endangerment in South America: a programmatic approach” in
Grenoble, L.A. & Whaley, L.J. (eds.) Endangered Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 124–159.
Gumperz, J.J. 1972. “The Speech Community” in Giglioli, P.P. (ed.) Language and Social Context.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 219–231.
Gumperz, J.J. & Wilson, R. 1971. “Convergence and Creolization: A Case from the Indo-Aryan-
Dravidian Border”. in Hymes, D. (ed.) Pidginization and Creolization of Languages.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 151–168.
Gunnemark, E. 1991. Countries, Peoples and Their Languages. The Geolinguistic Handbook.
Gothenburg: Geolingua.
Gwegen, J. 1999. “Le bilinguisme immersif dans les écoles Diwan” in Klask 5. Rennes:
Université de Rennes.
Haarmann, H. 1980. Multilingualismus 2. – Elemente einer Sprach”kologie. Tübingen: Narr.
Hagège, C. 1992. Le souffle de la langue. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Hagège, C. 2000. Halte à la mort des langues. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Hale, K. 1992. “Language Endangerment and the Human Value of Linguistic Diversity” in
Language 68 (1), 35–42.
Hamelink, J.C. 1994. Trends in World Communication. On Disempowerment and Self-Enpowerment.
Malaysia: Southbound.
Hamers, J.F. & Blanc, M. 1982. “Towards a social-psychological model of bilingual
development” in Journal of Language and Social Psychology 1 (1), 29–49.
Hamers, J.F. & Blanc, M. 1983. Bilingualité et Bilinguisme. Brussels: Mardaga. Série Psychologie
et Sciences Humaines.
Hamers, J.F. & Blanc, M. 2000. Bilinguality & Bilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2nd Edition.
Hamers, J.F. 1981. “Psychological approaches to the development of bilinguality” in Baetens
Beardsmore, H. (ed.) Elements of Bilingual Theory. Brussels: Vrije Universiteit te Brussel.
Hansen, K.C. 1984. “Communicability of some Western Desert Communilects” in Hudson, J. &
Pym, N. (eds.) Language Survey. Work Papers of SIL-AAB, B-11: 1–112. Darwin: Summer
Institute of Linguistics.
Harlow, R. 1993. “Lexical Expansion” in Journal of the Polynesian Society 10 (1), 99–107.
Harmon, D. 1996. “Losing species, losing languages: Connections between biological and
linguistic diversity” Southwest Journal of Linguistics 15, 89–108.
Haugen, E. 1972. The Ecology of Language. California: Stanford University Press.
Herranz, A. 1996. Estado, sociedad y lenguaje. Política lingüística en Honduras. Tegucigalpa:
Guaymuras-IHAH-GTZ.
Herriman, M. & Burnaby, B. (eds.) 1996. Language Policy in English-dominant Countries: Six Case
Studies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
274 Words and Worlds
Hinton, L. 1994. Flutes of Fire: Essays on California Indian Languages. California: Heyday Books.
Hockett, Ch. 1950. “Age-Grading and Linguistic Continuity” in Language 26, 449–457.
Holm, J. 1988. Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hoover, M.C. 1992. “The revival of the Mohawk Language in Kahnawake” in Canadian Journal
of Native Studies 12 ( 2), 269–287.
Hornberger, N.H. & King, K.A. 2001. “Reversing Quechua Language shift in South America” in
Fishman, J. (ed.) Can Threatened Languages Be Saved? Reversing Language Shift, Revisited: A 21st
Century Perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 166–194.
Hornberger, N.H. & López, L.E. 1998. “Policy Possibility and Paradox: Indigenous
Multilingualism and Education in Peru and Bolivia” in Cenoz, J. & Genesee, F. Beyond
Bilingualism. Multilingualism and Multilingual Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters,
pp. 206–242.
Hudson, J. & Pym, N. (eds.) 1984. Language Survey. Work Papers of SIL-AAB, B-11: 1–112.
Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Hyltenstam, K. & Viberg, A. (eds.) 1993. Progression and Regression in Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hymes, D. (ed.) 1971. Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
IFA (International Franchise Association) 1988. Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en
Afrique Noire. Montreal: AUPELF-UREF/ACCT.
Ignace, M.B. 1998. Handbook for Aboriginal Language Program Planning in British Columbia. North
Vancouver. British Columbia: First Nations Education Steering Committee.
Instituto Superior de Catequética de Nimega 1969. Nuevo catecismo para adultos. Barcelona: Herder.
Jablonski, N.G. & Aiello, L.A. (eds.) 1998. The Origin and Diversification of Language. San
Francisco: California Academy of Sciences.
Junyent, C. 1992. Vida i mort de les llengües. Barcelona: Empúries.
Junyent, C. 1999. La diversidad lingüística. Barcelona: Octaedro.
Kazadi, N. 1991. L’Afrique afro-francophone. Paris: Didier Érudition.
Kendon, A. 1988. Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia; Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative
Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kibrik, A.E. 1991. “The problem of endangered languages in USSR” in Robins, R.H. &
Uhlenbeck, E.M. (eds.) Endangered Languages. Oxford/New York: Berg.
Kinkade, M.D. 1991.”The decline of native languages in Canada” in Robins, R.H. & Uhlenbeck,
E.M. (eds.) Endangered Languages. Oxford/New York: Berg.
Kinkade, M.D., Hale, K. & Werner, W. (eds.) 1975. Linguistic and Anthropology in Honour of C.F.
Voegelin. Lisse: De Ridder.
Kloss, H. & McConnell, G.D. 1978, 1989, 1989. The Written Languages of the World: A Survey of the
Degree and Modes of Use, 6 V. Quebec: Laval University Press.
Kloss, H. 1967. “Abstand Languages” and “Ausbau Languages” in Anthropological Linguistics
9 (7), 29–41.
Kloss, H. & McConnell, G.D. 1974, 1987, 1978, 1980, 1984. The Linguistic Composition of the
Nations of the World/La Composition linguistique des nations du monde, 6 volumes. Quebec:
Laval University Press.
Koul, O.N. & Devaki. L. (eds.) 2000. Linguistic Heritage of India and Asia. Mysore: Central
Institute of Indian Languages.
Krauss, M. 1992. “The world’s languages in crisis” in Language 68 (1), 4–10.
Krauss, M. 1993. “The Language Extinction Catastrophy Just Ahead: Should Linguists Care” in
Crochetière, J.-C. Boulanger, C. Ouellon (eds.) Proceedings of the XV International Congress of
Linguists, Endangered Languages. Quebec: Laval University.
Kreckel, M. 1980. Communicative Acts and Shared Knowledge in Natural Discourse. London:
Academic Press.
References 275
Mühlhäusler, P., Dutton, T.E., Hovdhaugen, E., Williams, J. & Wurm S.A. 1996. “Precolonial
Patterns of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific Islands” in Wurm, S.A.,
Mühlhäusler, P. & Tryon D.T. (eds.) 1996. Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in
the Pacific, Asia and the Americas. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Muñoz, C. (ed.) 2000. Segundas lenguas: adquisición en el aula. Barcelona: Ariel.
Myers, J.D. 1999. Social Activism Through Computer Networks. Cuadernos Bakeaz, 32.
Myers-Scotton, C. 1993. Dualling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Code Switching. Oxford:
Clarendon.
Myers-Scotton, C. 1993. Social Motivations for Code Switching: Evidence from Africa. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Nagalakshmi, S. 2000. “Respect for Linguistic and cultural diversity in India” in Koul, O.N. &
Devaki. L. (eds.) Linguistic Heritage of India and Asia. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian
Languages, pp. 91–109.
Nekitel, Otto 1998. Voices of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Language, Culture and Identity. Papua
New Guinea: UBS Publishers Distributors Ltd. & Nekitelson Pty Ltd.
Nettle, D. & Romaine, S. 2000. Vanishing Voices. The Extinction of the World’s Languages. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Nettle, D. 1998. “Explaining Global Patterns of Language Diversity” in Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 17, 354–374.
Nettle, D. 1999. Linguistic Diversity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Newman, J. (ed.) 1980. Proceedings of the Symposium on Language Planning. University of Singapore.
Nichols, J. 1998. “The origin and dispersal of languages: linguistic evidence” in Jablonski, N.G.
& Aiello, L.A. (eds.) The Origin and Diversification of Language. San Francisco: California
Academy of Sciences.
Norris, M.J. 1998. “Canada’s aboriginal languages” in Canadian Social Trends: Winter.
O’Barr, W.M. & O’Barr, J.F. (eds.) 1976. Language and Politics. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.
O’Grady, G.N. 1979. “Preliminaries to a Proto Nuclear Pama-Nyungan stem list” in Wurm, S.A.
(ed.) Australian Linguistic Studies. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 107–139.
Odgen, C.K. 1968. Basic English: International Second Language. New York: Harcourt, Brace &
World, Inc.
Olson D. 1994. El mundo sobre el papel. El impacto de la escritura y la lectura en la estructura del
conocimiento. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Olson, D. & N. Torrance, N. (eds.) 1995. Cultura escrita y oralidad. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Olson, D. 1995. “Cultura escrita y objetividad: el surgimiento de la ciencia moderna” in Olson,
D.R. & Torrance, N. (eds.) Cultura escrita y oralidad. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Ortiz Rescaniere, A. 1992. El Quechua y el Aymara. Madrid: MAFRE.
Padilla, A.M. & Liebmann, E. 1975. “Language acquisition in the bilingual child” in The
Bilingual Review/ La Revista Bilingüe 2, 34–55.
Pandharipande, R. 1992. “Language Shift in India: Issues and Implications” in Fase, W.,
Koen, J. & Kroon, S. (eds.) Maintenance and Loss of Minority Languages. Amsterdam:
Benjamins, pp. 253–276.
Panter-Brick, C., Layton, R.H. &. Rowley-Conwy, P. (eds.) 2001. Hunter-Gatherers. An
Interdisciplinary Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Parker, P.M. 1997. Linguistic Cultures of the World: a Statistical Reference. Westport:
Greenwood Press.
Pattanayak, D.P. 1991. Language, Education and Culture. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian
Languages.
Pattanayak, D.P. 1995. “La cultura escrita: un instrumento de opresión” in Olson, D. & N.
Torrance, N. (eds.) Cultura escrita y oralidad. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Pawley, A. Ross, M. & Tryon, D. (eds.) 2001. The Boy from Bundaburg: Studies in Melanesian
Linguistics in Honour of Tom Dutton. Camberra: PICS.
278 Words and Worlds
Peal, E. & Lambert, W.E. 1962. “The relation of bilingualism to intelligence” in Psychological
Monographs 76, 1–23.
Perales, J. 2000. Euskara-ikasle helduen ikas-prozesua: ikaslearen baitako zenbait aldagairen eta
arrakastaren arteko erlazioa. EHU-ko doktorego tesia. Donostia: Universidad del País Vasco –
Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea.
Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pride, J.B. & Holmes, J. (eds.) 1972. Sociolinguistics. Hardmondsworh: Penguin.
Pugh, A.K., Lee, V.O. & Swann, J. 1980. Language and Language Use. Milton Keynes: Open
University Press.
Renard, R. 2000. Une éthique pour la francophonie. Questions de politique linguistique. Mons: CIPA,
Paris: Didier Érudition.
Rigsby, B & Sutton, P. no date. Speech Communities in Aboriginal Australia. [photocopy] Brisbane:
University of Queensland.
Rijkhoff, R.H. & Bakker, E.M. 1998. “Language sampling” in Linguistic Typology 2–3.
Robins, R.H. & Uhlenbeck, E.M. (eds.) 1991. Endangered Languages. Oxford/New York: Berg.
Romaine, S. (ed.) 1991. Language in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Romaine, S. 1982. Sociolinguistic Variation in Speech Communities. London: Edward Arnold.
Romaine, S. 1989. Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Ronjat, J. 1913. Le développement du langage observé, chez un enfant bilingue. Paris: Champion.
Rubin, J. & Jernudd, B.H. 1971. Can Language Be Planned?. Hawaii: University Press of Hawaii.
Rubin, J. 1968. National Bilingualism in Paraguay. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.
Ruhlen, M. 1987. A Guide to the World’s Languages. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Sankoff, G. 1972. “Language Use in Multilingual Societies: Some Alternative Approaches” in
Pride, J.B. & Holmes, J. (ed.) Sociolinguistics. Hardmondsworh: Penguin, pp. 33–51.
Sankoff, G. 1976. “Political Power and Linguistic Inequality in Papua New Guinea” in O’Barr,
W.M. & O’Barr, J.F. (eds.) Language and Politics. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 283–310.
Sankoff, G. 1980. “Mutual Intelligibility, Bilingualism and Linguistic Boundaries” in Sankoff,
G. The Social Life of Language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 133–141.
Sankoff, G.1980. The Social Life of Language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Sasse, H.J. 1992. “Theory of language death” in Brenzinger, M. (dir.) Language Death: Factual and
Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa. New York: Mouton.
Schmidt, A. 1985. Young People’s Dyirbal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schütz, A.J. 1985. “Prelude to the Grammar: The Tongues of Men and Angels” in The Fijian
Language. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 55–72.
Seurujärvi-Kari, I. & Pedersen, S. & Hirvonen, V. 1997. The Sámi. The Indigenous People of
Northernmost Europe. Brussels: European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages.
Siegel, J. 1985. “Koines and Koineization” in Language in Society 14, 357–378.
Siguan, M. 2001. Bilingüismo y lenguas en contacto. Madrid: Alianza.
Siguan, M.& Mackey, W.F. 1986. Education and Bilingualism. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
Silverstein, M. 1971. “Language Contact and the Problem of Convergent Generative Systems:
Chinook Jargon” in Hymes, D. (ed.) Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 191–192.
Skutnabb-Kangas T. (ed.) 1995. Multilingualism for all. Series European Studies on Multilingualism
4. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 2000. Linguistic Genocide in Education or Worldwide Diversity and Human
Rights? Mahwa/New Jersey/London: L. Erlbaum Ass.
Sorensen, A.P. Jr. 1967. “Multilingualism in the Northwest Amazon” in American Anthropologist
69, 670–684.
Spolsky, B. 2004. Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stewart, W.A. 1968. “A sociolinguistic typology for describing national multilingualism” in
Fishman, J. (ed.) Readings in the Sociology of Language. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 531–545.
References 279
Stross, B. 1975. “Variation and Natural Selection as Factors in Linguistic and Cultural Change”
in Kinkade, M.D., Hale, K. & Werner, W. (eds.) Linguistic and Anthropology in Honour of C.F.
Voegelin. Lisse: De Ridder.
Suter, R. 1989. Unser Baseldeutsch. Basel: Buchverlag Basler Zeitung.
Sutton, P. 1991. “Language in Aboriginal Australia: Social Dialects in a Geographic Idiom” in
Romaine, S. (ed.) Language in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Swain, M. 1972. Bilingualism as a First Language. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Irvine:
University of California.
Terrell, J. 1986. Prehistory in the Pacific Islands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thurston, W.R. 1982. A Comparative Study in Anêm and Lusi. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics B85.
Thurston, W.R. 1987. Processes of Change in the Languages of North-Western New Britain. Canberra:
Pacific Linguistics B99.
Tindale, N.B. 1974. Aboriginal Tribes of Australia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Titone, R. 1972. Le bilinguisme précoce. Brussels: Dessart.
Tollefson, J.W. 1991. Planning Language, Planning Inequality. London: Longman.
Trudgill, P. 1983. Sociolinguistics (revised edition). Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Tryon, D.T. & Walsh, M. (eds.) 1997. Boundary Rider: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey O’Grady.
Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Tryon, D.T. 1979. “The Language Situation in the New Hebrides” in Wurm, S.A. (ed.) Australian
Linguistic Studies. Camberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 11–13.
Tryon, D.T. 1999. “Language, culture and archaeology in Vanuatu” in Blench, R & Spriggs, M.
(eds.) Archaeology and Language III. Artefacts, Languages and Texts. London: Routledge.
UNESCO 1953. The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
UNESCO 1966. Declaration of the Principles of International Cultural Cooperation. [Internet] General
Conference. 14th session. Paris. Avalable from http://www.unesco.org/culture/laws/
cooperation/html_eng/page1.shtml. [Accessed 30 October, 2004].
UNESCO 1975. Declaration of Persepolis, [Internet] International Symposium For Literacy, Iran.
Avalable from http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/PERSEP_E.PDF [Accessed 30
October, 2004].
UNESCO 1995. Medios de Comunicación y democracia en América Latina y el Caribe. Paris:
UNESCO Publishing.
UNESCO 1995. Our Creative Diversity: Report of the World Commission on Culture and
Development. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
UNESCO 1996. La educación encierra un tesoro. Informe a la UNESCO de la Comisión Internacional
sobre la educación para el siglo XXI, presidida por Jacques Delors. Paris/Madrid: UNESCO/
Santillana.
UNESCO 1997. Declaration of Harare. [Internet] Intergovernmental Conference of Ministers.
Avalable from http: //www.bisharat.net/Harare97Declaration.htm [Accessed 30 October, 2004].
UNESCO 1997. Statistical Yearbook 1997. Paris: UNESCO Publishing & Bernan Press.
UNESCO 1997. World Communication Report. The Media and the Challenge of the New Technologies.
Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
UNESCO 1998. Statistical Yearbook 1998. Paris: UNESCO Publishing & Bernan Press.
UNESCO 1998. Stockholm Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for Developement.
[Internet] Avalable from http://www.unesco.org/culture/laws/stockholm/html_eng/
index_en.shtml [Accessed 30 October, 2004].
UNESCO 1998. World Culture Report. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
UNESCO 2000. Asmara Declaration. African Languages and Literatures into the XXI Century.
[Internet] Avalable from http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Govern_Political/
asmrlit.html [Accessed 30 October, 2004].
UNESCO 2000. World Communication and Information 1999–2000 Report. Paris: UNESCO
Publishing.
280 Words and Worlds
UNESCO 2001. UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. [Internet] Avalable from http:
//www.unesco.org/culture/pluralism/diversity/html_eng/index_en.shtml [Accessed
30 October, 2004].
UNESCO 2003. Education in a Multilingual World. Education Position Paper. Paris: UNESCO
Publishing
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 2000. The State of the World’s
Refugees 2000. Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action. Geneva/New York : UNHCR/Oxford
University Press.
Virilio, P. 1997. El cibermundo, política de lo peor. Madrid: Cátedra.
Vygotsky, L. S. 1962. Thought and Language. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Walsh, M. 1997. “How many Australian languages were there?” in Tryon, D.T., & Walsh, M.
(eds.) Boundary Rider: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey O’Grady. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
C-136, pp. 393–411.
Washabaugh, W. 1986. Five Fingers for Survival. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, Inc.
Webster 1961. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language. London: Bell
& Sons.
White, R.V. 1971. “Language Use in a South Pacific Urban Community” in Anthropological
Linguistics 13, 361–384.
Whorf, B. 1956. Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings. Massachusetts: Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Wollock, J. 2001. “Linguistic Diversity and Biodiversity” in Maffi, L. (ed.) On Biocultural
Diversity: Linking Language, Knowledge and the Environment. Washington: Smithsonian
Institute, pp. 248–262.
Wurm, S.A. & Laycock, D.C. 1962. “The Question of Language and Dialect in New Guinea” in
Oceania 37: 128–143.
Wurm, S.A. (ed.) 1979. Australian Linguistic Studies. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Wurm, S.A. (ed.) 1979. New Guinea and Neighboring Areas: A Sociolinguistic Laboratory. The
Hague: Mouton.
Wurm, S.A. 1994. “Graphisation and Standardisation of Languages” in Lüdi, G. (ed.)
Sprachstandardisierung. Freiburg: Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences,
pp. 255–274.
Wurm, S.A. 1996. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing. Paris/Camberra:
UNESCO Publishing/Pacific Linguistics.
Wurm, S.A. 2001. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing. Paris/Camberra:
UNESCO Publishing/Pacific Linguistics.
Wurm, S.A., Mühlhäusler, P. & Tryon D. T. (eds.) 1996. Atlas of Languages of Intercultural
Communication in the Pacific, Asia and the Americas. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Web References
ACALAN – die Afrikanische Sprachenakademie
http://www.unesco.de/unesco-heute/302/acalan.htm
AMARAUNA – World Languages Network
http://www.amarauna-languages.com
Cátedra UNESCO en Lenguas y Educación (Institut d’Estudis Catalans)
http://www.iecat.net
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, CARLA; Universidad de Minnesota
http://carla.acad.umn.edu/CARLA.html
Central Institute of Indian Languages
http://www.ciil.org/
Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur les Activités Langagières (CIRAL)
http://www.ciral.ulaval.ca/
Centre Internacional Escarré per a les Minories Ètniques i les Nacions (CIEMEN)
http://www.ciemen.org
Consortium for Language Policy and Planning; University of Pennsylvania
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/clpp/
Council of Europe: European Centre for Modern Languages
http://www.ecml.at
Diverscité langues
http://www.teluq.uquebec.ca/diverscite/entree.htm
Endangered Language Fund, Yale University
http://sapir.ling.yale.edu/~elf/index.html
Ethnologue
http://www.ethnologue.com
Euromosaic
http://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/
Europa Diversa
http://www.europadiversa.org
European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, EBLUL
http://www.eblul.org
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/treaties/HTML/148.htm (Castellano: BOE
15/09/2001 no 222–2001)
281
282 Words and Worlds
UNESCO
http://www.unesco.org
UNESCO Chair in Languages and Education (Institut d’Estudis Catalans)
http://www.iecat.net catedra.unesco@iecat.net
UNESCO Etxea
http://www.unescoeh.org
UNESCO International Mother Tongue Day
http://www.unesco.org/education/imld_2002
UNESCO Management of Social Transformations, MOST
http://www.unesco.org/most/ln1.htm
UNESCO Mons-Hainaut Chair in Linguistic Planning
http://www.umh.ac.be/chaire_unesco
UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity
http://www.unesco.org/culture/pluralism/diversity/html_eng/index_en.shtml
Universal Declaration on Linguistic Rights
http://www.linguistic-declaration.org
Appendix 1
Survey Questionnaire
Questionnaire number
Date of completion
Respondent’s details
Name: Surname:
Address:
Creole Pidgin
1. Does this language have other varieties? If so, what are these?
284
Survey Questionnaire 285
6. Have these geographical boundaries changed over the years? If so, how have they altered?
8. Are any other languages spoken within the same territory? If so, what are these?
9. Could you enclose a sketch or indicate the area in which this language is spoken? (if you
wish, you can draw a sketch in the space on the next page)
10. What State(s) / country (ies) do/es the territory/ies where the language is spoken belong to?
11. What is the total number of inhabitants (whether or not they speak this language) of this
territory?
12. How many of the inhabitants understand, speak, read or write this language?
Number
Understand
Speak
Read
Write
Use this space to draw a map or sketch of the territory where this language is spoken.
13. How many of the speakers are monolingual (use only this language)?
14. How many of the speakers are bilingual (use this and another language)? What other
language(s) do they speak?
286 Words and Worlds
15 How many of the speakers are multilingual (speak this and more than one other
language)? What other languages do they speak?
16. Are speakers of this language dispersed throughout the territory, or are they concentrated
in specific population centres?
17. How has the number of speakers of this language evolved over time (increased, decreased
or remained stable)?
18. Is the language passed down from generation to generation? If not, why not? What
language is replacing it?
19. Could you indicate how often the members of each generation use the language with other
generations (old people with old people, young people with old people, etc) in their
informal contacts (in the street, at home, in leisure time,…)?
Specify the frequency: 5 = always in this language; 4 = more in this language than others;
3 = equally often in either language; 2 = more in other languages than in this one; 1 = always in
other languages.
20. Do the speakers of other languages speak this language? In what circumstances?
21. Is there any historical, political or economic factor which has affected the situation of this
linguistic community?
Survey Questionnaire 287
22. Has any other factor directly influenced the growth or threatened the future of the
language (migration, temporary labour, deportations, wars…)?
24. Is the community which speaks this language in danger? If so, what is the cause?
25. Is there any internal migration (movement of the population within the territory)? Is there
any external migration (movement out of the territory to others)? If so, what is the cause?
28. Does the language have any official status (official, joint-official language, acceptance…)?
29. Is the language used in contact with the administration? Indicate whether its use in the
administration is in spoken and/or written form.
30. Is this language used in education (whether as the teaching medium or as a subject of
study)? Indicate whether there is spoken and/or written use of the language in elementary
and higher education.
31. Is this language used in the media (radio, newspapers and television…)?
32. Is the language used in religious services and ceremonies? Indicate whether there is
spoken or written use of the language in religious services and ceremonies.
33. Is the language used in business and labour relations? Indicate whether the use is spoken
and/or written.
34. Are there any other areas in which this language is used in its written form?
35. Is there any organisation or body responsible for linguistic policy and planning with
respect to this language? What kind of activities does this perform?
288 Words and Worlds
36. Is there any kind of cultural or linguistic organisation or body which promotes the
knowledge and/or use of the language? What kind of activities does this perform?
37. Does he language have a literary tradition? If so, please give some information about this
literary tradition.
38. What is the attitude of the majority of the members of this community towards the
knowledge and use of this language?
39. What is the attitude of the majority of the members of the neighbouring communities
towards the knowledge and use of the language?
40. PLEASE ADD ANY OTHER DETAILS REGARDING THE SITUATION OF THE
LANGUAGE WHICH YOU CONSIDER OF INTEREST. At the same time, we would be
grateful if you could send us any statistics, reports, assignment or research which might
help us to understand the situation of this language. It would also be very helpful if you
could provide references of the sources consulted and the addresses of any individuals or
bodies that may be able to offer further data about this language.
Appendix 2
Index of Contributors
THE MEANING OF TRIBAL LANGUAGES IN INDIA 25
Anvita Abbi
BILINGUALISM, MULTILINGUALISM AND MIND DEVELOPMENT 33
Josiane F. Hamers
THE LANGUAGES OF NIGERIA 50
Ayo Bamgbose
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE ETHNOLOGUE TO THE REVIVAL OF WORLD
LANGUAGES 62
Barbara F. Grimes
THE FUTURE OF FRENCH IN AFRICA 68
Raymond Renard
NORTHERN CAUCASIAN LANGUAGES 71
Alexey Yeschenko
LANGUAGES IN RUSSIA AND CIS COUNTRIES 74
Irina Khaleeva
THE LANGUAGE CONCEPT IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA 78
Peter Mühlhäusler
LANGUAGE TREASURES IN INDONESIA 95
Multamia RMT Lauder
THE LANGUAGE REVIVAL OF WELSH 100
Wynford Bellin
BRETON AND THE EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR MINORITY LANGUAGES 103
Francis Favereau
NEW APPROACH TO LANGUAGE POLICY 111
E. Annamalai
THE LANGUAGES OF SIBERIA 120
Bernard Comrie
THE WHY AND THE WHEREFORE OF CENSUSES WITH LINGUISTIC DATA 126
Grant D. McConnell
ORALITY AND WRITING: AND THERE WERE LETTERS 132
Bartomeu Melià
ON THE EQUALITY OF LANGUAGES 138
Juan Carlos Moreno
THE STATUS OF LINGUISTIC NORMS 144
Jean-Paul Bronckart
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION IN INDIA 153
P. Pattanayak
BILINGUAL INDIGENOUS EDUCATION 155
Isaac Pianko Ashaninka
289
290 Words and Worlds
291
292 Words and Worlds
Service South Africa. Gerardo del Aguila Miveco, Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la
Amazonia Peruana. Béatrice Denis, Graduate student at City University of New York.
R. Deprez, Unesco Platform UNESCO@Vlaanderen. Hubert Devonish, University of the
West Indies. Sorcha Nic Dhonncha, Ádarás na Gaeltachta. Diélimakan Diabaté, Ministère
de l’ Éducation Nationale du Mali. Amadou Dialo, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar.
Soungalo Diarra, Ministère de l’ Éducation Nationale du Mali. Karunasena Dias
Paranavitana, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka. Salvatore Gennaro Dieni, Ismía Grecánika
tu Jaló tu Vua. Hillebrand Dijkstra, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Kaba Diouara,
Ministère de l’ Éducation Nationale du Mali. Martin Diprose, Summer Institute of
Linguistics. Direction de l’Alphabétisation et de l’Education de base du Senegal (DAEB).
Hj. T. Fatimah Djajasudarma, Padjadjaran University. Dob, Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences. Pascual Martín Domingo, Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala.
Daniel Domingo López, Consejo Nacional de Educación Maya (CNEM). Anne Dondorp,
Summer Institute of Linguistics. Ying Dong, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Nancy C.
Dorian, Bryn Mawr College. Ina Druviete, University of Latvia. Ábngel Dueñas Arias,
Academia Peruana de la Lengua Quechua (APLQP). Zara Duguzheva, Adyghe Compane.
Cristofor Innokentiyevich Dutkin, Institute of Northern Minorities problems. P. Dutta
Baruah, Central Institute of Indian Languages. Klara Dzhanibekova, Karachaievo-Cherkess
Dept. of Moscow Open Social University. Elizabeth Eastman, Summer Institute of
Linguistics. Karen H. Ebert, University of Zürich. Antón Eito Mateo, Consello da Fabla
Aragonesa (CFA). Duxan Eli, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Jean Michel Eloy,
Université de Picardie-Jules Verne. Nora C. England, Equipo de Investigación Lingüística
Oxlajuuj Keej Maya’ Ajtz’iib’, OKMA. Natalia María Eraso Keller, Universidad de los Andes.
Okon Essien, University of Calabar. Jesus Esteibarlanda, Sociedad de los Misioneros de
África (Padres Blancos). Hortensia Estrada Ramírez, Instituto Caro y Cuervo. Hortensia
Estrada Ramírez, Instituto Caro y Cuervo. Eduardo Daniel Faingold, University of Tulsa.
Fenghe Fang, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Cynthia Farr, Summer Institute of
Linguistics. Saverio Favre, Bureau Régional pour l’Ethnologie et la Linguistique.
Fédération Camerounaise des Clubs et Associations UNESCO. Benigno Fernandez Braña,
MDGA (Mesa prá Defensa del Galego de Asturias e da Cultura). Ana Fernandez Garay,
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas. Phil Fields, Summer Institute of
Linguistics. Rosalie Finlayson, National Language Service South Africa. Alexey
Flegontov, Association of Indigenous Peoples of Yakutia. Fidel Flores, Asociación
Coordinadora de Comunidades Indígenas de El Salvador- ACCIES. Winona Flying Earth,
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. David Foris, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Francis Foster,
Summer Institute of Linguistics. Rosalie Francis, Union of Nova Scotia Indians. Karl
Franklin, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Donald Frantz, University of Lethbridge.
Lisbeth Fritzell, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Roland Fumey, Summer Institute of
Linguistics. N. Louanna Furbee, University of Missouri. Zinaida Gabunia, Kabardino-
Balkarian State University. Steve Gallagher, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Erqing Gao,
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Luis Fernando Garcés Velásquez, Universidad
Politécnica Salesiana. Xosé Lluis García Arias, Universidad de Oviedo. Donna Gardiner,
Summer Institute of Linguistics. Yagfar Garipov, Institute of Language, Literature & Art of
the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan. Michel Gautier, UPCP-MÉTIVE. Massanvi
Honorine Gblem ép Podi, Société Internationale de Linguisitque. Florence Gerdel, Summer
Institute of Linguistics. Marwan Ghasb, Al-Baath University. Salem Ghazali, Institut
Supérieur des langues de Tunis. Sarau Gheorghe, Universitatea Bucuresti-Romania. Stan
Gibson, Summer Institute of Linguistics. John Mwaniki Gichangi, Kîembu-Kîmbeere
Translation Project. Jordi Ginebra, Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Peter Gittlen, Summer
Institute of Linguistics. V. Gnana Sundaram, Central Institute of Indian Languages. David
L. Gold, Association for the Study of Jewish Languages. María Stella González de Pérez,
294 Words and Worlds
Université Cadi Ayyad. Jitendra Jitendra, Nepal Chepang Association. Tony A. Johnson,
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. George Owen Jones, Mercator Media Centre. Elin
Jones, Mercator Media Centre. Sun Gi Jong, The Institution of Korean Language. Baldur
Jónsson, Icelandic Language Institute. Enrique Jordá, Compañía de Jesús. Victor Jose,
National Secretariat of Torres Strait Islanders Organisations Ltd Jocelyne Joussemet, Centre
de Documentació i d’Animació de la Cultura Catalana. Olga Marina Joya Sierra, Instituto
Hondureño de Antropología e Historia (IHAH). Ismail Junaidu, Nigerian Educational
Research and Development Council. Junast, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Fary
Silate Ka, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar. James Kakumasu, Summer Institute of
Linguistics. Vidal Kamala-Cole, National Federation of UNESCO Clubs in Sierra Leone.
Laré Kantchoa, Université du Bénin. Rawhia A. Kara, Sharjah Police Academy. Yumav
Karakaiev, Karachayevo-Cherkesia Pedagogical State University. Itao Michael Keem,
Kaikor Catholic Mission. Donald Kenrick, Romany Institute. Lukian Kergoat, Université
Rennes 2 – Haute Bretagne. Daniel Kernalegenn, Diwan Breizh. Amos Key, Woodland
Cultural Education Centre. Kalu Ram Khambu Rai, Kirat Rai Language & Literary Council.
Sejung Kim, The National Academy of the Korean Language. Kwanghae Kim, The National
Academy of Korean Language. Pascal James Kishindo, University of Malawi, Chancellor
College. Timur Kocaoglu, Koc University. Mama Kouata, Ministère de l’ Éducation
Nationale du Mali. Omkar Koul, Central Institute of Indian Languages. Silvia
Kouwenberg, University of the West Indies. Jarmila Kovarcik-Skalná, PEN (International
Writers Association). Jiri Kraus, Czech Language Institute. Georg Kremnitz, Universität
Wien. Pedro Juan Krisólogo B., Academia Venezolana de la Lengua Correspondiente de la
Real Española. Menno Kroeker, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Gavril Nikolayevich
Kurilov, Institute of Northern Minorities Problems. Lamont Laird, Eastewrn Shawnee Tribe
of Oklahoma. Per Langgard, Ilisimatusarfik / University of Greenland. Robert Larsen,
Summer Institute of Linguistics. Virginia Larson, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Mildred
L. Larson, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Yolanda Lastra, Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México. Juha Laulainen, University of Helsinki. Jean Le D–c, Université de Bretagne
Occidentale. André Le Mercier, Emgleo Breiz. Raúl Leal Gaiao, Universidade de Macau.
Myles Leitch, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Yubing Li, Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences. Jinfang Li, Central University for Nationalities. Keyu Li, Ethnic Affairs
Commission of Huzhu Tuzu. Piran Li, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Min Liang,
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Nietta Lindenberg Monte, Comissáo Pró Indio do Acre.
Pauline Linton, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Baoyuan Liu, Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences. Xiaochun Liu, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Domingo Llanque Chana,
Academia Peruana de la Lengua Aymara. Junstino Llanque Chana, University of Florida.
Christine Lohmann, IPTS. Stale Loland, Norsk Sprakrad. Juventino López, Summer
Institute of Linguistics. Ausencia López Cruz, Dirección de Lingüística del INAH.
Longinos López Fernández, Misioneros Combonianos. Luz Mary López Franco,
Universidad del Valle. Félix López Mamani, Ayllus de fhach’a Carangas. Belkacem
Lounes, Congrès Mondial Amazigh. Bernhard Louw, South African Academy of Science and
Arts. Larry Lovell, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Shaozun Lu, Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences. Velciov Luca-Francisc, Comunitatea Bratstvo a Bulgarilor din România.
Eoghan Mac Aogáin, Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann (ITÉ). Scott MacGregor, Summer
Institute of Linguistics. Donald J.M. Maciver, Haldane Education Centre. Munzhedzi
James Mafela, National Language Service South Africa. Youssouf Billo Maiga, Ministère de
l’ Éducation Nationale du Mali. Peter Nderi Maina, University of Nairobi. Manuel
Bernado Malchic Nicolás, Equipo de Investigación Lingüística Oxlajuuj Keej Maya’ Ajtz’iib’,
OKMA. Refilwe Morongwa Malimabe, National Language Service South Africa. B.
Mallikarjun, Central Institute of Indian Languages. Eusebia Mamani de Navarro,
Organización Prov. Del Collao Dto. Ilave. Bertha Mamiro, University of Dar es Salaam.
296 Words and Worlds
Linguistics. Kaori Tahara, Ainu Association of Japan. Miloud Taïfi, Université Sidi
Mohammed Ben Abdellah. Dalila Taisin Victoria, Federación Aguaruna (FAD). Jarum
Takazov, North Ossetia-Alania. State University Petrus Cornelius Taljaard, National
Language Service South Africa. Elemo Tapim, Magani Malu Kes. Alejandro Teletov
Velasquez, Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala. Delfino Felipe Tema Bautista,
Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala. Aldo Leopoldo Tévez, Alero Quichua
Santiagueño en Buenos Aires. David Thomas, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Marlin
Thompson, Yerington Paiute Tribe. Ruth Thomson, Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Chihiro Kinoshita Thomson, University of New South Wales. Purna Chandra Thoudam,
Manipur University. Bertil Tikkanen, University of Helsinki. Mohand Tilmatine,
Universidad de Cadiz. Peter James Hilary Titlestad, The English Academy of Southern
Africa. Maria Elena Tobar Gutierrez, Universidad de los Andes. Band-Patrice Togo,
Ministère de l’ Éducation Nationale du Mali. Litip Tohti, Central University for Nationalities.
Leo Toner, Istituto Culturale Mòcheno-Cimbro (ICMC). Modeen Tore, University of
Helsinki. Hilary Tovey, Dublin University. Douglas Towne, Summer Institute of
Linguistics. Annette Trabold, Institut für Deutsche Sprache. Bory Traoré, Ministère de l’
Éducation Nationale du Mali. Ed Travis, Summer Institute of Linguistics. E. Douglas Trick,
Summer Institute of Linguistics. María Trillos Amaya, Universidad de Los Andes. Tasaku
Tsunoda, University of Tokyo. Ma. C. Hilaria Tuki Pakarati, Corporación de Resguardo
Cultural Mata Nui a Hotu Matu’a o Kahu-Kahu o Hera. Afia Akrasi Twumasi. Bob
Uebele, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Vijayendra Bhas V. Sarngadharan, International
School of Dravidian Linguistics. Ian Vail, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Rosa Aidé
Vallejos Yopán, Asociación Interetnica de Desarrollo de la Amazonia Peruana. Freek Van de
Scheur, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Sjaak Van Kleef, Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Feikje Van der Haak, Summer Institute of Linguistics. María Ofelia Vásquez, Comunidad
Lingüística Uspatenko. Domingo Vásquez Gómez, Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de
Guatemala. Celia Vasquez Yui, Federación de Comunidades Nativas del Ucayli. Elías
Velásquez, Asociación Misionera Garífuna. Ruth Celia Velazco Castro, Organización
Indígena Regional Atalaya- OIRA. Jaume Vernet, Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Antonio
Florencio Vicente Tosin, Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala. Sara Delicia
Villagra de Batoux, Comisión Nacional de Bilingüismo. Hessel Visser, Summer Institute of
Linguistics. Alan Vogel, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Paul Vollrath, Summer Institute
of Linguistics. Brad Voltmer, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Alastair Walker, Christian-
Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. Piripi Walker, The Wellington Maori Language Board.
Helga Walsemam, IPTS. Feng Wang, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Said Warsame,
UNESCO PEER. Christiane Weber, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Thomas Weber,
Summer Institute of Linguistics. Samueul Weekes, National Federation of UNESCO Clubs in
Sierra Leone. Xuechun Wei, Information Property Minister. André Wengler, Ministère de
l’Education Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle, Luxembourg SCRIPT. Anne West,
Summer Institute of Linguistics. Ron Whisler, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Henry
Whitney, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Daya Menike Wickramasinghe, University of
Kelaniya. Geirr Wiggen, University of Oslo. Ratna Wijetunge, University of Soi
Gayewardenepura. Thomas Willett, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Elizabeth Grace
Winkler, Indiana University. Birger Winsa, Stockholm University. Scott Wood Ronas,
CEBIMH-MOPAWI. David Charles Wright Carr, Universidad del Valle de MEXICO.
Hongwei Wu, Institute of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Huang Xing, Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences. Shixuan Xu, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Xijian Xu, Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences. Dewu Xuan, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Ballo
Yacouba, Ministère de l’ Éducation Nationale du Mali. Salisu Ahmed Yakasai, Usmanu
Danfodio University. Yanli Yang, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Jiangling Yang,
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Juan de Dios Yapita, Instituto de Lengua y Cultura
300 Words and Worlds
1
The information on the languages with an asterisk has been collected through a questionnaire
301
302 Words and Worlds
Idoma, 98 Ka’apor *, 52
Idu *, 179, map 13 Kabardian *, 72, 73, 123, map 2
Igbo *, 50, 67, 98, 122 Kabiyari *
Ignaciano * Kabiye *, 147
Ijaw Kabwa, map 9
Ijor *, 217 Kada *
Ika *, map 12 Kag, 241
Ikizu, map 9 Kagate, 241, 242
Ikoma, map 9 Kagayanen *, 179
Ilianen Manobo *, 179 Kagulu (see Kaguru), 179, map 9
Imbongu *, 179 Kaguru (Kagulu) *, 179, map 9
Indonesian, 21, 40, 64, 94, 95, 96, 142, 231 Kahe, 241, 242, map 9
Indo-European languages 58, 60, 96, 240, map 1 Kaike,
Inga *, map 12 Kajnas *
Ingush *, 72, 73, map 2 Kakua *
Inuktitut, 60, 61, 62, 99, 105 Kalanga *
Ipai (see Diegueño), map 3 Kalmyk *, 71, 73, map 2
Iquito *, 179, map 6 Kaluli *, 179
Iraqw, map 9 Kam (see Dong)
Irish Gaelic *, 70, 98, 105, 243 Kamali *, 179
Isanzu, map 9 Kamassian, 121
Isconahua, map 3 Kami, map 9
Istro Romanian, 25 Kamsa *, map 12
Isu * Kan
Italian *, 13, 56, 58, 84, 98, 105, 121, 162 Kandozi *, 179, map 6
Itzaj *, 141, 179, map 8 Kangjia *, map 13
Ivatan * Kannada *, 27, 74, 94, 238
Ixil *, map 8 Kanuri *, 50, 98
Jakalteko *, map 8 Kaqchikel *, 147, 220, map 8
Jalunka *, 179 Kara, map 9
Jamaican, * Karachay *, 71, 73, 233, map 2
Japanese *, 18, 60, 64, 121, 231, map 1 Karapana *, map 12
Jaqaru *, map 6 Karata, map 2
Jarauara *, 179 Karay *, 147, 179
Jarawa *, 209, 210 Karelian, 25
Jaru *, 237 Karijona *, map 12
Jasngali (Rawat), 241 Karimojong *
Jauja-Huanca (Quechua), map 6 Kariña *
Jebero, map 6 Karmarong, 241
Jenu Kuruba, 209 Karon, map 7
Jhangar (see Dhangar), 241 Karuk, map 3
Jibaro (see Shuar), 99, 101, map 6 Kasa *, map 7
Jingpo *, 99, 136, 178, map 13 Kasem, 99
Jino, map 13 Kashmiri *, 94
Jinuo *, 179 Kâte, 18
Jiongnai *, 179, 206, map 13 Kawaiisu, map 3
Jirel 241, 242 Kaweskar, 66
Jita, map 9 Kawiyari, map 12
Jitnu * Kaxinawa *, 140, 159, 160, 170, map 6
Juaneño (see Ajachmen), map 3 Kayapi *, 179
Juhupde * Kayapo *, 179
Jukun *, 179, 207 Kazak *, map 13
Index of Languages, Families and Varieties 307
Sena *, 216 148, 170, 172, 177, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196,
Sentani *, 179 207, 209, 218, 231, 233, 239, 243, 247
Sepik-Ramu, 76 Sranan *
Serbian *, 47, 58 Suahili (see Swahili), 19, 21, 40, 64, 67, 69, 191,
Serbocroatian * 208
Serer *, Suba *, map 9
Serrano, map 3 Suga *
Sesi Kham * Sui *, map 13
Shambala, map 9 Sukuma *, 179, map 9
Sharanahua, map 6 Sulawesi (see Indonesian)
Shasta, map 3 Sum (see Sung), 197, 198, 241
Shawnee *, 179 Sumbwa, map 9
She *, 179, map 13 Sumo-Tawahka *, 179, map 8
Shelta *, 21, 179 Sunda *
Sherpa, 240 Sung (see Sum), 197, 198, 241
Shetebo, map 6 Sunwar, 241
Shipibo *, 208, map 6 Supralecto-Yauyos (Quechua), map 6
Shiwi’ma * Surel, 96
Shixing *, 179, map 13 Svan, 72, map 2
Shompen, 210 Swahili *, 19, 21, 40, 64, 67, 69, 191, 208, map 9
Shona *, 179 Swati *, 94, map 5
Shor * Swedish *, 47, 58, 104, 105, 121
Shuar (see Achuar), 99, 101, map 6 Switsertütsch, 21
Shubi, map 9 Tabassaran, 73, map 2
Sikkimese * Tacana, map 6
Sikuani *, map 12 Tae’ *, 179
Sindhi *, 94, 135, 238, 240 Tagalog, 94
Sinhala *, 98 Taiwano, map 12
Sinhala-Maldivian, 74 Tajik, *, map 13
Sinic, 60 Talish, map 2
Sinkyone, map 3 Tamang, 240, 241
Sino-Tibetan, 60, 74, 236, 240, 241, map 1 Tamazight, *, (berber) 47, 56, 67, 81, 123, 162,
Siona, *, map 6, 12 190, 208
Siouan, map 11 Tamil *, 43, 74, 94, 98, 211
Sipakapense *, 179, map 8 Tanimuka *, 179, 233, map 12
Siriano *, 179, map 12 Tanoan, 59
Siriono * Tarahumara *
Siroi *, 179 Tariano *, map 12
Sizaki, map 9 Tat, 71, map 2
Slavey, 105 Tatar *, 179, map 13
Slavic, 58, 60 Tatuyo *, map 12
Slovak *, 58 Tau *, 179
Soliga, 209 Taushiro, map 6
Solomon Pidgin, 18 Tausug *
Somali *, 136, 162 Taveta, map 9
Songhay * Tayo *, 19, 178, 179
Songorong *, 179, 208 Tchamba *, 143
Soninke * Tehid *, 179
Sorbian *, 233, 234 Tehuelche *, 179
Sotho *, 94, map 5 Teke *, 179
Spanish *, 24, 29, 33, 39, 40, 41, 47, 58, 62, 64, Tektiteko, map 8
66, 69, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89, 93, 98, 105, 121, Telugu *, 27, 94
Index of Languages, Families and Varieties 313
315
316 Words and Worlds
Catholic, 103, 140, 161, 171, 191, 192, 193, 194, Constitution, 25, 75, 94, 98, 99, 101, 102, 104,
195 118, 122, 124, 153, 154, 159
Caucasian war, 72 Contact languages, 26, 242
Caucasus, 70, 71, 72, 73, 165 Continuous languages, continuum, 7, 17, 19,
Census, 26, 43, 52, 66, 74, 75, 95, 100, 126, 127, 20, 43, 230
128, 129, 130, 240, 242, 265 Convention for the Protection of Human
Central African Republic, 18, 49, 67 Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
Central Institute of Indian Languages CIIL, (Council of Europe), xi, 106
vii, 209, 210 Co-official language, 93, 94, 98, 120, 179
Centre de Recherche sur le Plurilingüisme, Co-official status, 98, 99, 118, 120, 122, 123,
202 124, 125
Centre for Paraguayan Studies “Antonio Copenhagen, 106
Guasch”, viii, 134 Costa Rica, 65, 124
Centre for Peasant Research and Promotion, Council of Europe, 106, 107, 108
182 Craftsmen, 27
Centro de Investigación y Promoción del Creole, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 27, 31, 39, 63, 76, 102,
Campesinado CIPCA, 182 124, 222, 223, 226, 230
Cervantes, 85 Croatia, 107
Chistianity, Christianism, 190, 191, 193 Cultural
Cinema, 181 – artefacts, 13
Civil servants, 132, 167 – autonomy, 75, 104, 238
Classical language, 132, 167 – catastrophe, 57
Code switching, 40 – diversity, x, 11, 80, 90, 101, 106, 124, 150,
Codification, 31, 131, 136, 198, 248 151, 165, 173, 183, 184, 186, 188, 216, 231,
Coexistence, x, xi, xii, xiv, 38, 87, 96, 110, 165, 236, 261, 264
169, 257, 261, 262, 267 – dominance, 177
Cognitive, 13, 35, 36, 37, 38, 96, 134, 146, 229, – experience, 13, 136
253 – genocide, 80, 81, 82, 207
Colombia, 65, 66, 101, 124, 155, 195, 207, 209, – heritage, x, 1, 64, 108, 109, 136, 148, 149, 170,
226 187, 235, 252, 254, 265
Colonial language, 24, 64, 93, 108, 113, 230 – identity, 35, 38, 43, 150, 186, 194, 208, 215,
Colonialism, xi, 154, 259 218, 220, 221, 238, 262
Colonisation, colonization, 14, 24, 39, 40, 93, – marginalisation, 82
94, 110, 136, 189, 192, 193, 199, 227, 228, – plurality, 111, 176
230, 239, – prestige, 64
Comissão Pró-Índio do Acre, 140 – referent, 85
Commonwealth, 87 – right, 80, 110
Communicative methods, 167 – uniformity, x, 158, 175, 178, 180, 183, 199,
Community 222, 263
– right, 102, 124, 128 Curriculum, 160, 252
– school, 153, 164, 200 Cuzco, map 6
Comoros, 152 Cymdeithas Yr Iaith Gymraeg, 100, 101
Comparative linguistics, 58, 236 Cyprus, 18, 107
Competing languages, 30 Cyrillic alphabet, 136, 191
Computer technology ies, 170, 254 Czech Republic, 107
Concurrent languages, 12 Chad, 93, 146, 208
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Chechenya, 71, 72, map 2
Ecuador CONAIE, 138 Chiclayo, map 6
Congo, 48, 58, 67, 141 Childhood, 35, 36, 126, 242
Connected languages, 23 Chile, 66, 152, 197, map 6
Consciousness, 32 Chimbote, map 6
318 Words and Worlds
China, 24, 29, 48, 74, 97, 99, 121, 122, 123, 136, – monolingualism, 24
139, 140, 141, 144, 148, 158, 178, 192, 195, – society, 156, 207, 228
197, 206, 212, 217, 235, 236, 237 Drought, 33, 239
Chinese character, 136, 192 Drug addiction, 81
Christian, 20, 141, 190, 193, 197 Drum language, 79
Chukchia, 99 Dry areas, 23
Chuvashia, 99 Dual-lingualism, 39
Durban, map 5
Dagestan, 52, 71, 72, 73, map 2
Dar es Salam, map 9 East London, map 5
Death of language, 86, 127, 163, 226, 227, 228, Easter Island, 32
238, 242, 247, 249, 255 Ecolinguistics, 30, 32
Decline of language, x, 18, 33, 42, 79, 103, 141, Ecological
201, 205, 209, 212, 238, 247, 252 – balance, xi
Decolonisation, 24, 110 – community, 126
Deculturated, 35 – system, 10
Deforestation, 42, 240 Ecology, 30, 31, 38, 43
Deixonne law, 103 Economic
Democracy, xiii, 69, 106, 110, 134 – crises, 227, 237
Democratic Republic of Congo, 67 – exploitation, 227, 237
Demographic factor, 206, 208, 227, 232, 233, 234 – factor, 30
Denmark, 70, 99, 107, 121 – power, 47, 64, 80, 82, 94, 177
Descriptive linguists, 12 – subjugation, 229
Desert, 14, 15, 23, 32 Ecuador, 52, 65, 66, 97, 99, 101, 138, map 6,
Devanagari script, 191, 241 map 11
Dialect, 14, 16, 20, 25, 31, 47, 63, 78, 115, 132, Education Reform Act, 100
141, 142, 143, 153, 195, 206, 218, 251 Education system, educational system, 66, 68,
Dialectology, 12, 16 78, 93, 99, 102, 103, 104, 105, 151, 152, 153,
Dialinguistics, 12 162, 163, 167, 172, 173, 174, 198, 206, 238,
Dictionary, 10, 34, 137, 138, 195, 224 253
Diglossia, diglossic, 28, 39, 40, 41, 45, 223 Educational
Dioudoulou, map 7 – linguistics, 151, 170
Directorate, General for Bilingual and – policy, 150, 152, 153, 163
Intercultural Education 160 – programme, 105, 166, 170, 190, 196
Disappearing languages 5 Egypt 39, map 10
Discrimination, discriminated, discriminatory, Eisteddfodau, 100
42, 58, 66, 81, 82, 88, 105, 115, 124, 161, 175, El Salvador, 240, map 8
181, 185, 207, 229, 238, 248, 259, 261 Electronic media, 169
Disease, 33, 239, 243 Elementary grade, 152
Displacement, 20, 45, 114, 206, 228, 230, 234, Elista, 2
265 Elite language, 230
Diwan, 103 Emergente, 11, 14, 40, 114, 115, 185
Dodoma, map 9 Emigration, see also migration, immigration,
Domains, 12, 22, 24, 38, 40, 42, 51, 113, 114, xi, 4, 18, 23, 32, 33, 39, 40, 42, 56, 183, 196,
116, 128, 193, 223 206, 208, 211, 215, 218, 219, 227, 233, 234,
Dominant 239, 242, 243, 250, 253, 256, 257, 259, 265
– culture, 177, 178, 179, 218, 259 Ena Wene Nawé, 132, 133
– language, see also predominant language, Encounter language, 83
64, 70, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 113, 114, 117, 150, Endangered
151, 153, 168, 170, 174, 195, 207, 211, 216, – language, 51, 54, 63, 73, 90, 188, 209, 210,
217, 221, 226, 232, 234, 235, 237, 238, 258 231, 236, 237, 247, 251, 254, 255
Subject Index 319
Guatemala, 47, 93, 97, 143, 147, 160, 193, 194, – minority, 81
207, 218, map 8 – people, 75, 81, 99, 101, 102, 104, 155, 158,
Guayaquil, 138 159, 181, 195, 219
– population, 53, 54, 65, 219, 221, 230, 239
Hamburg, 84 Indigenous Teachers Association ACRE, 140,
Harare, 18, 107, 109 157, 160, 168
Hawaii, 32 Indochina, 64, 230
Heerenveen, 70 Indonesia, 21, 24, 46, 47, 48, 58, 67, 94, 95, 97,
Helduen Alfabetatze Berreuskalduntzerako 141, 142
Erakundea HABE, 172 Inequality, 115, 183
Helsinki, map 4 Influenza, 33
Helsinki Final Act, 106 Information technology, 28, 33
Hetta, map 4 Ingushetia, 71, 72, map 2
High-rainfall, 23 Institut de Sociolingüística Catalana, 202
Hispanic Culture, 82 Intercommunication, 16, 18, 19, 38, 68
Hispanicisation, 208, 228 Interculturalism, 106, 168
Hitler Germany, 21 Intergenerational
Holland, 56, 97, 107 – continuity, 17
Home language, 112, 223 – discontinuity, 17
Honduras, 16, 65, 97, 148, 161, 194, 196, 212, – transmission, 4, 17, 100, 200, 201, 202, 203,
219, 226, map 8 206, 212, 234, 252
Houston, 84 – use, 4, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 207, 209, 211,
Huancayo, map 6 213
Huanuco, map 6 Intergovernmental Conference of Ministers
Hudston Bay, map 11 on Language Policies in Africa, 107
Human rights, xi, 106, 127, 165, 217, 248, 263 Intermarriage, see also mixed marriage, 31
Hungary, 70, 107 Internal migration, see also migration,
Hymn book, 137 emigration, immigration, 18
International Commission for Translations
Iceland, vii, 107, 121, 177 and Linguistic Rights, 108
Idiolect, 111 International Covenant on Civil and Political
Idre, map 4 Rights, 106, 110
Illiterate, 131, 134 International language, 64, 69, 80, 86
Immersion, 103, 105, 117, 167, 168, 174 Internationalisation, 54, 55, 85
Immigration, see also migration, emigration, Intolerance, xiv, 267
xi, 4, 18, 23, 32, 33, 39, 40, 42, 56, 183, 196, Invasion, 40, 81, 233
206, 208, 211, 215, 218, 219, 227, 233, 234, Iquitos, map 6
239, 242, 243, 250, 253, 256, 257, 259, 265 Iran, 72
Imperialist language, 89 Ireland, 98, 107, 191, 239
Impoverishment, 81, 239 Irian, Jaya 76
Independent language, 7, 47 Iringa, map 9
India, 3, 25, 26, 42, 48, 56, 60, 74, 99, 117, 122, Islam, 51, 190, 191, 192, 194
126, 135, 136, 144, 147, 152, 153, 154, 155, Island of San Andres, 22, map 12
165, 192, 209, 211, 222, 238, 240 Isolation, 32, 36, 56, 198, 227, 252, 258, 262
Indigenous Israel, 147, 190
– community, 2, 151, 155, 219, 226, 228 Italy, 14, 24, 56, 70, 74, 97, 107, 147, 168
– group, 66, 195, 226
– language, 21, 23, 24, 26, 33, 43, 51, 56, 65, 67, James Bay, 105
76, 77, 78, 82, 102, 104, 121, 138, 155, 156, Japan, 178, 192
157, 158, 159, 160, 164, 181, 196, 216, 221, Java, 95
226, 228, 232 Jawaharlal Nehru University, viii, 26
Subject Index 321
Number Phonetics, 61
– of languages, xii, 5, 11, 20, 31, 32, 34, 40, 44, Phyla, phylum, 58, 59, 60, 64, 67, 73, 74, 76,
47, 48, 50, 55, 56, 63, 78, 86, 89, 126, 138, 236
151, 164, 184, 225, 241, 243 Pyatigorsk, viii, 73, map 2
– of speakers, 3, 6, 18, 24, 49, 50, 51, 52, 56, 57, Pidgin, xii, 19, 20, 22, 31, 39, 40, 51, 63, 79, 211,
65, 67, 70, 72, 77, 88, 206, 227, 232, 233, 243 222, 223, 230
Nyassia, map 7 Piura, map 6
Planned languages, 21, 22
Oberwart, 70 Planning, see also language planning (see
Official language, 19, 42, 43, 44, 47, 51, 68, 70, linguistic planning) 17, 21, 22, 69, 189, 190,
71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 92, 93, 94, 95, 98, 99, 101, 196, 249, 250, 259
105, 106, 107, 120, 122, 123, 124, 179, 205, Plantations, 19, 238
206, 207, 211, 215, 218, 221, 226, 230, 241, Pluralism, xi, xiii, 165, 187
247, 250, 266 Pluricentric standard languages, 29
Open University of Catalonia, viii, 203 Pluricultural, see also multicultural, 3, 164,
Oral 168, 257
– culture, 83 Plurilingualism, see also multilingualism, 29,
– literature, 83, 148 30, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 40, 43, 45, 51, 68, 69,
– literary tradition, 138, 148, 254 87, 88, 91, 92, 106, 111, 151, 162, 164, 165,
– transmission, 85 169, 173, 174, 184, 186, 215, 222, 230, 231,
Orality, 83, 115, 132, 164 253, 262, 268,
Order of the words, 62 Poland, 74, 107
Organisation of African Unity OAU, 107 Policies of preservation, 3
Original language, 198, 218, 225, 238, 239 Policy of discrimination, see also
Oslo, map 4 marginalisation, assimilation, 58
Ossettia, 99, map 2 Political self-determination, xi
Ouagadougou, vii, 2 Political units, 24
Oussouye, map 7 Polyethnicity, 75
Oviedo, 84 Polylingual, see also multilingual, plurilingual,
73, 87, 88, 92, 107, 150, 151, 164, 165, 166,
Pakistan, 94, 122, 147, 148, 178 167, 170, 181, 182, 184, 239, 263
Panama, 65 Ponoj, map 4
Pandemics, 33 Port Elizabeth, map 5
Papua New Guinea (see New Guinea) Portugal, 107, 230
Paraguay, 18, 39, 41, 66, 67, 98, 122, 133, 134, Positive attitude, 151, 153, 214, 215, 218, 253,
137 257
Paraná, 133 Post-colonial, see also colonial, 97, 112, 228
Passive Post-creole communities, 27
– language learning, 88 Post-modern society ies, 83
– multilingualism, 39 Predominant language, see also dominant
Patois, 16, 25 language, 64, 70, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 113, 114,
Peasant Research and Promotion Centre, viii 117, 150, 151, 153, 168, 170, 174, 195, 207,
PEN Club, 108, 263 211, 216, 217, 221, 226, 232, 234, 235, 237,
Persecution, 42 238, 258
Peru, 7, 66, 97, 101, 102, 123, 124, 147, 160, Prefabricated language, 84
192, 208, 212, 218, 240, map 12 Prejudices, xi, xiv, 82, 146, 188, 199, 205, 214,
Philippines, 48, 58, 76, 94, 143, 152, 192 223, 252, 256, 257, 258
Philology, 12 Prescriptive linguistics, 12
Philosophical knowledge, philosophical Press, 83
system, 29, 140 Pretoria, 140, 171, 174, 177, 178, 181, 182, 187,
Phonetic script, 136, 141 255, 256, map 5
Subject Index 325
Urbanisation, 19, 20, 28, 42, 68, 215, 242, 243, – concept of language, 78, 79
256 – culture, 47, 138
Urdd Gobaith Cymru, 101 – industrialised societies, 56
Utsjoki, map 4 – model, 82, 89
– political and economic power, 82
Vancouver, map 11 Whistle languages, 22
Vanuatu, 14, 17, 19, 49, 76, 94 Widespread language, 47, 52, 67, 70, 91, 94,
Variety language, 142 141, 149, 177, 180, 206, 216, 232, 238, 253,
Vatican Council II, 191 255, 256, 262, 263, 265, 267
Venezuela, 66, 137, map 12 Writing system, 121, 136, 141, 146, 189, 190,
Veracruz, 226 191, 192, 193, 196, 198, 209, 236
Verbal and non-verbal intelligence, 37 Written
Vernacular, 19, 24, 38, 39, 41, 79, 144, 152, 160, – code, 140, 142
191, 192, 193, 194, 228 – codification, 131
Vernacularisation, 68, 228 – culture, 83, 131, 134
Victoria, vii, map 9 – language, 85, 121, 122, 128, 134, 135, 139,
Vietnam, 19, 99, 192 140, 142, 143, 161, 166, 173, 209, 230, 251,
Vilhelmina, map 4 255, 263, 264
Vitality see also revitalisation, 31, 52, 68, 92, 109, – literary tradition, 131, 135, 138, 140, 141,
115, 123, 125, 137, 140, 175, 199, 233, 234 142, 147, 154
Violence (psychological or physical), 80, 81, – literature, 83, 135, 138, 141, 147, 166, 211
266, 267 – media, 181
Vocabulary, 17, 35, 45, 62, 96, 222, 265
Volgograd, 71 Xishuangbanna, 122
Vuotso, map 4
Young speakers, 169
Wales, 70, 100, 101, 202 Youth Pledge, 95
War, 29, 42, 45, 72, 103, 104, 162, 166 Yukatan, 33
Weak language, 237
Weddings, 148 Zaire, 48, map 9
Welsh Language Act, 100 Zambia, map 9
Welsh Language Board, 100, 101 Zanzibar, map 9
Welsh Language Society, 101 Zhuang writting system, 136
Western Ziguinchor, map 7
– civilisation, 138 Zimbabwe, 107, 122, map 9
Map 1. Genetic Groupings of the Languages of the World
Map 2. Languages in the Caucasus Region
The Caucasus is the richest area in Europe, linguistically speaking. Over fifty languages are
spoken in the region, although only a few are official. This map depicts linguistic diversity in
the Caucasus and notes whether each language is official or not.
Based on data provided by Alexey Yeschenko, University of Pyatigorsk (Russian Federation)
Map 3. Native American Languages in California
The great linguistic diversity of California is reducing dramatically. This map shows Native
American Languages in California and the number of speakers of each one. As you can see,
most of them have already died or are in the process of totally disappearing.
Source: Hinton, L. (1994)
Map 4. Sami Language. Language, Territory, and Official Status
Frequently, the same linguistic community inhabits territories belonging to more than one
state. In Europe, for instance, one well-known example is that of Sami, whose speakers are to be
found in land belonging to Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Russian Federation, but which is
official only in the first three countries. This map shows the Sami-speaking areas.
Source: Seurujärvi-Kari, Pedersen & Hirvonen (1997)
Map 5. Languages of South Africa
The map includes the eleven languages of South Africa that are recognised officially. It is also
important to point out that there are other first languages that are used by South Africans such
as Dutch, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, French, Tamil, Hindi, Telegu, Gujarati, Urdu,
Chinese, Swahili, Shone and Arabic and two Bantu languages, siPhuthi and Makhuwa, that
are not recognised by the Constitution but that are both unique to South Africa.
Based on data provided by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology of Pretoria (South Africa)
Map 6. Great Diversity but only Occasional Use in Administration
Despite the great linguistic diversity in South American countries such as Peru, very few get to
be used in formal service encounters. Even languages declared official, Quechua and Aymara,
for instance, are hardly used in public administration. This map of Peru shows the original
territory of the several language varieties.
Data provided by the Peruvian Indigenous Institute
Map 7. Standardisation in Senegal
Senegal has great language diversity. Some languages, such as Balanta or Safen, have
undergone a certain process of standardisation; others, such as Basari or Badyara, have not.
This map shows the languages used in the region of Ziguinchor.
Based on data provided by the Directorate for Literacy and Basic Education, Senegal
Map 8. Languages of Central America (Partial)
According to our respondent for Pech (Honduras), there is no written tradition in this
language, but only oral. This map shows the languages of Mexico and Central America.
Sources: Wurm, Mühlhäusler & Tryon (1996), England (1994), Moseley & Asher (1994) and data provided
by K’ulb’il Yol Twitz Paxil-Academy of Mayan Language and the Honduran Institute of Anthropology
Map 9. The Media and Languages Spoken in Tanzania
Over one hundred languages are spoken in Tanzania. Only a few have some presence in the
media. The use of Swahili as the language for high functions is widespread.
Data taken from Grimes (2000)
Map 10. Tamazight Language Areas
According to our Tamazight (North Africa) respondent, Islamism contributes to the
Arabisation of the Amazights. This map shows the Tamazight language areas.
Based on data provided by the Mediterranean “Montgomery Hart” Foundation of Amazights and
Magrebian Studies