Politics
Official language status is often connected with wider political issues of sovereignty, cultural nationalism, and the rights of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, including immigrant communities.
For example, the campaign to make English the de jure official language of various states in the United States of America is often seen as a way of marginalizing non English-speaking minorities, particularly Hispanic and Latino Americans, while others see it as a unifying force among numerous immigrant groups. In the Republic of Ireland the decision to make the Irish language an official language was part of a wider program of cultural revitalization, de-anglicisation and Gaelic nationalism following centuries of English rule in Ireland. Despite its status as an official language, Irish has been reduced to a minority language in Ireland as a result of English rule, as is the case in North and South America where various indigenous languages have been replaced by that of the colonists. Various indigenous rights movements have sought greater recognition of their languages, often through official language status.
Read more about this topic: Official Language
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The [nineteenth-century] young men who were Puritans in politics were anti-Puritans in literature. They were willing to die for the independence of Poland or the Manchester Fenians; and they relaxed their tension by voluptuous reading in Swinburne.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“The real grounds of difference upon important political questions no longer correspond with party lines.... Politics is no longer the topic of this country. Its important questions are settled... Great minds hereafter are to be employed on other matters.... Government no longer has its ancient importance.... The people’s progress, progress of every sort, no longer depends on government. But enough of politics. Henceforth I am out more than ever.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.”
—J.B.S. (John Burdon Sanderson)