Languages In the World (43 page)
Read Languages In the World Online
Authors: Julie Tetel Andresen,Phillip M. Carter
Ancient Nubia was the region along the Nile River in present-day Egypt and Sudan. It was originally inhabited by the Noba people, also known as the Kushites, who created a flourishing civilization and who spoke Old Nubian, a now-extinct Nilo-Saharan language. Around 1500 BCE, the ancient Egyptians, who spoke Old Egyptian, a now-extinct Afro-Asiatic language, moved south into the Nubian region and colonized the Nubians, making them subjects of the Pharaoh. Egyptian rule lasted about 500 years until the Kushites reasserted control, and the Kingdom of Kush was established. Two points can now be made. First, events surrounding the movements and expansions of peoples explored in Chapters 7 and 8 likely played themselves out much like the story here; however, the details for the rest of the world are lost to us in the absence of written documents, except for the case of China whose records are as old as Egypt's. Second, the pattern of colonialism and conflict is particularly old in this fertile region of the world.
Religion now enters the picture with the introduction of Christianity and Islam into the region during the first millennium CE. Christianity entered North Africa through contact with the Roman Empire. The Copts, an ancient ethnogroup who spoke Old Egyptian, were among the first in the region to adopt Christianity, and they spread the religion southward. The language Old Nubian is known today through several hundred pages of Christian religious documents kept by the Copts and written in the Coptic alphabet.
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By the sixth century, much of southern Nubia, that is, present-day Sudan, had been Christianized.
A short century later, the Islamicization of North Africa began as Muslim Arabs moved west from the Arabian peninsula to conquer northern Nubia, which also brought language shift, such that Egyptians today speak (modern) Arabic. The Arabic language and Islamic religion also began to trickle into various Christian kingdoms in southern Nubia, called by the Arabs
Bilad al-Sudan
`Land of Black People'. The movement of Arabs into Nubia created two important and long-lasting conditions. The spread of Islam over several centuries first facilitated the spread of Arabic throughout the northern part of modern-day Sudan and second instantiated a longstanding but loosely recognized north/south division split along ethnic, religious, and linguistic lines. The northern region was established as ethnically Arab, religiously Muslim, and linguistically Arabic speaking. The southern region was ethnically Black African, religiously Christian, and linguistically diverse.
Next up came British colonialism. Between 1899 and 1956, the British controlled modern-day Sudan through their colonial territory in Egypt. During this period, known as Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, British administrators promoted policies that directly troubled the north/south split. First, after World War I, the British folded the Sultanate of Darfur, an independently functioning Nile Valley territory to the west, into Sudan. Second, they exacerbated differences within Sudan, transforming what was once a loose north/south division into two clearly distinct cultural and linguistic regions: north and south.
The stage was now set for modern state of Sudan to be plagued with not one but two geopolitical conflicts, both involving the Arabic-speaking majority in the centrally
located capital, Khartoum. The majority were in conflict, on the one hand, with the Fur-speaking minority in the western region of Darfur and, on the other, with the mostly English-speaking region in the south, now known as the independent Republic of South Sudan.
The name
Darfur
is the Arabic for ârealm of the Fur,' given to the region between Sudan, Chad, and Central African Republic. The Fur are an ethnogroup who speak a Nilo-Saharan language, also called Fur. In the second half of the twentieth century, the conflict in the region spun out into a bewildering number of cascading conflicts characterized by three types of movement: (i) the movement of a border, (ii) the mass movements of people within and across borders, and (iii) the movement of money and arms into the region.
When the British drew independent, precolonial Darfur within the border of the newly formed state of Sudan, they also pushed Sudan into geopolitical conflicts with neighboring Chad and Libya, because these two states had longstanding conflicts with the Sultanate of Darfur. Second, the border between Darfur and Chad was historically porous and easily negotiated. Darfuri camel herders easily moved west over the border into Chad for greener pastures, where rainfall was greater. However, beginning in the 1980s, the ethnic conflict in Chad, left in the wake of French colonialism, resulted in a reversal of this historical movement, as several hundred thousand Chadian refugees, mostly nomadic Arabs, moved east over the border into Darfur (Sudan). The new arrivals into Darfur taxed the local ecosystem and increased local hostilities. The Fur people are farmers and not nomadic, and they differentiate between
Kain-Solonga
(Fur for âour Arabs'), or Sudanese Arab nomads who traditionally move north and south within Darfur, from the Chadians who move east and west. By the 1990s, over half a million people were moving about Darfur, escaping various conflicts from north, south, east, and west. Tensions simmered between Arab-speaking nomads and the sedentary Fur.
The movement of weaponry into Sudan and Darfur from the east and west only added to the volatility. At the beginning of the 1980s, United States President Ronald Reagan began to supply arms to Darfur in order to create an alliance against Muammar al-Gaddafi's Libya. By the end of the 1980s, it was the case that “though short of water, Darfur was awash in guns,” as historian Mahmood Mamdani so trenchantly put it (2009:222). The climax came in 2003 when the Fur and their allies, who were speakers of the Nilo-Saharan languages Beria and Masalit, took up arms against the central Sudanese government. This government, in turn, responded by arming poor, nomadic Arab tribes in Darfur known as the
Janjaweed
, whose name is an interesting compound comprising the Arabic words for âman,' âgun,' and âhorse.' The
Janjaweed
are accused of ethnic cleansing of indigenous groups in Darfur, including the Fur. This war set in motion yet another reversal: the movement of some 200,000 Darfuris back across the border into eastern Chad. The events of 2003 started the armed conflict known as the War in Darfur, which, at the time of writing, is still unresolved.
In sum, Darfur illustrates two general points. First, the movement of ethnogroups from one location to another often begets geopolitical conflict, just as geopolitical conflict often begets the movement of ethnogroups. Second, language and cultural differences are often perceived to be the causes of geopolitical conflict in the postcolonial era. However, geopolitical conflicts also create new situations of language contact as speakers flee violence, move into exile, and sometimes return home. Violent conflict thus keeps people moving, which alters the layout of the linguistic map.
Under British rule, the northern and southern regions of Sudan were administered separately. The British grouped southern Sudan with its other colonies in East Africa, Uganda and Kenya among them, and administered the north as a unit with Egypt, in part on the basis of linguistic affinity, because both northern Sudan and Egypt are Arabic-speaking. As was often the case, colonial powers played favorites in their African colonies, and in Sudan, the British favored the south. The favoritism was based on the fact that Christianity was already widespread in the south. The use of English was actively encouraged in the south.
Following pressure from the north to integrate both regions, Britain finally capitulated in 1946, and both regions were thereafter administered together. Arabic was made the official language, and the balance of power quickly shifted to Arabic-speaking Khartoum. After 55 years of British rule, Sudan was given its independence in 1956, but the southerners, who were privileged under British rule, quickly perceived that the north was imposing Arabic and Islam on them. The first of two civil wars soon broke out, which collectively killed over two million people and displaced five million more. A peace agreement was reached in 2005, and in 2011, following a referendum, the South was granted independence and became the Republic of South Sudan with the capital city of Juba.
While Darfur continues as a region of Sudan, South Sudan was successful in arguing for a separate state, in part, on the basis of language difference. English, a prized artifact of British colonialism, was made the official language of South Sudan, and some 60 regional languages have been recognized as national languages. These belong mostly in the central and eastern Sudanic branches of Nilo-Saharan languages, as well as some NigerâCongo languages such as Ngbaka and Sere. In South Sudan, Arabic has not been named an official language and has not been given official recognition by the new government. After generations of educating students in Arabic, schools throughout South Sudan have now switched the medium of instruction to English.
Despite the state solution and attendant language policies promoting English, conflict continues in South Sudan. Millions of Arabic-speaking refugees from the north have sought refuge in the south, and the presence of traders from Kenya and Uganda have added to the linguistic diversity of South Sudan, where 150 tribal languages are already spoken. The ongoing fluctuations of diverse populations make uniting the country through English an uphill battle and engender further division and conflict. Although language issues are not necessarily the driving force behind conflict in the
region, they are tightly interwoven with the political, historical, religious, and economic issues that have led to volatility in Sudan and South Sudan.
The Caucasus is a complicated region with an even more complicated history. From Ancient Persia to Byzantium, from the Ottoman Empire to the Soviet Union, the Caucasus region has fallen under the reach of powerful empires since antiquity. Caucasian cultures have thus developed through a historicalâpolitical dialectic with their colonizers. Similarly, the languages of the Caucasus have also always been spoken alongside one imperial language or another, be it Persian, Arabic, Turkish, or Russian. As one of the world's residual zones, the Caucasus also has a complex linguistic profile.
In the twentieth century, the most important external force operating in the region was the Soviet Union. Although the Caucasus was already in the orbit of Russian culture during the Tsarist Empire, it was formally folded into the USSR beginning in the 1920s. This arrangement lasted until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990, when 15 Soviet republics from Eastern Europe to Central Asia were given their independence. Three of these states were in the Caucasus region: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian were quickly named as the titular official languages of the new states, respectively.
For the nation-states that emerged out of the former Soviet Union, the transition from Soviet republics to independent nations was a surprisingly peaceful one. However, the development of independent nations and their attendant post-Soviet nationalisms took place alongside a remarkable number of violent conflicts involving contested regions within the Caucasus. Some of these regions fell within the borders of new nation-states â most notably the now independent nation of Georgia â while others remained within the post-Soviet Russian Federation. In both cases, the contested regions are considered to be the historical homelands of indigenous ethnogroups of the Caucasus.
Here, we focus on three of these regions: Abkhazia, Chechnya, and South Ossetia. We consider them to be âquasi-states' because they:
- have declared their independence from other nations;
- operate their own regional governments;
- have well-developed nationalisms with wide local support;
- have well-defined political agendas, including language policies; but
- are not formally recognized by most or any of the international community as independent nations.
These three quasi-nations illustrate two types of postcolonial conflict: first, conflict between the former colonial power and a previously colonized ethnogroup; and second, conflict among ethnogroups previously colonized by the same power. As an example of the first type, Chechens have been in direct conflict with Russia since the end of the Soviet Union. As an example of the second type, Abkhazians and Ossetians have been in conflict with Georgia, which was once also subjugated to Soviet interests.
In postcolonial situations, groups who previously shared a common enemy can turn violent toward each other.
In the late 1930s, ethnic Chechens began to organize a guerrilla movement in the Northern Caucasian Mountains. The movement was designed to culminate in an armed insurgency that would deliver Chechnya from the newly formed Soviet Union. The insurgency began as planned in 1941, but following the destruction of entire Chechen villages by Soviet air raids, Chechen rebels turned to coalition building, seeking the support and participation of other Caucasian ethnic groups in the region. Their ranks swelled. Some 5000 men, mostly Chechens and Ingush, joined the insurgency. Despite broad support throughout the Caucasus for the insurgency, rebels were unable to withstand Soviet attacks. By 1943, with World War II raging on, Chechnya found itself still squarely with Soviet borders, its bold insurgency defeated.
The Soviet solution to the Chechen problem following the insurgency was massive ethnic cleansing. In 1942, half a million Chechen and Ingush people â virtually the entire population â were forcibly resettled from their homes in the Caucasus to regions such as Siberia and Kazakh (present-day Kazakhstan). Thousands who did not leave were executed. Thousands who did leave did not survive. Some rebels kept the movement going by escaping into the depths of the mountains. Others formed new rebel groups in exile. Neither of these was successful in changing the political fate of Chechnya, or the exilic situation of Chechen people who were, in some estimates, reduced in number by 50%.
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Soviet policies toward ethnogroups began to shift in the post-Stalin era, and in 1956, Chechens were invited to return to Chechnya from exile. When they arrived, they found the homeland they had left was no longer theirs. Russian speakers had occupied their homes. Their books, historical records, and other documents, recorded in Chechen, had been burned. Chechen towns had been renamed in Russian. Postexile Chechnya was, in effect, bereft of the Chechen language. The Russification of Chechen places during the exile period presaged a long phase of strict pro-Russian policies within Chechnya during the postexile period, which lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union. By the midtwentieth century, the Chechen people had repopulated Chechen lands, but the Chechen language and culture were still at risk of falling into extinction, given the assimilatory pressures imposed by Soviet leaders.
Russian-initiated assimilatory pressures on Chechens may have in fact resulted in the opposite effect: a heightened sense of ethnic, linguistic, and eventually national Chechen identity. A 1989 census of the Russian Federation found that the Chechen region had the highest proportion of speakers who considered the local language, Chechen, to be their native language and the primary language of daily communication. Therefore, the major pieces of modern nationalism, strong ethnic group identity and distinctive language among them, were already in place when the first post-Soviet independent states began to appear on the map in 1991. Chechnya followed suit, announcing its independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria to the world in 1991. Thousands of non-Chechens fled the Caucasus.
Neither Russia nor the West recognized the declaration of Chechnya, which continued to operate as a quasi-state within Russian borders in the first years of the 1990s. Russia, fearing the very disintegration of the Russian state following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, developed a hardline with Chechnya. By the end of 1994, Russians sent tanks into the streets of Grozny, the Chechen capital, in an operation they believed would last a matter of days. The First Chechen War, as it was later named, lasted for two years. In the end, Grozny was leveled, 100,000 people were killed, and four times as many were displaced. Russian troops left defeated and embarrassed. Russia had failed to convince the world that Chechnya was a bona fide part of its federation. The quasi-state status of Chechnya continued.
The violence did not subside after the war, and stable conditions did not last long. A number of terrorist attacks around Russia in the late 1990s were blamed on Chechen terrorists. These attacks provided the rational for a second invasion in Grozny. This time the Russian military was better prepared, and Grozny was brought fully under Russian control. However, military conflicts between colonial power and the colonized are rarely final. In 2010, the Moscow metro was bombed, and in 2011, the Moscow airport. These terrorist-style attacks have been linked to Chechen militants.
Since 1922, the region of the Caucasus known as Ossetia has been divided in half, yielding two political regions known as North and South Ossetia. The northern region has long been associated with Russian and is today formally a republic within the Russian Federation. The people in North Ossetia speak Russian, a Slavic language, and Ossetic, in the Eastern Iranian language of the Indo-European stock. The status of the southern region is contested but associated with Georgia by most of the West. The people in South Ossetia speak Russian, Georgian, and Ossetic. Georgian is a Caucasian language, and the Caucasus is considered the homeland of the Caucasian languages.
During the start of the Soviet era, South Ossetia was administered by the regional Georgian government based in the capital, Tbilisi. During this era, relations among Ossetians and Georgians were strong. The Ossetic language was permitted, widely spoken, and even used as the medium of instruction in Ossetian schools. By the late 1980s, Soviet politics under President Mikhail Gorbachev shifted toward an approach known as
glasnost
, or political transparency. As Communist Party censorship waned with glasnost policies, calls for independence movements increased, sweeping through the Soviet Union's republics.
Both Georgia and South Ossetia developed nationalistic ambitions during this period, and in the race for greater autonomy, tensions began to emerge between ethnic Georgians and ethnic Ossetians. In 1989, just as South Ossetia was seeking greater regional autonomy, the Georgians, in their own bold act of nationalism, established the Georgian language throughout Georgian territory, including in South Ossetia. The Ossetians responded by declaring independence. At the critical juncture of sociopolitical change in the Caucasus region, language was once again the lynchpin issue.
War erupted almost immediately. Georgians entered the Ossetian regional capital, known to Ossetians as Tskhinvali and to Georgians as Samachablo. On both sides,
schools were demolished, and homes were burned. By the end of 1992, when the war officially ended, more than 1000 people had been killed, many through forms of violence unsanctioned by international law. Roughly half of South Ossetia fell under control of a pro-Russian, Russian-backed government, which was set up after the war. Tens of thousands of Ossetians fled the region, some south into Georgia proper, some north into North Ossetia, and others elsewhere into the Caucasus region. These movements did nothing to settle the conflicts in the region.
In 1992, as one war ended in Georgia, another began. This time the conflict was in the breakaway province of Abkhazia, which found itself within Georgia's new borders after 1991. Abkhazians are an ethnogroup indigenous to the Caucasian Mountain region. Most people speak Abkhaz, a Caucasian language. A minority of Abkhazians speak a South Caucasian language known as Mingrelian. Multilingualism in the region is high, and most Abkhazians also speak Georgian.
Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia in 1992. This was seen as a threat to Georgia's own status as a tenuously independent nation. The Georgian military entered Abkhazia and easily pushed back the mostly unarmed Abkhaz nationalists, taking control of the Abkhaz capital, Sokhumi. The separatists connected with a broader network of ethnogroups in the Caucasus, who supported Abkhaz separatism. Among them were the Ossetians and Chechens. One year later, better trained and better armed, Abkhaz separatist groups returned to take their capital from the Georgians. With the help of militant sympathizers from Russia and the greater Caucasus, more than 200,000 ethnic Georgians were forcibly moved out of Abkhazia. Then came a brutal, two-week-long attack on Georgian civilians living in Sokhumi. Women were raped, whole families were murdered in broad daylight, and people were indiscriminately tortured. The Sokhumi Massacre, as it is now known, formed a part of a broader ethnic cleansing of Georgians from Abkhazia.
Meanwhile, in South Ossetia, fighting between ethnic Ossetians and Georgians occurred in fits and starts for about 15 years following the 1992â1993 war. As the specter of the Russian-backed government in South Ossetia became increasingly a thorn in the side to the Westward-looking Georgian government, the political stakes grew higher. In 2008, the long-simmering tensions reached a boil. Ethnic Georgians and Ossetians accused each other of shelling their villages. Georgia then launched a full strike in Ossetian Tskhinvali, sparking a war that was technically between Georgia and Russia, who had already stationed troops in the region. Fighting followed for five days. The Ossetians claim the attack was unprovoked. The Georgians claim they were provoked by the mounting presence of the Russian military.
In 2008, as Georgia was embroiled in war with Russia over South Ossetia, Abkhazia also entered the fray. Russian troops entered Abkhazia, helping push out the Georgian military presence that remained after the end of the 1993 Abkhaz War. When the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia ended, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia once again proclaimed their independence, which has only been recognized by Russia and a handful of its allies. Georgia considers Abkhazia and South Ossetia to fall within its borders. Because the majority of the world happens to agree with Georgia and does not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, since 2008, both regions have operated as quasi-states with a great deal of autonomy, but without international borders. The conflict thus remains unresolved.
The languages of the conflict were those of the quasi-states (Abkhaz, Chechen, Mingrelian, Ossetic), a post-Soviet independent nation (Georgian) and the preindependence imperial power (Russian). English has also played a role. During the 2008 war with Russia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the Georgian president was Mikheil Saakashvili. He spent formative years abroad, including in the United States, where he attended Columbia Law School in New York City and acquired a native-like command of English. During the 2008 war, Saakashvili conducted live television interviews with North American networks in English, which helped him frame the conflict as fundamentally about Russian aggression and to win support with international audiences. In postcolonial conflict, winning the support of your enemy's historical antagonists is an important symbolic move. The globalization and high value placed on speaking English â an issue we take up in Chapter 2 â helped make this possible for Georgia.