LANGUAGE POLICIES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR PEACE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By

 

 

Dr. Tariq Rahman

National Distinguished Professor (Pakistan)

 

 

LANGUAGE POLICY AND LANGUAGE PLANNING

(LP AND LP)

 

Ø               Status Planning

Ø               National Language

Ø               Medium of instruction

Ø               Official Language

Ø               Corpus Planning

Ø               Script

Ø               Norms of Usage

Ø               Words

Ø               Spellings

Ø               Acquisition Planning

Ø               Teaching

Ø                Spread

 

 

 

 

REVERSING LANGUAGE SHIFT (RLS)

 

Ø               Functional changes in Language use.

Ø               RLS is prescriptive

Ø               Language death (death, murder or suicide?)

Ø               Globalization and Threat to Languages.

Ø               Domains of Language use.

Ø               Public (Power)

Ø               Private (Pleasure)

Ø               Problems with RLS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LANGUAGE POLICY OF INDIA-1

 

Ø               Hindi as National Language (1950 Constitution)

Ø               English as Official Language up to 1965.

Ø               Linguistic States-27 Nov 1947 speech.

Ø               Dar commission, 10 Dec 1948 ‘No new provinces should be created for the present. All things considered, the consideration of linguistic provinces should be postponed for ten years’ (Report of the Linguistic Provinces Commission).

Ø               Andhra Question: Sriramulu’s fast to death on 16 Dec 1952. 01 Oct 1953, Andhra (TELUGU) state created. Andhra Pradesh with Hyderabad as capital created on 01 Nov 1956.

Ø                Report of the States Reorganization Commission (1955) in 267 pages.

 

LANGUAGE POLICY OF INDIA-2

 

Ø               Language States

Ø               Bilingual States of Bombay (Gujrati and Marathi) Bombay city went to Maharashtra

Ø               Punjab Partitioned in 1966.

Ø               Himachal Pradesh

Ø               Haryana (Hindi)

Ø               Punjab (Punjabi)

Ø               Policy About English

Ø               Hindi opposed by Dravidian India.

Ø               Hindi subverted by the upper classes all over India.

Ø               Nehru’s support of English as a link language (LWC) and a modernizing language.

Ø               English stays beyond 1965 and is deeply entrenched.

Ø               Three language formula.

Ø                Language and religion (Urdu-Muslim; Punjabi-Sikh; Hindi-Hindu).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LANGUAGE POLICY OF PAKISTAN

 

Ø               Ethnicity and Language

Ø               Bengali Language movement

Ø               Sindhi Language movement

Ø               Pashto Language movement

Ø               Siraiki Language movement

Ø               Balochi/Brahvi Language movement

Ø               Punjabi Language movement

Ø               English and the class divide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LANGUAGE POLICY IN SRI LANKA

 

Ø               Official Language Act of 1958

Ø               Sinhala becomes the official language.

Ø               Tamils resent this.

Ø               Tamil ethnicity asserts itself.

Ø               English competence decreases and English-medium schooling decreases till 1977 when the trend is reversed.

Ø               Tamil becomes an official language under the 1978 constitution. The accord is certified on 14 Nov 1987. English becomes a link language.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CATALAN IN SPAIN

 

Ø               Catalonia opposed Franco in the 1936 Civil War.

Ø               Catalan was suppressed.

Ø               In the later years of Franco superficial concessions were made to Catalan.

Ø               In 1996 the entire population could understand Catalan. 3 out of 4 (nearly 4 million) could speak it.

Ø               In 1998, 97% of the population of Catalonia  could speak and write Spanish.

Ø               The 1983 law for Linguistic Normalization of Catalan gave it a key role in education at all levels.

Ø               Catalan is used in government but not necessarily in business.

 

 

CATALAN (LEGISLATION)

SPANISH CONSTITUTION (1978)

 

Ø               STATUS Planning

Ø               Official language in Catalonia (Article 3)

Ø               Spanish and Catalan co-equal official language.

Ø               CORPUS Planning

Ø               Dictionaries

Ø               Grammars

Ø               ACQUISITION Planning

Ø               1988 Law

Ø               Knowing both official languages

Ø               To freely use either of the two official languages in all fields.

Ø               No discrimination.

 

 

 

FLEMISH

 

Ø               Flemish nationalism focused on language.

Ø               In 1830 Flemish (Dutch) was established as the medium of instruction at the University of Gent.

Ø               Linguistic frontier established between Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels in 1963.

Ø               In 1994-95 there was a Flemish-Walloon conflict but it was resolved peacefully.

Ø               Flemish language-based political power is recognized.

Ø               The idea that two PEOPLE live in ONE STATE is accepted and has removed the possibility of conflict or secession.

 

 

 

 

CANADA

 

Ø               French-speakers were a minority (28%) in Canada in 1961.

Ø               The Gendron Commission (1972) declared that French could be greatly weakened in Quebec.

Ø               Immigrants (Allophones) taught English to their children.

Ø               Between 1969 to 1996 Quebec governments made laws favouring French.

Ø               Status planning, corpus planning and acquisition planning laws were made so that a shift in favour of French by 1996 was visible. Quebec did not secede from Canada.