Languages In the World (26 page)

The dominant language pattern is by far the most common. As we have just seen, the dissolution of the British Empire in the Indian subcontinent engendered enough language controversies in Pakistan to result in a new country, Bangladesh. In India, the language problems were especially prickly, given that India has roughly 400 languages spoken by a population of over one billion. These languages fall into four language stocks: Indo-European, Dravidian, Afro-Asiatic, and Sino-Tibetan. The largest of these in terms of overall number of speakers is the Indo-European stock, which in India includes languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Oriya, and Punjabi.

During the period known as the British Raj, which began in 1858, English was the elite language of education and government administration. Heated debate about the linguistic future of India ensued for several decades leading up to India's independence in 1947. Fearing that India would disintegrate at the conclusion of the Raj, Mahatma Gandhi advocated for a single language to be used as a lingua franca to unite the subcontinent's diverse regions and, further, that this language should be an Indian language, which meant not English. Hindi, already spoken widely in the north, was the frontrunner and was championed by Mahatma Gandhi.

In the postindependence period, the central government took steps to promote Hindi as an English replacement, including providing language training to government workers. As support for Hindi gained momentum in the north, opposition to it solidified in the Dravidian south, particularly among Tamil speakers who favored the continued use of English. The Tamils in the south associated Hindi with the Brahmin caste who, they felt, oppressed Tamil language and culture. The argument was advanced that Hindi was as much a foreign language for Dravidian speakers as English. In response, India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, proposed allowing the continued use of English in government. However, this conciliatory gesture was not enough. Violence in the south erupted and lasted for several years. To quell the protests, Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter and the third Prime Minister of India, advocated codifying English as an official language in the Indian constitution. In 1963, the law passed designating English Associate Official Language and thereby cementing the role of English in Indian society. In addition to Hindi and English, the Indian Constitution designates 22 additional Eighth Schedule Languages, so named for the part of the constitution that deals with language. Many of these form the basis of India's states.

When the Philippines gained independence from the United States in 1946, the government had to decide which of the estimated 150 languages would be named the official language. The government passed a law to create a National Language Institute, charged with national language policy, including designating an official language. The choice came down to three languages: Tagalog, Ilocano, and Visayan. The committee chose Tagalog based on the fact that: (i) it was the language of Manila, the political, cultural, and economic capital of Philippines; (ii) it had the longest literary tradition; and (iii) it had the largest number of speakers. This choice angered speakers of other ethnic groups, who complained that the decision favored ethnic Tagalogs who were already the political elites in Manila. In order to mitigate the controversy, a decision was made to name the new official language Pilipino as a way of distancing it from the Tagalog ethnogroup. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, the government continued to deal with the fallout of this decision and twice more took up the issue of official language. First, the government changed the name from Pilipino to Filipino and made decisive efforts to promote the language throughout the country. This cosmetic and aggressive move did nothing but further anger ethnic groups who felt left out of language policy. Finally, the government changed the constitution to indicate that Filipino would eventually be shaped by regional languages other than Tagalog.

Today, it is understood that Filipino is essentially the same language as the variety of Tagalog spoken in Manila, with little lexical or structural influence from other languages, as had been planned. Filipino is now the co-official language of the Philippines, along with English, which was introduced during the period of United States imperialism from 1899 to 1946. The colonial language prior to English was Spanish and has no official status, nor is it recognized as one of the eight regional languages, which include Cebuano, Ilokano, Pampango, and Tagalog. Thus, the result of language planning in the Philippines, which began with egalitarian aims, is that the official languages – English and Filipino – reflect the linguistic interests of the elite.

About 1600 miles south of Manila lies the tiny country of Timor-Leste, known in English as East Timor. Moored between the Banda Sea to the north and the Timor Sea to the south, Timor-Leste finds itself at anchor between two national giants: Indonesia to the north and west, and Australia to the south. Timor-Leste has also been continually buffeted between ruling powers: the Portuguese were in charge from the sixteenth century until 1975, after which the Indonesians took over. Since declaring independence from Indonesia in 2002, Timor-Leste has been divided over language policy. Two languages were selected to be official languages of government: Tetum, an Austronesian language spoken widely throughout the island, and Portuguese, the colonial language, spoken among elites who make up about 5% of the population. The selection of Portuguese was met with hostility by many, who contended that Portuguese favors the elites, is no longer the international language of prestige it was in the sixteenth century, and is no longer a language of Asia, as it has not been maintained in the former Portuguese colonies of Goa, India and Macau, China. Many Timorese would have preferred that English or BI, already a widespread lingua franca, be named co-official language with Tetum. As an indication of their dissatisfaction with the government's decision to promote Portuguese, the national university in the capital city of Dili has decided not to offer courses in Portuguese, making them available instead in Tetum, BI, or English.

Africa is a story in and of itself. The independent states, which began to emerge out of the imperial map in Africa at the end of the European colonial period, were faced with many difficult decisions about language policy, especially regarding the status of the former colonial language. The Portuguese established colonies in present-day Angola and Mozambique. The French took over:

1. most of the Maghreb, that is, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria;
   
2. much of West Africa, including the Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Burkina Faso; and
   
3. Central Africa, which comprises Cameroon, Chad, and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
   

The British colonized:

1. much of sub-Saharan Africa, namely South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe;
   
2. West Africa with Nigeria;
   
3. East Africa, with Kenya and Tanzania; and
   
4. northeast Africa, with Sudan and Egypt.
   

The Italians took much of the Horn of Africa, including present-day Eritrea, Somalia, and parts of Ethiopia, in addition to Libya. The Belgians had the Congo. When the Europeans began to leave Africa in the twentieth century, they left behind their languages, which took hold in certain places but not in others. They also left behind an extremely complicated set of language politics.

The status of colonial languages in Africa today depends in part on how much the various colonial powers succeeded in – or even cared about – imposing their language on their colonies. The Italians were not particularly successful in promoting the Italian
language in Africa, and therefore none of the modern states emerging from the Italian Empire, namely Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia, have given Italian official status. For example, when Somalia declared its independence in 1960 after many years of Italian and British influence, Somali was named the official language of the state. This decision was easy in light of the fact that 95% of the population speaks Somali. In contrast, Portuguese was named the only official language of Angola when it declared independence from Portugal in 1975, likely due to the fact that schooling had been established in Portuguese in the cities during colonial rule.

In the rest of Africa, the situation has rarely been as simple as in Somalia and Angola. The problem of official language in South Africa illustrates this point. Before the end of apartheid in 1994, there were two official languages in multilingual South Africa: Afrikaans and English. This fact reflects the colonial influence of the Dutch
⁵
and the British, and made linguistically concrete the political, social, and cultural privilege of Whites in the country at the time. The South African Constitution of 1994, however, attempts to reverse the problem by recognizing 11 official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. The postapartheid government led by Nelson Mandela recognized the need for linguistic parity in the creation of a stable multiracial nation in Africa.
⁶
It is noteworthy that Mandela's vision of national unity was predicated on the notion of a multilingual state rather than a monolingual one.

In sum, colonial languages have almost always achieved official status in the former colonies we have discussed here: (i) Spanish in Mexico and Paraguay; (ii) English in South Africa and India; and (iii) Portuguese in East Timor and Angola. The absences of Dutch in Indonesia and Italian in Somalia are exceptions, although we also acknowledge that these languages hold less international sway than larger colonial languages such as English and Spanish.

In nation-states where ethnolinguistic minority groups have been given a degree of autonomy over language and education policy in particular regions, the minority language may be made the primary language of instruction in that region. This has been the case in Spain's Catalonia, where Catalan is the primary medium of instruction. When democracy returned to Spain in 1978 after the end of the dictatorship of General Franco, regional governments were guaranteed autonomy to set educational policy. In Catalonia, the Catalan government implemented so-called linguistic normalization policies in order to ensure the future of Catalan in the region; the primary normalization mechanism has been Catalan-medium education.

Because Spanish is a prominent international language and the primary language of Spain, value is placed on bilingualism, and Spanish is offered as a subject course. The large numbers of Spanish-speaking immigrants from Latin America to Catalonia receive Catalan language support in what are called
reception classes
provided by the government upon arrival. Today, Catalan proficiency is high throughout the region on account of the regional government's efforts to promote Catalan in schools. The success of Catalan in education owes to the unique provisions in the postdictatorship Spanish Constitution, the strength of the Catalonian economy, and the tenacious efforts of the regional government over many years of promoting the regional language.

Language planners in India have understood that if Hindi were the only language of instruction throughout the country, students in the parts of the north where Hindi is the first language, such as Delhi, would be given an unfair scholastic advance. Therefore, language planners set forth in 1968 what became known as India's Three Language Formula. This formula requires that, in any given Indian state:

1. the first language to be studied will be the mother tongue or a regional language;
   
2. the second language in (a) Hindi-speaking states, will be some other modern Indian language or English, and in (b) non-Hindi-speaking states, the second language will be Hindi or English; and
   
3. the third language in (a) Hindi-speaking states will be English or a modern Indian language not studied as the second language, and in (b) non-Hindi-speaking states, the third language will be English or a modern Indian language not studied as the second language.
   

The intention of the Three Language Formula was for school children across India to become proficient in three languages, including their own mother tongue and the national language, Hindi, by the end of their secondary education while at the same time strengthening cultural integration across diverse linguistic regions.

In practice, the formula has been implemented inconsistently across the states. First, some states, particularly in the so-called Hindi-belt, have neglected to teach the mother tongue first, under the assumption that Hindi is the mother tongue for most children. This means that Hindi is taught as the first language rather than as the second or third, as the formula suggests. English can be taught as the second language, and some states have opted to teach Sanskrit, the Classical parent of Hindi, as a second or third language rather than offer a state or regional language at all. The result is that many students in Hindi-speaking regions do not receive primary education in the mother tongue, or in a major language of India other than Hindi. Dravidian languages are customarily not taught in the Hindi-speaking states. Thus, one of the major goals of the formula – specifically, cultural integration – has not been met. Likewise, in the Dravidian-speaking south, the Three Language Formula has become in certain places a two-language formula, in which the state language, for example, Tamil, is taught alongside English, and Hindi is not taught at all. In short, politics, especially that rooted in ethnolinguistic and regional conflict, has been a major force shaping decisions about language and education in India.

The power of the English language is unprecedented in global and historical terms, and data show that children educated in the United States will learn English, irrespective of their home language. Nevertheless, the educational system in the United States remains, for the most part, indifferent or hostile to multilingualism. A combination of formal policies and informal pressures against languages other than English maintain English as the sole medium of instruction in most schools in the United Station. For example, in California in 1998, a law called English for the Children, known as Proposition 227, was approved by 61% of voters, effectively dismantling bilingual education in one of the most linguistically diverse parts of the United States. The law does allow parents to sign petitions to start bilingual education programs and request waivers from the law, but such efforts are difficult to arrange in practice, especially in immigrant communities where parents may demonstrate deference to the school system.

Although the law is concerned with language and educational policy, it was written neither by professional linguists nor by educators but by a software entrepreneur with
political aspirations by the name of Ron Unz. As linguist Wong-Fillmore (2004:354) points out, this was the first time in the history of the United States that a pedagogical approach was put forth for popular vote. The law passed in spite of the ongoing success of many bilingual education programs in California because the political arguments
⁷
put forth to frame the law positively made common sense in terms of the one nation, one language ideology. In other words, voters were swayed by ideological beliefs about language and its relationship to the state, not by linguistic, sociological, or educational realities. Today, through the concerted efforts of parents and educators, there are many successful two-way immersion bilingual education programs in California in languages such as Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish. The success of these programs exists in spite of legislation that sought to implement statewide English-only policies. In 2000, a similar English-only education measure was passed in Arizona, namely Proposition 203, but without the possibility for parental petition. Bilingual education is thus banned in another one of the most bilingual states in the United States.

In most states, official bans on bilingual education are not necessary, since the overwhelming majority of schools operate English monolingual programs as a matter of course and no matter what the home languages of the student body. Linguistic anthropologist Otto Santa Ana notes that, oddly, the educational system has arrived at a moment in which the ideology of monolingualism – the belief that the full rights and benefits of United States citizenship come with being a monolingual English speaker – is so potent that functional bilingualism actually ranks as less than English monolingualism. He writes that when it comes to contemporary public discourse on education, “speaking a language in addition to English is effectively taken to be as much an educational barrier as non-English-monolingualism” (Santa Ana 2002:228).

Instead of bilingual education programs, English-as-a-Second-Language courses (ESL) are commonly offered throughout the United States. Many school systems simply assume that children will learn their heritage language in the home from parents. However, this perspective ignores two realities: first, although children may learn oral comprehension and speaking skills in the family language at home, literacy skills are most commonly acquired through dedicated instruction in schools and may be difficult for parents to teach. Second, myriad
informal
pressures against immigrant languages may block successful acquisition of the home language. Consider a child whose first language is Spanish. This student, who only heard Spanish at home until age five, will be placed in ESL on the first day of first grade, and may be discouraged from speaking, reading, or even hearing Spanish while at school. Many children learn that this means that their home language is not valuable and develop a sense of shame for their heritage language. This same student may never hear another word of Spanish at school again until he or she signs up for Elementary Spanish in high school, only to learn that this class is taught less as a serious opportunity to (re)learn the language he/she has mostly likely lost and more of an occasion for a trivialized in-school
fiesta
.

Sociolinguist Joshua Fishman (1974) points out an oddity of an educational system that it goes out of its way to turn multilingual immigrant children into monolingual English speakers, only to later reteach what was taken away now as a foreign language. Sociolinguist Ana Celia Zentella (1997:283) notes that the value placed on bilingualism in the United States has class implications. She asks, “Why is the bilingualism of
the well-to-do a source of linguistic security and a sought after advantage while the bilingualism of the poor is a source of insecurity and a disadvantage? How do we explain the fact that bilingual education is looked down upon as remedial program while many mainstream adults pursue second language studies?” In other words, the multilingualism of poor and immigrant children in the United States can be understood as an impediment to educational success at the same time that adult students and students from more affluent families pursue foreign language education.

In the contemporary United States, language policies are limited not only to multilingual or foreign languages but also to the varieties of English spoken by native English speakers as their first language. For example, in 1996, the school board of the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California, passed a measure that recognized African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which they referred to as Ebonics, as the primary language of African American children, who comprised a numerical majority in their district. They further proposed using AAVE transitionally in the Language Arts classroom to help their students master Standard English. The proposal resulted in national controversy. Reporters from respectable media outlets across the country reported on Oakland's decision to “teach slang” to African American students, and eventually a special hearing was called by the United States Senate. Prominent, well-respected linguists voiced support for the proposal during the Senate hearing. The chairman of the Senate subcommittee in charge of the hearing tried and failed to find an African American linguist to testify against the proposal. He did, however, find a preacher and a popular columnist willing to come forth and speak against it. However, neither had any credentials in linguistics. This incident illustrates one of the major points of this section: educational policies about language are more frequently about ideology and politics than they are informed by linguistic theory and practice.

The overall educational goals of a nation-state are to produce citizens who can function appropriately in that nation-state. Our review of language and educational policy has focused on large, multilingual nation-states. However, for a smaller state such as Mongolia, with no burning minority language issues, a further goal of education is now to maintain and strengthen a sense of national identity. On news programs, in the newspapers, even in pop-culture music lyrics, Mongolians express their awareness of their population size relative to that of China: less than three million Mongolians as opposed to well over one billion Chinese. One response to this sense of threat has been for Mongolian policy makers to foreground something unique to their culture, namely its traditional writing system.

The socialist era came to an end in Mongolia in 1990. In 1992, the first democratic constitution was written, and it included a provision that all middle school children, aged 12–16, would learn what is called Old Script, the script devised for Mongolian in the thirteenth century. At the same time, lessons began on television to teach Old Script to the population. Beginning in 2000, legislators began to debate whether to expand the teaching of Old Script in the schools, and in 2008 it began to be introduced in primary school, to children aged 6–11. Today, the Mongolian government has legislated a full 12 years of instruction in Old Script, for all aged 6–18. Mongolian is still written in Cyrillic, but the teaching of Old Script is surely one way the educational system is keeping a sense of national uniqueness and identity alive.