Language and national policy

What, however, of the problems of multilingualism for national governments? Many governments regard as a problem the fact that language can act as a focus of discontent for minorities wanting more power, independence, or annexation by a neighbouring state. Where governments do not regard this as threatening or undesirable, they may well regard linguistic minorities benevolently (or simply ignore them). It does not appear, for example, that the British government is seriously concerned about Gaelic speakers. The government of the Republic of Ireland, too, gives active support to the minority language (something between I and 3 per cent of the population speak Irish natively), and have made it a compulsory subject in schools. This, of course, is because Irish was formerly the language of all the Irish and as such symbolises national culture and identity rather than dissidence of any kind.

On the other hand, in cases where governments regard linguistic minorities as potentially 'subversive', they may react very differently. Their fears, from their own point of view, may often be justified: language loyalty can be a powerful weapon, and has often been manipulated to political advantage. In many cases a repressed or discouraged minority language is also the language of a possibly antagonistic neighbouring state - this has been true of Macedonian in Greece, Slovenian in Italy, and German in France and Italy - and the fear is that language loyalty may prove to be stronger than national loyalty. In other cases disfavoured minority languages may simply have acted as catalysts of discontent, because minority groups have had one additional reason to be dissatisfied with their lot. The same motives were also present in the case of the British government which prohibited Scots Gaelic in the aftermath of the 1745 rebellion. Similar factors influenced the actions of those Greek governments, which carried out a policy of hellenization in northern Greece by proscribing the usage of Macedonian in that area.

The activities of governments, having to do with language, can be described as instances of language planning. In very many cases activities of this kind can be regarded as necessary - for example in the countries which are faced with the problem of having to select a national language or languages and, subsequently, of developing and standardising it. We have already noted some of the problems resulting from multilingualism in Europe. In many areas of the world the problems are considerably more complex. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is a very multilingual area where language problems have been exacerbated because colonial powers drew national frontiers without regard for the geographical distribution of ethnic or linguistic groups. Many languages have spread as lingua franca in the same kind of way, only to contract again later for reasons of economics or politics. Greek, for example, became a lingua franca in the ancient world as a result, initially, of Alexander's military conquests, and was at one time used widely from Turkey to Portugal. Latin was later used as a lingua franca in the western world, mainly as a result of the expansion of the Roman Empire, and later survived as such, in spite of the fact that it had no native speakers for many centuries. The original lingua franca which actually means 'French language' derived a form of Provencal that was used as a lingua franca by the multilingual crusaders.

When the governments are presented with the problem of selecting a national language lingua franca is obviously very useful. There are clear advantages to be gained from the selection of a language, which many people already understand. In some cases, though, complications may arise because competing or alternative lingua franca is available. In India, Hindi is used as a lingua franca in much of the northern part of the country. It has the advantage of being an indigenous rather than a colonial language, like English, but it also has the disadvantage of benefiting native speakers to the detriment of others who have to learn it as a second language. English, on the other hand, operates as a lingua franca throughout the country, but tends to be used only by relatively educated speakers; an educated Bengali speaker would probably communicate in English with an educated Tamil speaker if, as is likely, neither knew the other's first language.

A further solution has sometimes been advocated for problems of multilingualism - that an artificial language such as Esperanto should be adopted as a lingua franca. At present it seems unlikely that any nation-state will adopt Esperanto as its official language because of the practical problems involved, and also because, being a neutral language, it is not national in any way. However, supporters of Esperanto are much more concerned to see it used as a world-wide lingua franca in order to solve problems of international multilingualism. In multilingual, multi-national communities, like the European Union, disputes often arise as to which language or languages are to be used officially. Advocates of Esperanto would suggest that, if it were made the official language of the EU, disputes of this kind would not arise. Unlike English or French, Esperanto is the native language of no one, and therefore gives nobody an unfair advantage, just as English in India is in many ways a fairer choice as a lingua franca than Hindi. This argument would probably not hold, however, for larger international organisations like the United Nations. This is because Esperanto, although it is easier to learn than natural languages, is quite clearly a European-type language, and would therefore benefit native speakers of languages originally from this area. In any case, there are as yet no real signs of Esperanto, or any other similar language, making very great headway on the international scene.

Often the role of a national government does not stop at selecting a national language. Once selected, the language may have to be established, developed and standardised. The government, for example, may play a part in developing a suitable orthography, or in deciding whether a particular dialect of the language or some set of compromise forms should be selected. English, of course, developed a standard variety by relatively 'natural' means, over the centuries, out of a kind of consensus, due to various social factors. For many 'newer' countries, though, the development of a standard language has had to take place fairly rapidly, and government intervention has therefore been necessary.

Standardisation, it is argued, is necessary in order to facilitate communications, to make possible the establishment of an agreed orthography, and to provide a form for school books. It is, of course, an open question as to how much, if any, standardisation is really required. It can be argued quite reasonably that there is no real point in standardising to the extent where, as is often the case in English-speaking communities, children spend many hours learning to spell in an exactly uniform manner, where any spelling mistake is a subject of opprobrium (позор, посрамление) or ridicule, and where deviations from the standard are interpreted as evidence of ignorance.

Scotish was formerly a language in its own right, but now it is widely regarded as hete'ronymous to English. Similarly, Provencal and Low German, formerly autonomous, are now generally regarded as dialects of French and German, respectively. Autonomy can also be disputed. Because Catalan was part of the same dialect continuum as Spanish, it was possible for the Franco regime to suggest that it was 'really' a dialect of Spanish. Similarly, in former Yugoslavia, given the desire of the government to stress national unity, it was usual to regard Serbo-Croat as a single language with two somewhat different norms, not unlike British and American English. Since the early 1990s, now that Croatia has become a separate nation, it has become an official policy to regard Serbian and Croatian as separate - although mutually intelligible - languages, like Norwegian and Danish. Notice that there can be no linguistic answer to whether Serbian and Croatian are one language or two. The answer is a political rather than cultural one.

There are many other such political, sociolinguistic questions in modern Europe. Is Macedonian really a language? Is there a Bosnian language, which is distinct from Croatian and Serbian? Are Moldovan and Rumanian the same language or not? Are Flemish and Dutch one language or two? Is Corsican a dialect of Italian or not? Is Swiss German actually a separate language? Because of the discreteness and continuity problem, there is no way we can answer these questions on purely linguistic grounds. Ironically, it seems that it is only linguists who fully understand the extent to which these questions are not linguistic questions. The fact is that most European languages are languages by extension' (in German, Ausbau languages). They consist of standard varieties, which have been superposed over continua of dialects, which, for social and historical reasons, have become heteronymous to them. There are also, however, languages of which this is not true. We can call Basque a language by distance' (in German, Abstand language) because it is linguistically so different from all other languages that its status as an independent language cannot be disputed.

So, the national language and the official language are best understood as two concepts or legal categories with ranges of meaning that may coincide, or may be intentionally separate. Obviously a stateless nation is not in the position to legislate an official language, but their language may be considered a national language.

Certain languages may enjoy government recognition or even status as official languages in some countries while not in others. A national language is a language (or language variant, i.e. dialect) which has some connection - de facto or de jure - with the people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country. National language may alternatively be a designation given to one or more languages spoken as first languages in the territory of a country.

Some languages may be recognized popularly as "national languages," while others may enjoy a high degree of official recognition. Some examples of national languages that are not official languages include Aromanian, Cherokee, and Navajo (and other living Native American languages

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