Linguistic Imperialism - Other Languages

Other Languages

In 1976 Black school children in Soweto protested at being taught in Afrikaans, which had been pushed by the Apartheid authorities concerned at the growing refusal of the Black population to speak it. They reasoned that by only having access to Afrikaner resources the South African government could control them more closely than having access to a global language i.e. English. 176 children died for the right to be taught in English and the Uprising became a turning point in the overthrow of Apartheid with many of the generation of school children becoming members of the post-Apartheid government.

At various times, especially in colonial settings or where a dominant culture has sought to unify a region under its control, a similar phenomenon has arisen. In the Roman Empire, Latin - originally the language of a limited region in central Italy - was imposed on large parts of Europe, largely displacing previous languages spoken there. In the Far East, Africa and South America, regional languages have been or are being coercively replaced or marginalized by the language of a dominant culture—Tibetan and minority Chinese dialects by Mandarin Chinese, Ainu and Ryukyuan by Japanese, Quechua by Spanish, and so on.

Despite the English language's reputation for linguistic imperialism, during the Middle Ages it too was an object of linguistic imperialism, by the French language, particularly following the Norman conquest. For hundreds of years, French or Anglo-Norman was the language of administration (See Law French) and therefore a language of superior status in England. Latin remained the language of the church and of learning. Although many words introduced by the Normans are today indistinguishable by most English-speakers from native Germanic words, later-learned loanwords derived from Latin or French often have a more cultured sound to a native English-speaker.

Following the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire over much of present-day Germany and Central Europe, the German language and its dialects became the preferred language of many Central-European nobility. With varying success, German spread across much of Central and Eastern Europe as a language of trade and status. This finally came to an end with World War II (See also Germanization.). French too is known as an expansionist language. Languages such as Occitan, Breton, Basque and Corsican were to a great extent margnialised in France. This process, known as Francization, often causes resistance amongst the subject peoples, leading to demands for independence. Examples of this can still be found in Brittany and Flanders (Belgium).

Another example of linguistic imperialism was seen in post-independence India. That country's authorities initially sought to make Hindi the sole "national language", but due to protests from southern states (where Dravidian languages such as Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Tulu are spoken) and West Bengal (where Bengali is spoken), the "national-language" policy did not succeed. Both Hindi and English were made the "Official Languages of the Indian Union Government." However, since the economic liberalization in 1991, English has become the lingua franca of business, higher education and research. In urban India, the medium of education even in primary schools is now mainly English.