national languages and language planning

7/25/2019 National Languages and Language Planning

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National languages

and language planningBy

David Cuellar Gonzales

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National and ofcial languagesIn sociolinguistics the distinction between a national language

and an official language is generally made along the affective-

referential dimension, or more precisely in this context, the

ideological-instrumental dimension.

O A national language is the language of a political, cultural

and social unit. It is generally developed and used as a symbolof national unity. Its functions are to identify the nation and

unite its people.

O An official language is simply a language which may be used

for government business. Its function is primarily utilitarian

rather than symbolic.

It is possible, of course, for one language to serve both functions. Not surprisingly, governments do not always recognize the

distinctions made by sociolinguists. They use the terms official!

and national! to suit their political ends.



"or instance, in #olivia the government declared $%languages &'panish, (uechua, Aimara, )uarani and $$

others* as official and there is no mention of a national

language. +hile in other countries such as araguay there

is ust one official language, 'panish, and two national

languages, 'panish and )uarani.

any countries ma/e no distinction between a national

language and an official language. In countries which

regard themselves as monolingual nations, the same

language serves both purposes. In multilingual

communities, however, all /inds of permutations have

been used in order to satisfy both political and social goalson the one hand, and more practical and utilitarian needs

on the other.



In multilingual countries, the government often

declares a particular language to be the national

language for political reasons, the declaration may be

a step in the process of asserting the nationhood of a

newly independent or established nation. +hen this

national language cannot serve all the internal and

external functions of government business, it is

necessary to identify one or more official languages

as well.



The identification of official languages may also

be necessary when the choice of national

language is problematic. In multilingual India,

for example, attempts to give 0indi sole status as

the national language have not succeeded.

"ourteen regional Indian languages arerecognized as official languages alongside

1nglish and 0indi for the country as a whole.

2ther countries have nominated more than one

national language. 3aire, for instance has fourAfrican languages as national languages, but

only one official language, "rench.



Ofcial status and minority languages

#ecause of its colonial history, as well as its value as a world

language and international lingua franca, 1nglish is an official

language in many countries throughout the world, such as

a/istan, "ii, 4anuatu, 5amaica and the #ahamas. 2ften it

shares this official status with an indigenous language such as

alay in alaysia, 'wahili in Tanzania, and )ilbertese in6iribati. #ut, interestingly, 1nglish is not legally an official

language of 1ngland, the 7nited 'tates of America, or New

3ealand. In these countries it has not been considered

necessary to legislate that the language of the maority is an

official language. In new 3ealand, ironically, although 1nglish

is in fact the official language of government and education,

Maori is the only language which has been legally declared an

official language.



aori activists campaigned for many years for the right to use aori in official

and administrative contexts, and finally, in 89:%, aori was declared an official

language of New 3ealand. This declaration gave the language a status it did not

have previously, and ac/nowledged its symbolic importance to the country as a

whole, as well as to the indigenous aori people in particular. It can also be

regarded as a positive statement of intent ; a first step in a process which may

encourage the use of aori in an increasing number of official institutional

domains such as the law courts, official government ceremonies and

transactions, and in education.

any minorities would li/e to gain official status for their languages, ust as

aori people did, but the costs in terms of providing services and information in

all official languages are considerable, and most governments count them

carefully. In <anada, for instance, as well as "rench spea/ers and the indigenous

<anadian peoples, such as the <ree and ohaw/, there are many other <anadian

minorities ; Italians, ortuguese, <hinese and 7/rainians. Together they ma/e

up about =% per cent of the total <anadian population. any resent the specialstatus of the "rench, who ma/e up only =: per cent of the population. roviding

services, information, legal representation and, in some places, education in ust

two official languages is an expensive business. It seems unli/ely other

minorities will earn such rights easily.



What price a national

language?any countries have regarded the development of a single

national language as a way of symbolizing the unity of a nation.

2ne nation, one language! has been a popular and effective

slogan. In earlier centuries the national language of a politicalentity often emerged naturally and relatively unselfconsciously

over a period of time. 1nglish in 1ngland, "rench in "rance,

5apanese in 5apan, 'panish in 'pain seem obvious examples.

There were very few languages with this /ind of status before

about8>??. Then the number increased dramatically, especially in

the nineteenth century as linguistic nationalism in 1urope grew. Ithas almost doubled again in the twentieth century with the

emergence of colonized countries from colonial rule into

independent nation-states.



2ver the last hundred years nationhood and independence

have been very important political issues throughout the

world. In the struggle to establish a distinct national

identity, and to secure independence from colonial rule,

the development of a national language has often played

an important part. The symbolic value of a national

language as a unifying rallying point in the fight forindependence was @uic/ly appreciated in countries such

as Tanzania. In other multilingual countries, such as

<hina, the hilippines and Indonesia, where there are

large population spea/ing hundreds of different

vernaculars, a national language is not only a usefullingua franca and official language, it also serves a

symbolic unifying function for these nations.



+here there is a single dominant group, the issue of

which language to choose as the official language

to represent the nation generally does not arise.



0owever, when the county is multilingual, the

government has to face the tas/ of selecting a

national or official language.



i/e India, some African countries have avoided

selecting ust one language as the nationallanguage, since the wrong choice could easily

lead to riots and even war. Tanzania, however,

successfully adopted 'wahili as its national

language, and the story of how this was achieved

illustrates nicely what is involved when a

country decides to develop an indigenous

language for use as a national language.

inguists are often involved in this process of

language planning.



Planning or a national ofcial language

O orm! unctions and attitudes

+hat is involved in developing a code or variety so that is suitable for

official useB Addressing this challenge involves issues relating to the form of

the variety, the functions it serves, and the attitudes people hold towards it.

There are generally four interrelated stepsC

8. 'electionC choosing the variety or code to be developed.

=. <odificationC standardizing its structural or linguistic features. This /indof linguistic processing! is sometimes called corpus planning.

$. 1laborationC extending its functions for use in new domains. This

involves developing the necessary linguistic resources for handling new

concepts and contexts.

D. 'ecuring its acceptanceC the status of the new variety is important, and so

peopleEs attitudes to the variety being developed must be considered.'teps may be needed to enhance its prestige, for instance, and to

encourage people to develop pride in the language or loyalty towards it.



'electing the code to be developed is often an

entirely political decision and acceptance by the people will generally re@uire endorsement by

politicians and socially prestigious groups.

'o selection and acceptance are steps which involve

social and political factors. <odification andelaborating the code to handle a wider range of

functions are, by contrast, essentially linguistic

processes. roducing a dictionary and ensuring

there are words available for teaching maths in the

variety, for instance, are problems for linguists. In practice, however, all these steps are closely

interrelated, as the next examples will demonstrate.



"anzania Selecting a code

Tanzania faced the dilemma of which language to choose as its

official national language. <hoosing one language from over a

hundred indigenous languages would have simply provo/ed

discontent, if not inter-trival warfare, and choosing 1nglish for a

newly independent nation seemed inappropriate. The first president

of Tanzania, 5ulius Nyerere, <hose 'wahili, a language of the #antu

language family, which was widely used throughout the country as a

lingua franca in many contexts. There were some obvious reasons

for his choice. 'wahili was already the medium of primary education,

and so all Tanzanians learned the language at school. Also Ninety-six

per cent of TanzanianEs languages are #antu languages, li/e 'wahili,

so it could be clearly identified as an African language. oreover'wahili had served as the lingua franca of the anti-colonial political

movement for independence, acting as a lin/ between very disparate

groups. All those reasons made of 'wahili the best option.



Codifying and elaborating Swahili

The fact that 'wahili was being used in primary

education and for administration meant

standardization was essential. Its codification

involved developing a standard spelling system,

describing the grammar of the variety selected as thenew standard, and writing a dictionary to record its

vocabulary.

As 'wahili was used in more and more contexts for

education, administration, politics and law. Its

vocabulary was expanded to meet the demands ofnew contexts by borrowing freely from Arabic and

1nglish.



Attitudes to Swahili

The role of 'wahili in unifying the people of Tanzania towor/ for independence guaranteed it prestige and

positive attitudes. The charisma of Nyerere himself

carried over to the language he used extensively in his

speeches and his political writings. 0e used it in

domains where formerly 1nglish had been usedexclusively, and this too increased its status. eople have

often seen the success of 'wahili as the national

language in Tanzania as due to its neutral! status ; it is

not identified with a particular tribe. #ut its widespread

acceptance was also due to the fact that Tanzaniansdeveloped a strong loyalty towards the language which

united them in wor/ing towards freedom.



The steps involved in developing a particular

code or variety for use as a national language in

a large multilingual country are e@ually relevant

in the deliberate development of a particular

dialect for use as national language in a

monolingual country.

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