Minority Languages, National Languages, and Official Language Policies 9780773555877

Citation preview

Mi n o r it y L a n g uag e s , N ati onal Languages , a n d   O f f ic ia l L a n guage Poli ci es

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Minority Languages, National Languages, and Official Language Policies

Edited by

Gi l l i a n L a n e - M e rc i e r, Den ise Mer k le, a n d J a n e Kou stas

McGill-­Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

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©  McGill-Queen’s University Press 2018 ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

978-0-7735-5493-1 (cloth) 978-0-7735-5494-8 (paper) 978-0-7735-5587-7 (eP DF ) 978-0-7735-5588-4 (eP UB)

Legal deposit fourth quarter 2018 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Minority languages, national languages, and official language policies / edited by Gillian Lane-Mercier, Denise Merkle, and Jane Koustas. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISB N 978-0-7735-5493-1 (cloth). – IS BN 978-0-7735-5494-8 (paper). – ISB N 978-0-7735-5587-7 (eP DF ). – IS BN 978-0-7735-5588-4 (eP U B ) 1. Language policy – Case studies.  2. Linguistic minorities – Case studies.  3. Multilingualism – Case studies.  I. Lane-Mercier, Gillian, 1956–, editor  II. Merkle, Denise, 1954–, editor  III. Koustas, Jane, 1954–, editor P119.3.M56 2018      306.44'9      C2018-904216-8  C 2018-904217-6

This book was typeset by Marquis Interscript in 10.5 / 13 Sabon.

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Contents

Tables and Figures  vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Toward an Ethos of Diversity  3 Denise Merkle and Gillian Lane-Mercier “ Div ersi t y I s Diverse ” : C omp l e x D i ve rs i t y a n d De e p Di v e rsi t y   1 Choosing Concepts for Sustainable Diversity Management Policies 35 François Grin Prob lemat i z i ng t h e E t hos o f D i ve rs i t y: M ajo ri t y N ationa l L a nguage s a nd Of f i ci al L an g uag e P o l i cy   2 Multilingualism without Multiculturalism? The Case of Luxembourg 63 Núria Garcia   3 The Future of Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Central Asia: The Case of Kazakhstan  83 Brian James Baer and Zhailagul Sagyndykova Protec t i ng a nd R e v i ta l i z i ng E n dan g e re d Tr a diti o na l Mi no r i t y L a nguag e s   4 Minority Language Protection in Italy and Local Initiatives to Protect Francoprovençal in Apulia  105 Adriana Di Biase

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vi Contents

  5 Dyw un iaith byth yn ddigon – One Language Is Never Enough: Language Policy and Translation in Modern Wales  126 Anastasia Llewellyn   6 International Models of Language Policy and Language Planning: Official Bilingualism in Ireland and Sociolinguistic Reality  153 Maeve Conrick In dig eno us L a nguage s a nd Of f i ci al L an g uag e Policy: T h e C a na di a n E x a mp l e   7 Language, Education, and the Structuring of Canada’s Social Sphere 187 Deborah Shadd   8 Indigenizing Language Policy in Canada: Redressing Racial Hierarchies in Language and Education  210 Donna Patrick Dec oloni z at i on a nd Of f i c i a l L an g uag e P o l i cy: The A fr i c a n E x a mp l e   9 The Promotion of Languages in Nigeria: An Example of Problematic Official Multilingualism in Africa  231 Michael Akinpelu 10 Denying Linguistic and Cultural Pluralism in Algeria: An Official Model of Diversity Management  251 Wajih Guehria C ha llengi ng t h e L i mi t s of Of f i ci al La n g uage  P ol i cy 11 Challenging the Borders of Nation: Language and Translational Language Policy in the Plurilingual Romani Context  279 Debbie Folaron Afterword: Diversity Must Remain Diverse  315 Gillian Lane-Mercier Contributors 325 Index 333

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Tables and Figures

Tables 2.1

Language repertoires of the Luxembourgish population – ­multiple responses possible  70

2.2

Language spoken best by the Luxembourgish population – one response possible  71

6.1

Irish speakers and non–Irish speakers (number) 1996–2016 168

9.1

States and languages in Nigeria  237

F ig u r es

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2.1

Key moments in Luxembourg’s linguistic diversity and ­language policies  64

3.1

Key moments in the language policies of post-Soviet Kazakhstan 84

4.1

Key moments in the history of Francoprovençal  106

5.1

Key moments in the status and promotion of Welsh  127

5.2

Map of concentration of Welsh speakers in 2011  128

6.1

Key moments in the status and promotion of Irish  154

6.2

Map of concentration of Irish speakers in 2011  155

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Tables and Figures

7.1

Key moments in Canada’s official language policies  188

8.1

Key moments in the Indigenization of Canada’s Official Languages Act  211

8.2

Nunavut  212

9.1

Key moments in Nigeria’s official language policies  232

9.2

Major Nigerian languages  233

9.3

Typology of language policies in sub-Saharan Africa  236

10.1 Key moments in the management of Algeria’s linguistic diversity 252 11.1 Key moments in Roma migrations  280 11.2 Roma migration routes out of India  281 11.3 Composition of the Romani language  291

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Acknowledgments

The editors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the conference entitled, “For and Against Models of Official Multiculturalism and Multilingualism / Pour et contre des modèles de pluri­ culturalisme et plurilinguisme,” which was held at McGill University, 5–7 May 2016. The chapters in this volume are revised and augmented versions of papers presented at this conference. The editors are also most grateful for the financial support of the Maxwell Cummings Distinguished Lecture Series of the Faculty of Arts, McGill University. The first chapter of this volume is a revised version of the Maxwell Cummings keynote lecture delivered by François Grin at the conference. Finally, the editors would like to thank Brock University for its financial contribution to the publication of this volume through the Brock University Advancement Fund.

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Mi n o r it y L a n g uag e s , N ati onal Languages , a n d   O f f ic ia l L a n guage Poli ci es

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In t ro du cti on

Toward an Ethos of Diversity Denise Merkle and Gillian Lane-Mercier

Our small planet is being subjected to a number of dramatic stresses that are affecting not only its biodiversity but also its cultural and linguistic diversity (Calvet 1999, 2011; Cronin 2017). To ensure biodiversity, habitat must be preserved. Yet, we know all too well the havoc that human activity is wreaking on the planet’s various ecosystems. In a like manner, human activity is dramatically reducing the variety of the planet’s “ecolinguistic systems,” to use Louis-Jean Calvet’s term coined in his 1999 book, Pour une écologie des langues du monde. Subjected to the forces of evolution, ecolinguistic systems undergo constant change. While evolution impacts both the form and function of languages (Calvet 1999, 228), revolutionary evolution can accelerate change, as we see in the world’s ecosystems where biodiversity is being drastically reduced.1 The habitat of cultures and languages, like that of flora and fauna, must be preserved to ensure the survival of their specificity. Cultures and languages have adapted, in some instances over millennia, to their environment and are the essence of the richness of humankind, according to the U N E S C O Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2002) that sees in “Cultural Diversity: the common heritage of humanity.” The Declaration explains that “[c]ulture takes diverse forms across time and space. This diversity is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up humankind. As a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature. In this sense, it is the common heritage of humanity and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations” (UNE S CO 2002, Art. 1, 4).

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Yet, largely a result of global warming and conflict that is often a corollary of overpopulation, migration flows are on the increase. When an animal is put in an environmentally ethical zoo, its natural habitat will be reproduced as closely as possible to ensure, at times, the very survival of the species. While we do not seek to compare human migration with animals moved from their natural habitat to a zoo or other created habitats, we do believe that the following question must be asked, especially in light of the Declaration: When sociolinguistic groups migrate to a new territory that does not reproduce the history and environment of their native land, how can authentic cultural difference be preserved, while also preserving the cultural and linguistic difference of the host country? This question is fundamental in light of the second stated goal of UNESCO member states in the “Main lines of an action plan for the implementation of the U N ESC O Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity,” which is “[a]dvancing in the definition of principles, standards and practices, on both the national and the international levels, as well as of awareness-raising modalities and patterns of cooperation, that are most conducive to the safeguarding and promotion of cultural diversity” (ibid., point 2, 6). In light of the above, is it reasonable to expect that a host culture will attempt to re-create the source environment to enable a migrant group to prosper unchanged – for example, to continue using its mother tongue in the public arena when it is not one of the host country’s national or official languages (Gambier 2014)? Should the host culture be willing to accept a certain degree of linguistic and cultural hybridization to minimize potentially tension-ridden difference? Should the migrant group be expected to integrate into the cultural and linguistic distinctiveness of the new homeland they wish to adopt (Dib 2015)? It is indeed paradoxical to note that if cultures opt for increased hybridity in an effort to minimize the tensions caused by marked cultural and linguistic difference, they will be contributing inadvertently to reducing diversity. What language policies, or “legal rules” (Meylaerts 2011, 744),2 can be developed or, if they already exist, chosen to maximize linguistic and, by extension, cultural diversity on the national and international levels? The collected volume Minority Languages, National Languages, and Official Language Policies reflects on these questions, among many others, in an attempt to come to terms with how modern nations juggle these objectives that are at times well intentioned, at others

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Toward an Ethos of Diversity 5

self-serving, yet often unintentionally paradoxical, even contradictory. The emergence of the first nation-states in the late eighteenth century stemmed from a set of historical, political, socio-economic, institutional, and legal factors aimed at forging a homogeneous national identity by implementing, in the public interest, official and non-official language policies. These aimed, in theory at least, at safeguarding civil liberties and the equality of all citizens before the law. The ideal of one nation, one people, and one language that underpins the concept of citizenship in modern European nation-states may no longer be relevant – if, indeed, it was ever more than imagined (Anderson 1991) – in a global context of unprecedented demographic, social, economic, and technological change. Yet, it is nevertheless pertinent to ask to what extent certain values and mechanisms linked to the ideal continue to inform our so-called post-colonial and post-national societies (Heller 2011). Whereas the latter societies have become increasingly multicultural and multilingual as a result of significant migration flows over the past decades, multilingualism and migration are in fact nothing new (Malena 2003; Merkle 2011; Mus et al. 2011; Benert 2015). Moreover, according to Ulrike Jessner (2013, n.p.), “[a]lthough multilingualism is not a new phenomenon in human society, it seems that in the age of globalization there is a growing interest in research into the phenomenon of multilingualism. Research curiosity in multilingualism both as an individual (in the European academic discourse often referred to as ‘plurilingualism’) and as a social phenomenon has grown immensely over the last decades.” Despite the prevalence of multilingualism, democracies founded on the institutionalized refusal to acknowledge difference – whether cultural, linguistic, ethnic, religious or other – have survived and even thrived thanks to well-documented, (more or less) coercive implicit and explicit hierarchies that enforce assimilation, marginalization, and exclusion, depending on the context (e.g. Haque and Patrick 2015; Merkle 2012; Haddadou 2003). One consequence of hegemony has been the reduction in global cultural and linguistic diversity over the past two centuries through the devaluing and eradication of countless languages. This has resulted from the implementation of legal, educational, and cultural policies that have required the use of a single, national-cum-official language in the public domain, a process that globalization has accelerated (Lane-Mercier 2014). Often invoked in the name of the same democratic principles of equality, freedom, and citizens’ rights, resistance to the idea of one nation, one people, and

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one language to fight homogenizing and regulating policies has been a counterbalancing reaction since the beginning of the nineteenth century (Lane-Mercier 2016). Associated at times with decolonization processes; at others with demands for recognition, self-determination, even reparation (Bandia 2008); or with the liberal ideal of parity and tolerance, these resistance movements reached their climax in the form of wars of independence (on Algeria, for example, see Dourari 2003; Sebaa 1998–99), on the one hand, and numerous nationalist, regional, and identitary demands (for the Acadian example, see Landry et al. 2006), on the other, that have marked the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. It is thus timely to consider the role of contemporary ideologies that are prefixed with “post” (post-modernism, post-colonialism, post-cosmopolitanism, post-ethnicity, post-nationalism) not only in breaking down, opening up, and diversifying our societies but also in recognizing and creating new and heretofore unforeseen multiple identities and allegiances at both the global and local levels. By reconceptualizing borders, these ideologies have set out to create a new, global multilingual and multicultural sensibility, enshrined in the U N ESC O Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and promulgated in the aim of countering what is arguably the most violent binary relationship of the modern paradigm: us versus them (LaneMercier 2016, 8). This has been done by moving from cultural diversity to cultural pluralism, as stated in Article 2 of the Declaration: “In our increasingly diverse societies, it is essential to ensure harmonious interaction among people and groups with plural, varied and dynamic cultural identities as well as their willingness to live together. Policies for the inclusion and participation of all citizens are guarantees of social cohesion, the vitality of civil society and peace. Thus defined, cultural pluralism gives policy expression to the reality of cultural diversity. Indissociable from a democratic framework, cultural pluralism is conducive to cultural exchange and to the flourishing of creative capacities that sustain public life” (UN E S CO 2002, Art. 2, 4).

Mo d e l s o f O f f ic ia l M ulti culturali s m The Declaration assigns a primordial role to public policy – bolstered by the active support of the private sector and civil society – for safeguarding cultural diversity against the pressures of globalization. Given this, it is reasonable to assume that, when a country legislates

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Toward an Ethos of Diversity 7

official multilingualism, it is enshrining the democratic principles of equality, parity, respect, liberty, and cultural pluralism in its founding texts, for it understands that “[m]arket forces alone cannot guarantee the preservation and promotion of cultural diversity, which is the key to sustainable human development” (Art. 11, 5). Many countries have legislated bilingualism or multilingualism to give the same legal, judicial, and administrative status to more than one language, whether the countries are federated states, where several linguistic communities have historically coexisted (e.g. Canada, Russia, Switzerland) or were created in the aftermath of wars of independence (e.g. Cameroon, Haiti, Nigeria). Other countries or states have legislated bilingualism or multilingualism to meet the demands of minority-language groups (e.g. the Welsh in the United Kingdom, the Inuit in Canada, Francoprovençal speakers in Italy and Switzerland) or majority-­ language groups (e.g. the Kazakh in Kazakhastan, the Luxembourgish in Luxembourg). More recently, countries have legislated unique sociolinguistic contexts, such as transnational Romani. Even though a city, region, or country designated officially multilingual will undoubtedly have an official language policy (see for example Bastarache and Doucet 2014 on Canada), the latter may not, however, outline how to achieve the objective of equality and may not have garnered the unconditional support of the private sector and civil society that UNE SC O (2002, Art. 11, 5) recognizes as being essential for success. A founding text of an officially multilingual country, region, or city will require the production of official documents in more than one language; yet, it may very well provide no policy guidelines on how to achieve this. Consequently, politicians and the political party in power will have to ask themselves the following questions, among others: Are the texts to be written in all of the official languages or translated from one official language to another? Who is authorized to produce documents written in official languages (i.e. do the writers or translators have to be accredited by their respective professions)? And what of Indigenous languages that predate colonial languages – what is their status? Have they been protected to respect the ideal of linguistic and, by extension, cultural diversity? And, in the absence of private sector and civil society support for official multilingualism, what measures can the government implement to correct the problem? Official multilingualism – at the national (e.g. Belgium, India, South Africa), regional (e.g. New Brunswick, Nunavut), and municipal (e.g.

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Brussels, Moncton) levels – is thus chosen as a concrete political and legal solution to problems of assimilation, hierarchization, discrimination, and exclusion resulting from de facto or de jure monolingualism, as well as a language and cultural diversity management tool. However, while official languages may enjoy equal legal status under the law, linguistic and cultural safeguards designed to protect and nurture the linguistic vitality and cultural dignity of the co-habitating sociolinguistic groups are not always put in place. As a result, the equal and active participation of their speakers in political life, and their right to cultural, economic, and identitary (self-)affirmation as well as access to knowledge and technologies, are often compromised. While conceiving and adopting official multilingual policies and models to correct demographic, ethnic, socioeconomic, and symbolic imbalances stemming from historical asymmetrical linguistic and cultural power relations often present political challenges to countries with a history of more than one linguistic and cultural group sharing the territory, the greatest challenge remains implementing policy. Clearly, equal status before the law in no way guarantees true social equality of official languages, as the Canadian example unfortunately shows. Despite legislation that specifically protects official French-speaking minorities, the latter populations are being assimilated at an alarming rate because of a lack of private sector support and political will (Nardi 2017), all of which points to the unadulterated failure of official language policy to protect diversity in Canada. Particularly palpable within minority groups in the wake of colonization, decolonization, or post-colonialism, entrenched inequities are often roadblocks to the equality of citizens and the recognition of cultural diversity; a law, without policies conceived specifically to target and correct inequities bolstered by the unequivocal political will to implement them without hesitation, can prove of little recourse to minority groups. Immigrant groups can add to the complexity of the situation. Increasingly, countries adopt legislation to enshrine pluralism so that the rights of immigrants to various services, including translation and interpretation services, are protected (Brachandall 2011; Haque 2012; Gagnon and St Louis 2016). Paradoxically, while allowing immigrant groups to continue speaking their mother tongues, providing such services can also lead to their ghettoization. We shall now present an overview of four generic, contemporary official language models. They have been designed to promote and protect linguistic and cultural diversity and developed in line with

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language policy, defined by Reine Meylaerts as a “linguistic territoriality regime” (Meylaerts 2011, 744), without, however, always linking language policy to translation policy, as Meylaerts (ibid.) does. The first model is official bilingualism or multilingualism at the federal level and monolingualism at the state or provincial level; the second, comprehensive institutional official multilingualism that legally requires production of official texts in all languages; the third model requires partial production or non-production of texts in all of the nation’s official languages; and the fourth model is one of official multilingualism with unidirectional translation into minority languages. These models are intended to offer a basis for comparison with the case studies that the book’s chapters will examine. The first model, found frequently in federations such as Belgium, Canada, and Switzerland, is official bilingualism or multilingualism at the federal level and monolingualism at the state or provincial level (Meylaerts 2011, 752). Historical territorial minorities often manage to have their languages recognized as official languages on their territory (e.g. French in Québec in 1974) to the exclusion of other languages, whereas the federal level is officially bilingual or multilingual. The local level, where the “linguistic territorial principle” (de Schutter 2011) is applied, is generally characterized by monolingualism; however, minority language groups within the historical territorial minority group, especially when they represent one of the official language groups, may be accommodated. The example of India presents a complex version of the model, which acknowledges the diversity of languages and cultures that compose this linguistically and culturally diverse country. The official languages of India are Hindi and English, but the country’s states can choose one or more other languages as their official languages. The state of Gujarat, for example, has chosen Gujarati as its official language, and Mahārāshtra, Marathi. In Punjab, the official language is Punjabi, but Hindi is the second official language used to communicate at the federal level. In Jammu and Kashmir, the official language is Urdu and the second official language, English. The constitution, the Official Languages Act (1963), and the Official Languages Rules (1976) together regulate interstate communication as well as communication between the federal level and individual states and individuals. When the official language of a state is Hindi, communication with the state or its citizens must be in that language; however, communications between a Hindi state and a non-Hindi state or individual

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are in English, or in Hindi accompanied by an English translation (Lane-Mercier et al. 2014, 472–3). A second model for official multilingualism legally requires that all official documents be produced in any (or all) of the official languages, depending on the document’s target readers. To ensure this, multidirectional translation and interpretation between official languages is usually offered at all levels of government when texts are not written in all of the official languages. The result is comprehensive, institutional multilingualism. Thanks to the possibility of producing official texts in all languages, citizens can be unilingual speakers of their mother tongue if they so choose (Meylaerts 2011, 746). South Africa, with its eleven official languages, is an example that comes close to the theoretical ideal. Chapter 1, section 6 of the constitution stipulates that the official languages of the Republic are Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. All of these languages enjoy the same prestige and are treated equally. The national and provincial governments may use any of the official languages, depending on regional circumstances, the needs of the population, and so on. In all cases, they must use at least two official languages (Lane-Mercier et al. 2014, 473–4).3 Equitable in theory, this system is difficult to achieve in practice because of its high cost, and it can also lead to undesirable inequity for the minority groups that the model is designed to sustain by ghettoizing them, thereby compromising their ability to participate in mainstream civic life. A third model involves the partial production or non-production of texts and speeches in all official languages. A government can, for example, assign different purposes to its official languages in light of social and historical factors. The language of parliamentary debates in Luxembourg, whose official languages are German, French, and Luxembourgish, is Luxembourgish – the country’s national language spoken on a daily basis. The language of government meetings is also Luxembourgish. French is the only language used to write laws and, generally, road signs. By contrast, German and French are used in jurisprudence and administration, whereas German is the language of fiscal administration for historical reasons. Certain official communications (e.g. European constitution documents) are published in English, French, German, and Portuguese (15 per cent of the population speaks Portuguese; see Garcia’s chapter in this volume). Because official language use varies depending on the sphere of activity, citizens

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Toward an Ethos of Diversity 11

who wish to participate fully in all aspects of the country’s political, economic, and social life must master the three official languages. In non-European countries, a European language (most often English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish) may be an official language in the aftermath of colonization and wars of independence (e.g. French in Senegal, English and French in Nigeria), in conjunction with one or more local languages (e.g. the official languages of Rwanda are Kinyarwanda, French, and English). Some of these countries – for example, Nigeria – have given the status of national language to local languages (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba; see Akinpelu’s chapter in this volume). In many of these multilingual nations (e.g. Chad, the Comoros Islands, Haiti, Rwanda), institutional linguistic support through, for example, translation is all but absent. Other countries, such as Cameroon, offer parliamentary and administrative multilingualism to various degrees, while citizens use the language of their choice. Meanwhile, despite the law requiring that documents be produced in all official languages, no mention is made of translation (like in Canada, where translation is also not referenced in the constitution) and, despite institutions being multilingual, citizens who do not work in federal institutions tend to be unilingual (Lane-Mercier et al. 2014, 474). The fourth commonly encountered model of official multilingualism offers unidirectional translation (and interpretation) into the official minority language. Translation and interpretation services provide minority community citizens the opportunity to read and speak in their language when institutions do not produce written material in the minority official language. Endangered minority languages raised to official status, such as Irish in the Republic of Ireland and Welsh in the United Kingdom (Merkle 2012; see also Llewellyn and Conrick in this volume), are – to some extent at least – translated languages, which can be very costly from a cultural point of view since the culture and language may run the risk of becoming calqued onto the dominant language and culture over the long term, as is the case in French Canada, especially in minority communities outside Québec (Chevalier 2008). Conferring official language status on a language of limited diffusion (minority or Indigenous languages) may be politically motivated. Israel conferred official status on Hebrew, its national language, in a conscious effort to transform a traditionally written and translated (religious) language into a modern living language. Thanks to proactive language planning policies that included extensive projects of

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translation into Hebrew, the latter is now the language of politics and government and the language spoken by Israelis on a daily basis. Official status can also be conferred on Indigenous languages to give them legal status in an effort to bolster their chances for survival (Chelli 2011; Patrick 2007). To promote linguistic diversity by protecting a minority language, unambiguous political support from all official language communities is required. A concrete expression of support is the investment in institutions protected by official language legislation – e.g. educational, health, legal, literary, cultural – to enable the official minority-language citizens to communicate in their language. For example, in New Zealand the Māori language gained official status under the Māori Language Act 1987 that identifies courts and tribunals where the Māori language may be used (New Zealand Government 1987). Yet, to what point and in which ways have these models of official multilingualism and multiculturalism (Haque 2012) actually succeeded in attaining their political, socio-cultural, and linguistic goals? Are contemporary language and cultural management models in fact contributing to cultural diversity? The Canadian French example provides very disappointing results, as we have seen, but Indigenous groups are cautiously optimistic when it comes to some of their languages, especially Anishinaabe-Ojibway, Inuktitut, and Nehiyaw-Cree (see Patrick in this volume; Rowan 2014; CBC 2015; Shadd 2015). Despite proposing a beneficial alternative to processes of homogenization inherent in official monolingualism from certain points of view, the principle of official linguistic and cultural diversity often reproduces – albeit at other levels, under different forms, and by other means – some of the same effects it is supposed to correct, including discrimination, hierarchization, and class domination. Such “perverse” effects (Lane-Mercier 2016, 10) of official multilingualism are particularly flagrant when it comes to minority languages in, for example, Europe (Francoprovençal and Romani), Canada (French, despite its official language status at the federal level and its official language status in Québec), and Nigeria (French and Indigenous languages). These “perverse” effects can also extend to immigrant allophone languages. In Luxembourg and Canada, for example, immigrant groups may obtain a non-official language status in education, the judiciary, and political contexts while advocating for diversity and equal access to services as well as institutions in their own languages, which can lead to the social isolation of the group. Is such diversity,

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characterized by social fragmentation or a decline in social cohesion, necessarily positive (Narayan 2000, in particular ch. 6)? It is hoped that, by pulling together research on a variety of lesserknown geopolitical and linguistic contexts, this volume will promote further collective research aimed at finding concrete solutions to shared problems. Its pertinence, scope, and originality are to be found in the diversity of legislation, points of view, and geopolitical areas examined in an attempt to reflect on reforms that must be envisaged in order to have a real impact at both the local and global levels. From this point of view, the book is intended to be a trampoline toward further exchange on policies and models of official multilingualism and multiculturalism in the face of the pressures of hegemonic globalization; what is at stake at the international, national, and regional levels; and how cultural and linguistic diversity can be protected in keeping with the ideal of universal diversity enshrined in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, an ideal that can be achieved by “[f]ostering the exchange of knowledge and best practices in regard to cultural pluralism with a view to facilitating, in diversified societies, the inclusion and participation of persons and groups from varied cultural backgrounds” (6).

T owa r d a n “ E t h o s of Di vers i ty” The eleven contributions to this volume bring to the fore the many paradoxes that underlie the concept of diversity, the lived experiences of and attitudes toward linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as the official multilingual policies designed to legally entrench, enhance, protect, maintain, or constrain otherness. Each chapter seeks to address, from within specific theoretical and methodological frameworks and in relation to a specific geopolitical territory, the issues and challenges the official language policy or policies enacted within that territory raise in a globalized world. Fittingly, such an endeavour begins by identifying some of the conceptual – and political – problems posed by the very notion of diversity itself, perforce as much a positive empirical and historical phenomenon as a normative ideological, political, and epistemological construct.4 The contributions share a set of common objectives and overarching themes. They shed light on arguably lesser-studied geopolitical territories and their official language(s), which, as noted above, are legislated responses to historical, demographic, economic, or political

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determinants such as decolonization, the collapse of the Soviet Union, (forced) displacement, civil disenfranchisement, and cultural revitalization. They also serve to highlight the inherently multidisciplinary nature of the research currently being conducted in the area of linguistic and cultural diversity. Herein lies their first common objective. On one level, the ever-increasing complexity of linguistic and cultural diversity can be gauged by the fact that the latter henceforth engages, on the one hand, the full spectrum of the social and educational sciences and, on the other hand, (inter)disciplines in the humanities, including philosophy, cultural studies, translation studies, and literary studies. As an object of study, linguistic and cultural diversity, along with the policies it informs, offers a fascinating magnifying lens through which today’s most salient social and economic inequities may be construed as interconnected. These involve concerns of social justice, sustainability, human rights, education, participatory citizenship, transculturalism, integration, self-affirmation, and redress for past injustices – all concerns that are no longer the purview of one or two disciplines. On another level, the focus on lesser-known official language policies and geopolitical territories, combined with the multidisciplinary nature of the approaches adopted, serve a second common objective. By throwing critical light on the paradoxes – in the form of inconsistencies, contradictions, ambiguities, limitations, and at times “perverse” effects generated by official language and cultural policy – the contributors demonstrate the extent to which the official language regimes they examine are ultimately at odds either with the values, principles, or ideals they purport to uphold or with the goals they purport to achieve. Two overarching themes emerge. Despite the diversity of cultures, histories, ethnicities, languages, economies, and geopolitical areas represented in this volume – the latter ranging from Western Europe and Central Asia to the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and North America – and despite, too, the myriad historical and political circumstances, carefully studied by each author, underlying language legislation in a given state or the choice of one model over others, a first common thematic thread weaving through the chapters is the fact that the official language policies presented in this volume are not so much imperfect as inherently paradoxical: they do and do not, albeit in different ways and for different reasons, contribute to the safeguarding and sustaining of cultural and linguistic diversity (U N ESC O 2002, 6). No policy stands out as fully sustainable, be it

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from a political, ethical, social, ethnic, demographic, or economic standpoint, which is a consequence, as several authors argue, of the paradoxes inherent to the globalized context in which these policies are embedded. Indeed, one of the book’s central arguments is that questions of equality, social justice, participatory citizenship, self-affirmation, and national cohesion in officially multilingual states can easily be compromised by official policies unable to address the lived experiences of (im)migration, decolonization, cultural oppression, stigmatization, assimilation, or extinction. As a result, they are unable to enforce official language use, provide adequate funds and infrastructure, resolve conflicting interests and entrenched hostilities, and counter the homogenizing processes of globalization. These questions can also simply be eschewed or ignored by refusing to enact policies that adequately reflect the contemporary realities of linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversity. The second overarching theme to emerge, in direct correlation to the first, is the relation between de jure and de facto language policies. De facto policies often assume a crucial role in attempting to bridge the gap between social inequalities urgently needing attention and ineffectual or unsustainable, top-down official policies that are merely symbolic. Although de facto policies can be supported at the local level by, for example, grassroots organizations aimed at protecting an endangered language, they can also operate as unwritten “codes” of intercultural exchange designed to manage or exploit the complexities of linguistic and cultural diversity “on the ground” or to counter the adverse effects of ineffective official policies. And while de facto policies may generate their own “perverse” effects by reproducing tacit rules of language hierarchy and non-inclusion, they offer a rich palette of everyday representations, practices, and possibilities for advocacy that illustrate the ways in which cultural and linguistic diversity, together with the multiple identitary allegiances and boundary crossings it enables, have become “a source of exchange, innovation and creativity” (UNE SC O 2002, Art. 1, 4) specific to a world in which the notions of social and national cohesion can no longer be predicated on the singular. The reach of the volume goes far beyond the case studies analyzed. The paradoxes revealed point to potential best practices and the limits of these practices, which, in turn, point to the need for reform; they also ultimately derive from the complex nature of linguistic and cultural diversity, conceptualized as an effect of globalization. In this

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respect, then, the book indeed calls for further research on the paradoxes of official language legislation, with special attention paid to the frequent coexistence of de jure and de facto policies that can convey radically different conceptions of what is a stake in today’s context of cultural and linguistic diversity. Such inquiries should be conducted on the understanding that paradox, just like difference and otherness, should be construed both as a (critical) discursive construct and as an integral part of the many empirical phenomena – including situations, attitudes, (mis)perceptions, daily experiences, community initiatives, institutions – that underpin what François Grin terms, in his conclusion to the first chapter of this book, an “ethos of diversity … of curiosity toward the Other and the Different,” the affirmation of which “is perhaps the most fundamental condition of an effective, fair, and sustainable diversity.”

“ D iv e rs it y Is Diverse ”: Co m p l e x D iv e rs it y a n d Deep Di vers i ty The volume is loosely organized into six intersecting parts to foreground what Grin identifies as the multiple components of cultural and linguistic diversity, too often either conflated (e.g. policies equating minority languages with Indigenous languages) or glossed over by assuming one component (e.g. immigration) has priority over the others. As Grin reminds us, “diversity is diverse,” the product of five principal components: traditional linguistic minorities, national minorities, Indigenous groups, (im)migrant groups, and linguistic majorities. Although care has been taken to ensure geopolitical coherence, the chapters are grouped according to the specific component(s) each official multilingual and multicultural policy seeks to regulate, together with the specific issues it attempts to address. The opening chapter, “Choosing Concepts for Sustainable Diversity Management Policies,” frames those that follow by clearly articulating the book’s overarching themes. Emphasizing the need to critically examine the key concepts that inform how cultural and linguistic policies are designed, implemented, and assessed, Grin’s central tenet is that erroneous concepts, or erroneous interpretations thereof, can lead to unsustainable policy decisions from a social, political, economic, or ethical perspective. Correctly naming the problems raised by cultural and linguistic diversity is the first step toward finding sustainable responses. This tenet dovetails with a more general one: given that the increasing complexity of diversity requires increasingly

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complex policies, sustainability must be the primary driver of policy selection. To be sustainable, a policy must be more or less acceptable to the majority; this entails developing surveys to measure attitudes of tolerance and intolerance toward otherness, which can be used to make better informed policy choices. That said, Grin immediately challenges the very idea of ever-increasing diversity: whereas on the subjective level of everyday encounters, linguistic and cultural diversity are5 on the rise, on the objective level, globalization is responsible for the rapid disappearance of “small” languages, as well as the erosion of differences between local cultures. Hence, an initial paradox – diversity is simultaneously increasing and decreasing – is accompanied by a second paradox: there are threatened languages and threatening languages, some of which can be both, depending on the context. As alluded to above, what is new is not so much diversity per se but the paradoxes globalization produces by reinforcing subjective diversity and enhancing the role of threatening languages. This accentuates the need for sustainable diversity management policies on the local and the global levels. Grin critically examines other concepts, notably the notion of superdiversity, replaced here by the more rigorous terms “complex” and “deep” diversity that better capture, respectively, the different components of diversity and the interactions between micro, meso, and macro levels of diversity. His critique of the post-modern concept of languaging is especially incisive: by denouncing the existence of separate, “named” languages as essentialist and oppressive, languaging implicitly promotes the linguistic imperialism it explicitly condemns, insofar as it disempowers minority groups to advocate for language rights. Linguistic boundaries are “part and parcel” of cultural and linguistic diversity; as such, they must be correctly identified to empirically assess levels of tolerance and acceptability that foster an ethos of diversity and lead to sustainable diversity management policies that, taken together, constitute “the conditions that must be met to navigate the boundary.”

P ro b l e m at iz in g t h e E thos of Di versi ty: Majo r it y N at io n a l L a n g uages and Offi ci al L a n g uag e P oli cy The second chapter, “Multilingualism without Multiculturalism? The Case of Luxembourg” by Núria Garcia, exposes what is arguably the flip side of the ethos of diversity. While Grin’s conception of the latter

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is grounded in cultural curiosity, “toleration,” and openness to boundary crossings, Garcia demonstrates the extent to which de jure and de facto policies can be instrumentalized to promote the sustainability of certain configurations of linguistic diversity as opposed to others, thereby leading to exclusion, social inequality, and disrespect for the democratic principle of participatory citizenship. More specifically, by constraining linguistic and cultural diversity through educational, citizenship, and electoral policies or traditions, Luxembourg’s regulation of languages has reinforced historical multilingualism (German, French, Luxembourgish) and historical monoculturalism (Luxembourgish), despite the fact that 45 per cent of the population are foreign residents. For example, since Luxembourgish is not systematically taught in schools, not only do students with this language as their mother tongue typically enjoy higher success rates, but the access of foreign residents to citizenship and to political rights such as voting, for which proficiency in Luxembourgish is required, is severely hampered. This “political monolingualism” within an officially multilingual state can be interpreted as the refusal of Luxembourg’s political elites, strongly backed by the majority, to adapt to a social reality in mutation, ostensibly to ensure social cohesion but in fact to uphold a status quo that serves their interests. Luxembourg’s multilingual language regime is exclusionary from both a cultural and a political standpoint; as such, it is inherently unfair, “creating a distinction between those who benefit from full citizenship rights and those who need to conform to the rules established by the former” without full access to language instruction. The result is an ethos of diversity akin, paradoxically, to the assimilationist policies of officially monolingual, culturally homogenous nation-states like France. The third chapter by Brian Baer and Zhailagul Sagyndykova, entitled “The Future of Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Central Asia: The Case of Kazakhstan,” presents an official language regime that, similar in structure to Luxembourg’s, aims on the contrary to foster a shared identity through enhanced multilingualism. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has maintained Russian as an official language; conferred national status on Kazakh, the language of the ethnic majority; and added English to form what is known as the Three Languages Policy, in a context of multilingualism and diglossia stemming not from immigration, but from a long history of colonization and ethnic diversity. As the authors note, this policy has

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proven successful as a nation-building strategy thanks to state-funded incentives for the study and use of Kazakh that also respect Kazakhstan’s rich linguistic and ethnic heritage. It has also been successful as a proactive foreign policy that recognizes the latter’s dependency on neighbouring Russia and the global economy. However, an ethnographic study conducted by Baer brings to light attitudes indicating a disconnect between what he deems a utopian official language policy, its implementation, and the everyday experiences of citizens. The policy’s most important achievement lies in avoiding both anti-Russian sentiment and the devalorization of non-official ethnic languages; yet, ethnic Kazakhs tend to hesitate between naming Kazakh or Russian as their “native” language, while claiming the latter as their dominant language. Despite manifest political will to invest in Kazakh, Russian continues to be equated with prestige and socio-economic advancement; it also largely remains the language of the workplace. Post-Soviet official multilingual policy has perpetuated linguistic insecurities and hierarchies that cause feelings of shame (or anger) when Kazakh (or Russian) is not mastered. The seemingly clear-cut categories of de jure multilingualism are not always able to account for the de facto complexities of Kazakhstani identity construction as experienced by citizens, who nonetheless generally agree that “national and supranational identifications are not mutually exclusive.”

P ro t e c t in g a n d R e v ita li zi ng Endangered T r a d it io n a l M in o r i ty Languages As the next three chapters demonstrate, a traditional majority language on the regional or national level can be subject to diverse linguistic, political, cultural, economic, or historical processes that cause it to lose its majority status. Although these “minoritizing” processes often predate globalization, they are integral to contemporary linguistic and cultural diversity for at least two reasons. On the one hand, the risk of language extinction has increased over the past decades; on the other hand, the spread of global English has had the beneficial counter-effect of calling attention – notably at the macrolevels of the United Nations and the European Union – to the urgency of legislating official diversity management policies to protect and revitalize endangered traditional minority languages. However, as the authors emphasize, this can only be achieved if all members of the

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minority communities are willing to contribute actively, at the micro or local level, to the survival of their language. In “Minority Language Protection in Italy and Local Initiatives to Protect Francoprovençal in Apulia,” Adriana Di Biase illustrates the importance of what Grin defines as “dynamic” sustainability, especially when language preservation and promotion at the local level are undermined by unreliable national and regional support. Thanks primarily to the pride that the speakers of Francoprovençal take in their language and their motivation to ensure its survival through corpus planning (standardization, dictionaries), status planning (cultural activities), and acquisition planning (schooling), the language and culture remain vibrant in the two rather isolated Apulian villages in which it is spoken, despite the small number of speakers, the competing presence of other dialects, the dominance of Italian as the official national language, and uncertainty regarding the future of Francoprovençal. Like all of Italy’s many dialects and minority languages, Francoprovençal is protected by the Italian constitution; it is also one of only twelve minority languages protected by a national law adopted in 1999 and it is further protected by a 2012 regional law that guarantees – without making provisions for – funding for cultural initiatives. Of particular interest here is the geographical and linguistic diversity of Francoprovençal itself, a consequence of historical “minoritizing” processes that have led to the fragmentation and dispersion of a hypothetical “original” language. There is no “pure” form, only local variants found in pockets of France (where it once enjoyed regional majority status), Italy, and Switzerland; conflicting theories coexist on its linguistic and geographic origins; no one knows exactly how the language entered Italy from France in the thirteenth century or how it came to be maintained in two small Apulian villages. Di Biase reflects on the ways in which historical processes interact with and complicate linguistic and cultural diversity in contemporary Italy; she also stresses the fact that official minority status is insufficient, and that a de facto ethos of dynamic, “deep” diversity – from the micro to the macro – is required to resist the threat of language loss. The next two chapters focus on territories whose current language policies have painfully emerged after centuries of British domination, accompanied by violent linguistic and cultural oppression. Wales has been part of the United Kingdom since the sixteenth century.

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Banned by Henry VIII, Welsh continued to survive as the majority language until the late 1800s, when industrialization caused it to be almost entirely supplanted by English. As Anastasia Llewellyn notes in “Dyw un iaith byth yn ddigon – One Language Is Never Enough: Language Policy and Translation in Modern Wales,” Welsh only acquired official minority language status in 2011 following decades of advocacy, with just under 20 per cent of the population speaking the language at that time. Since then the number of Welsh-language schools has grown significantly, supported as well by non-native Welsh citizens, and additional legislation has been passed to consolidate the language at the Welsh government level. However, one of the major problems has been promoting its use outside the classroom, especially given the disincentivizing pressures of English, which “everyone speaks anyway.” Noteworthy about the Welsh example is that it obliges all entities offering public services to implement a mandatory language scheme, but it also includes an explicit translation policy, which is seen as an essential component in the survival of the Welsh language, culture, identity, and sense of nationhood, as well as a means to strengthen the ties between Wales’ linguistic and cultural identities. The principal drawbacks here are related to implementation, such as the cost of translating all official documents into Welsh, the lack of qualified translators and English–Welsh translation programs, and the government’s inability to enforce its official language and translation policies, which contain few guidelines. This has contributed to the ongoing inequality of Welsh on the practical level, despite the enormous strides taken on the symbolic level. That said, the government remains committed to allocating the resources needed to make Welsh-language acquisition available to citizens of all ages, “to see the Welsh language thriving in Wales,” and to offer people the option of using it in both the private and public spheres. Contrary to Wales, the Republic of Ireland gained independence from Britain in 1922. Although there are similarities between the Welsh and Irish histories and policies of official bilingualism, the ­d ifferences are striking. As Maeve Conrick demonstrates in “International Models of Language Policy and Language Planning: Official Bilingualism in Ireland and Sociolinguistic Reality,” the disconnect between de jure and de facto bilingualism is particularly tangible. The constitution of Ireland (1937) enshrined a de jure hierarchy between Irish as both the national language and the first official

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language and English as the second official language, rejecting notions of parity and duality. Nonetheless, official reports and census data underscore the “unrealistic” character of the hierarchy, insofar as not all government bodies respect the Official Languages Act 2003 that gives citizens the statutory right to state services in Irish. As a result, 98 per cent of the population uses English by default. This situation has led to harsh criticism of the government’s ability to implement its policy and, more fundamentally, its commitment to protect the Irish language. While the latter enjoys wide public support and the number of Irish-language immersion schools continues to grow, lack of community reinforcement and the government’s inaction are blamed for the decline in actual, day-to-day use. Paradoxically, these negative indicators combine with more positive ones at the international level. The Irish diaspora in North America has been instrumental in creating university-level Irish Studies programs; furthermore, since 2007 Irish has been an official language of the European Union, thereby enjoying greater visibility and status. On the national front, recent immigration may have the effect of “enhanc[ing] openness to language acquisition generally, including acquisition of Irish” by breaking down the English–Irish dyad. Although the future of Irish remains uncertain, the real problem with the Irish example of official bilingualism, in contrast to Wales, appears to lie with insufficient political will at the state level and weak national leadership.

I n di g e n o u s L a n g uag e s a n d Offi ci al Language P o l icy: T h e C a n a d i an Example While some might consider Indigenous and traditional languages synonymous, they are distinguished here to highlight the strong territorial and ethnic connotations, as well as the forms of disempowerment generally associated with the former. Moreover, it bears reminding that, while the relationship between Indigenous and colonial languages has, as a rule, been affected by decolonization, the nature of the processes involved – ranging from revolution and secession to more “peaceful” transactions of devolution and the right to self-determination – together with the impact of these processes on the status of Indigenous peoples and their languages, have varied considerably across the globe. This is evidenced by the very dissimilar examples of de jure and de facto multilingualism examined by the

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next four contributors, who all clearly reiterate the truism that cultural and linguistic diversity management choices acquire meaning only when situated in their historical contexts. It also bears reminding that Canada offers an important variation on the theme of decolonization. A sovereign state since 1867, after close to three centuries of French followed by British colonization, Canada has nonetheless perpetuated, as the two chapters in this section make abundantly clear, what is commonly referred to as white settler colonialism, which continues to defy, from the perspective of Indigenous peoples in Canada, their right to political self-determination. In chapter 7, “Language, Education, and the Structuring of Canada’s Social Sphere,” Deborah Shadd proposes a discursive analysis of two reports commissioned by the federal government in the early 1960s, when Québec nationalism and the issue of minority Frenchlanguage rights were threatening the country’s unity. Products of their time, the reports present ideological similarities regarding principles of equality and justice, as well as the centrality of language, culture, and schooling in fostering national identity. They also present substantial differences, specifically with respect to their impact on Canadian public policy. The impact of the report by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–69) was immediate and lasting: the Official Languages Act (1969) enshrined official bilingualism, which put French and English on an equal footing in law and assured the right of all citizens to be schooled in one or the other. All other languages were relegated, at best, to the school curriculum and, at worst, to oblivion so as to ensure integration into the “Canadian way of life” and, by extension, equality of status and socio-economic well-being. The report – and the legislation to which it gave rise – thus remained grounded in de facto colonial policies of racial prejudice, inequality, discrimination, and exclusion. In contrast, the reception of the second report, A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada (1966–67) in which the authors argued that Indians also had the right to schooling in their own language, was tantamount to dismissal by the federal government, as evidenced in a 1969 White Paper on Indian policy. Shadd sheds light on the extent to which the selection and design of official language policies implicitly or explicitly reproduce the dominant political discourse from which they stem. By privileging one version of Canadian history (that of the two colonial powers)

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over another (that of the colonized), official bilingualism has reinforced the very inequalities it sought to combat. Cultural and linguistic diversity is therefore as much a result of historical and social processes as of discursive processes, which also need to be accounted for when gauging the effectiveness, fairness, and sustainability of a given official policy. Donna Patrick’s contribution, “Indigenizing Language Policy in Canada: Redressing Racial Hierarchies in Language and Education,” builds on the failure of these two reports and of subsequent reports to spearhead official language policy reform in Canada to address not only issues of exclusion and discrimination, but also of reclamation, revitalization, recognition, protection, and maintenance of Indigenous languages. Patrick aims to go beyond problems of policy selection and implementation to focus squarely on real possibilities for reform and, in the case of Indigenous languages and cultures, for redress and reconciliation. As she notes, Canada’s legal frameworks “both constrain and offer opportunities for Indigenizing language policy” within the dualist (assimilationist) context of official French– English bilingualism. These opportunities are intrinsically linked to education. Constitutional recognition of Indigenous language and educational rights, along with social equality, can only be acquired through the teaching of Indigenous languages, Indigenous control over their own school boards, schools, and curricula, as well as through government funding and protective measures equivalent to those available to French- and English-language minorities as per the Official Languages Act (1969). While federal recognition has yet to be conferred, reforms have been implemented by Indigenous communities at the local and regional levels, with considerable success in the Arctic land claim region currently known as Nunavut. A 2008 legislation act enshrined Inuktitut, French, and English as Nunavut’s official languages, together with the right to government services and schooling from kindergarten to grade 12 in Inuktitut. As Patrick suggests, dismantling entrenched colonial hierarchies through local, rights-based approaches to language protection and education provides a positive “grassroots” model for other Indigenous minority communities. It also confirms the urgency for political and legal redress that would provide for Indigenous selfdetermination, while formally acknowledging the many components of Canada’s cultural and linguistic diversity.

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De c o l o n iz at io n a n d O ffi ci al Language P o l icy: T h e A f r ican Example In some respects, the next chapter offers a negative rejoinder to Patrick’s. As Michael Akinpelu argues in “The Promotion of Languages in Nigeria: An Example of Problematic Official Multilingualism in Africa,” officially recognizing Indigenous languages alongside an inherited colonial language, as a number of sub-Saharan African countries have chosen to do since independence, has not always produced the desired results of national unity, social interaction, cultural affirmation, sustainable economic development, and participatory citizenship. Independent since 1960, Nigeria is an interesting case in point: with over six hundred Indigenous languages, three main colonial languages (English, French, Arabic), two official languages (English and French), and three national languages (Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo), the Nigerian government has developed a National Policy on Education to ensure mother-tongue instruction for the first three years of primary school, as well as the acquisition of one of the national languages and both official languages. Whereas implementation has, once again, proved challenging due to severe government underfunding and the lack of qualified teachers and teaching material, Akinpelu points more importantly to tensions between the majority and minority ethno-linguistic groups, as well as to major flaws in the language planning phases. For example, the decision to add French as a second official language was neither researched nor justified based on sociolinguistic evidence. The official policy is still in effect; yet, in practice the national languages operate solely at the regional level, while national unity is ensured by English and Nigerian Pidgin English, both of which are paradoxically perceived as neutral. In light of the failure of the Nigerian example, Akinpelu argues in favour of a model akin to India’s (and Nunavut’s) whereby each state could design its own language-management policy, which would include local majority languages along with the inherited colonial languages deemed indispensable for sustainable development in Africa and international trade relations. Algeria’s response to decolonization stands in sharp contrast not only to that of Nigeria but to all the official approaches to linguistic and cultural diversity previously examined, as the title of Wajih Guehria’s chapter suggests: “Denying Linguistic and Cultural Pluralism

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in Algeria: An Official Model of Diversity Management.” What is at stake, once again, is the concern for national unity; however, postindependent Algerian governments have rejected the country’s rich cultural and linguistic heritage by imposing classical Arabic as the official language to the detriment of Algerian Arabic, varieties of Amazigh, and French. This has led to cultural and linguistic homogenization, the rewriting of Algerian history that now begins with the War of Independence (1954–62), the marginalization of francophones, and a loss of cultural and historical memory. More significantly, it has contributed to a sense of confusion, humiliation, and linguistic insecurity on the part of Algerians due to contradictions in official discourse with respect to the status of French, simultaneously decried by the government as representative of occidental imperialism and yet still used by the political elite. As Guehria argues, official discourse relies on a series of polarized positions, such as arabophone versus francophone, national versus foreign, or Orient versus Occident, that leave no room for the intense diglossic reality of everyday life where French, paradoxically, still enjoys symbolic and socio-economic prestige. His argument is based on an ethnographic study that shows the degree to which Algerians believe policy-makers have created a double standard: Arabic for the masses, French for those in power. This explains Algerians’ resistance to hypocritical official discourses, as well as the ambiguous relationship they have with their languages, insofar as the latter offer no stable historical, cultural, or identitary reference points. The chapter emphasizes the serious “perverse” effects, which include the imposing of a cultural void, harmful dualisms, and massive exclusions, that a division too profound between de jure and de facto language policies can generate in multilingual and multicultural contexts.

C h a l l e n g in g t h e Li mi ts o f O f f ic ia l L a n g uage Poli cy The final chapter, “Challenging the Borders of Nation: Language and Translational Language Policy in the Plurilingual Romani Context” by Debbie Folaron, proposes a fascinating analogy between a globalized world of border crossings and the history of the Romani peoples that has been unfolding for over 1,000 years across multiple nations and languages. Folaron arguably provides the most striking illustration of complex and deep diversity, as well as of the intricate dynamics

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of de jure and de facto policies in transnational, multilingual, and multicultural contexts that defy both the traditional nation-state paradigm, with its attendant borders, and most contemporary official models of diversity management. The largest ethno-linguistic minority in Europe, Romani peoples share a long history of migration and what Folaron terms de facto “translational practices of double-relationing” between, on the one hand, the sixty to eighty dialects that comprise the Romani language and, on the other hand, the many languages and cultures with which Romani has come into contact. While Roma are generally citizens of a given nation-state, they also live in a plurilingual, “fluid, non-­ territorialized ‘community’ of Romani peoples globally” composed of “multiple registers of Romani-ness,” claiming no state as their own and with no collective memory of their geographical and linguistic origins or their early migratory paths out of India. Stigmatized for centuries, Romani has only recently been granted de jure non-territorial minority language status with specific rights by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (E C R M L ), though political will to respect it remains lukewarm in most EU member states. Folaron underscores the difficulty of fitting Romani into existing political structures that imply national boundaries and language planning processes such as linguistic codification, which ultimately challenges the notion of language policy itself. Hence the crucial role of a de facto ethos of diversity, which is best able to capture the migratory-transnational-translational dynamics of Romani and serve as a platform for enacting sustainable official legislation, at all levels, to achieve full social inclusion of Roma and recognition of “Romani-ness.”

C o n c l u s i on Generic models can prove useful as a basis for comparison and a starting point for conceptualizing country-specific de jure “linguistic territoriality regimes” (Meylaerts 2011, 744), provided that they are adapted in line with the socio-political history of the country and its specific requirements in terms of linguistic and cultural diversity. It thus becomes necessary to exercise caution when applying a de jure model or policy because of the existence of de facto policies that must be accommodated for the de jure policy to be sustainable. In fact, a model is simply a system used as an example to follow or imitate; it

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must be adjusted to the socio-political and economic reality like policies that are not developed in vacuum but are context-bound. Attention must therefore be given to the historical, political, social, and economic circumstances that have given rise to the current policies in each territory. Policies must also be dynamically sustainable, as François Grin stresses. The key to sustainability lies in “restoring the social prestige of a long-neglected language, thus encouraging speakers’ sense of legitimacy and pride when they use it.” Many of the cases examined in the chapters – for example, Algerian Arabic and Amazigh in Algeria, French and Indigenous languages in Canada, and Irish in Ireland – are problematic precisely because a “social demand for situations where the minority language can be used” has neither been stimulated nor a “‘self-priming mechanism’ of language reproduction” fostered (Grin). This can often be linked back to a lack of community reinforcement through private sector and civil society support, identified by U N E S C O (2002, Art. 11, 5) as essential to the success of diversity policy. This brings us back to the ethos of diversity or “curiosity towards the Other and the Different,” arguably “the most fundamental condition of an effective, fair, and sustainable diversity” (Grin), and the many paradoxes of diversity identified in the book’s chapters. Not only must “groups from varied cultural backgrounds” (U N E S C O 2002, point 3, 6) be included and participate in civil society, they must also demonstrate mutual curiosity in the Other. Yet, are “[p]olicies for the inclusion and participation of all citizens” necessarily a “guarantee … of social cohesion” (UNESCO 2002, Art. 2, 4), when linguistic and cultural diversity is also guaranteed? Returning to our example of an immigrant group that has been provided with a linguistic infrastructure that allows them to continue using their language: is it reasonable to expect that the host culture will learn their language (other than perhaps a few words)? Members of the host community may very well attend cultural activities organized by the immigrant community, but will they include the latter group in the country’s political life? Despite diversity policy developed in line with the U N ESC O objective, is there not a danger of ghettoization and social fragmentation? Undoubtedly linked to the complex nature of language, culture, social cohesion, and policy conception, this is but one paradox that reveals the limits of best practices and points to the need for effective reform. The book clearly calls for additional research on

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the paradoxes of official language policies in general and the frequent coexistence of incompatible de jure and de facto policies in particular; it also calls for additional research on how cultural and linguistic diversity can be protected in keeping with the desire for social inclusion and the ideal of universal diversity enshrined in the U N E S C O Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity.

N otes   1 “Un système écolinguistique est … en constant changement sous la pression d’une évolution permanente, fruit des pratiques et des représentations, et cette évolution, qui affecte à la fois la forme et les fonctions des langues, peut brusquement s’accélérer sous l’effet d’une révolution” (Calvet 1999, 228. Emphasis in the original).   2 “[A] policy refers to the conduct of political and public affairs by a government or an administration, i.e. to political or public practices as implemented in legal rules” (Meylaerts 2011, 754n6) and specifically a language policy is “a set of legal rules that regulate language use for purposes of education and communication, the latter covering the language of legal affairs, of political institutions, of the media, and of administration” (ibid., 744).   3 Yet, the South African system has weaknesses that result from translation policy not being part of the language policy, for “the lack of an institutional translation policy in South Africa has contributed to the disappearance of certain indigenous languages in certain socio-cultural sectors” (Beukes 2006, 2007, quoted in Meylaerts 2011, 754n7).   4 All translated quotations throughout the book have been translated by the author of the chapter in which the translation appears, with the exception of chapter 10.   5 One of the points Grin makes is that cultural and linguistic diversity are distinct. Accordingly, the verb should be in the plural. Other authors have used the singular. The editors have chosen to respect these choices.

R efer e nc e s Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Bandia, Paul F. 2008. Translation as Reparation: Writing and Translation in Postcolonial Africa. London / New York: Routledge. Bastarache, Michel, and Michel Doucet, eds. 2014. Les droits linguistiques au Canada, 3rd ed. Montreal: Yvon Blais.

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Benert, Britta, ed. 2015. Paradoxes du plurilinguisme littéraire 1900. Bern: Peter Lang. Brachandall, Albert. 2011. “Minority Languages and Translation.” In Handbook of Translation Studies, vol. 2, edited by Yves Gambier and Luc Van Doorslaer, 97–101. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Calvet, Louis-Jean. 1999. Pour une écologie des langues du monde. Paris: Plon. – 2011. Il était une fois 7000 langues. Paris: Fayard. C B C (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). 2015. “Indigenous Languages in Canada Can and Should Be Made Official, Expert Says.” CBC News British Columbia. 11 July. Accessed 5 July 2017. http://www.cbc.ca/ news/canada/british-columbia/aboriginal-languages-in-canada-can-andshould-be-made-official-expert-says-1.3147759. Chelli, Amirouche. 2011. Rapport aux langues natives et enseignement du français en Algérie. Paris: Éditions Publibook. Chevalier, Gisèle. 2008. “Les français du Canada: faits linguistiques, faits de langue.” Alternative francophone 1 (1): 80–97. Cronin, Michael. 2017. Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene. London / New York: Routledge. Dib, Naïma Akila. 2015. “Le port du foulard dit ‘islamique’ ou l’entredeux culturel.” Alternative francophone 1 (8): 37–56. Accessed 5 July 2017. https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/af/article/ view/24658/pdf_13. Dourari, Abderrezak. 2003. Les malaises de la société algérienne, crise de langue et crise d’identité. Alger: Casbah. Gagnon, Alain-G., and Jean-Charles St Louis, eds. 2016. Les conditions du dialogue au Québec: laïcité, réciprocité, pluralisme. Montreal: Québec Amérique. Gambier, Yves. 2014. “La langue de l’autre ou l’expulsion des hôtes?” Meta 59 (3): 481–93. Haddadou, Mohand-Akli. 2003. “L’État algérien face à la revendication berbère: de la répression aux concessions.” Glottopol Revue de sociolinguistique en ligne 1: 131–8. glottopol.univ-rouen.fr/telecharger/ numero_1/gpl1_10hadda.pdf. Haque, Eve. 2012. Multiculturalism Within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race, and Belonging in Canada. Toronto/Buffalo/London: University of Toronto Press. Haque, Eve, and Donna Patrick. 2015. “Indigenous Languages and the Racial Hierarchisation of Language Policy in Canada.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 36 (1): 27–41.

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Heller, Monica. 2011. Paths to Post-Nationalism: A Critical Ethnography of Language and Identity. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Jessner, Ulrike. 2013. “Dynamics of Multilingualism.” The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, edited by Carole Chapelle, 1798–1805. Chichester, U K: Wiley. doi: 10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0347. Landry, Rodrigue, Kenneth Deveau, and Réal Allard. 2006. “Vitalité ethnolinguistique et construction identitaire: Le cas de l’identité bilingue.” Éducation et francophonie 34 (1): 54–81. Lane-Mercier, Gillian. 2014. “Global and Local Languages.” In Companion to Translation Studies, edited by Sandra Berman and Catherine ­Porter, 217–30. London / New York: Wiley-Blackwell. – 2016. “Introduction.” In Plurilinguisme et pluriculturalisme: Des modèles dans le monde, edited by Gillian Lane-Mercier, Denise Merkle, and Jane Koustas, 7–12. Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Lane-Mercier, Gillian, Denise Merkle, and Reine Meylaerts. 2014. “Présentation: Traduction et plurilinguisme officiel.” Meta 59 (3): 471–80. Malena, Anne, ed. 2003. “Special Issue: Traduction et (im)migration/ Translation and (Im)migration.” TTR 16 (2). Merkle, Denise. 2011. “Late-Victorian London: A Multilingual and Multicultural Mecca on the Isle of Great Britain.” In La traduction dans les contextes plurilingues, edited by Francis Mus, Karen Vandemeulebrouke, Lieven D’hulst, and Reine Meylaerts, 123–34. Arras: Artois Presses. – 2012. “Official Translation.” In Handbook of Translation Studies, vol. 4, edited by Yves Gambier and Luc Van Doorslaer, 199–202. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Meylaerts, Reine. 2011. “Translation Justice in a Multilingual World: An Overview of Translation Regimes.” Meta 56 (4): 743–57. Mus, Francis, Karen Vandemeulebrouke, Lieven D’hulst, and Reine Meylaerts, eds. 2011. La traduction dans les contextes plurilingues. Arras: Artois Presses. Narayan, Deepa. 2000. Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us? Oxford: Oxford University Press for the World Bank. Nardi, Christopher. 2017. “Le français perd du terrain.” Le Journal de Montréal, 2 August. Accessed 7 August 2017. http://www.journal​ demontreal.com/2017/08/02/le-francais-en-declin-partout-au-canada-1. New Zealand Government. 2005. Māori Language Act 1987. Accessed 5 July 2017. http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1987/0176/latest/ DLM124116.html.

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Patrick, Donna. 2007. “Indigenous Language Endangerment and the Unfinished Business of Nation-States.” In Discourses of Endangerment: Interest and Ideology in the Defense of Languages, edited by Monica Heller and Alexandre Duchêne, 35–56. London: Continuum. Rowan, Mary Caroline. 2014. “Co-Constructing Early Childhood Programs Nourished by Inuit Worldviews. Études/Inuit/Studies 38 (1–2): 73–94. De Schutter, Helder. 2008. “The Linguistic Territoriality Principle – A Critique.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (2): 105–20. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-5930.2008.00397.x. Sebaa, Rabeh. 1998–99. “L’arabisation en Algérie: une négation de soi? – Arabisation in Algeria: a Negation of ‘Self’?” Revue Transeuropéennes 14–15: 81–92. Shadd, Deborah. 2015. “On Language, Education, Identity: Minority Language Education within the Canadian Context.” PhD diss., University of Ottawa. https://ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/32777. UNE S C O . 2002. Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity: A Vision. A Conceptual Platform. A Pool of Ideas for Implementation. A New Paradigm. Cultural Diversity Series No. 1. phttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0012/001271/127162e.pdf.

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“Diversity Is Diverse”: Complex Diversity and Deep Diversity

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1 Choosing Concepts for Sustainable Diversity Management Policies François Grin

In t ro du cti on This chapter proposes a critical reflection on the choice and interpretation of key concepts with which public policies aimed at managing cultural diversity can be selected, designed, and assessed. More specifically, it is concerned with the conditions for the sustainability of such policies. My basic claim is that sustainability, which has material and symbolic dimensions, is a crucial aspect of the success of a public policy in the long run, and that in the case of public policies addressing the diversity of languages and cultures, insufficient attention has been paid to the symbolic dimension. This inadequate attention can, in turn, be traced back to a variety of causes. Some of these are ideological and reflect different views regarding both linguistic and cultural diversity. Lack of attention to the symbolic conditions of sustainability is, however, related to the conceptual tools that we use to formulate the problems to be solved as well as design and compare alternative solutions to these problems. Wrong concepts can lead us down blind alleys or even make a problem worse. Section 1 briefly discusses the notion of sustainability and introduces a distinction between simple and dynamic sustainability, which provides a backdrop for the subsequent sections. Sections 2, 3, and 4 are essentially about simple sustainability in that they discuss the relative relevance of the concepts used in sociolinguistic research to describe and characterize linguistic diversity. I first try (in section 2) to characterize “diversity” in a context of globalization – is it increasing or decreasing?

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I then propose a critical assessment of notions such as “superdiversity” (section 3) and “languaging” (section 4), focusing on the logical consistency and empirical applicability of analytical categories. In section 5, I move on to a more dynamic perspective of sustainability using the results of a unique, large-scale survey of attitudes toward linguistic and cultural diversity, taken by over 40,000 young men. These results do not merely offer a quantitative angle on political theory issues that are usually approached in purely qualitative terms; they also help to shed light on what makes a diversity management policy more or less acceptable to the majority and, hence, more or less sustainable. This, however, does not imply an uncritical acquiescence to whatever the vox populi says about linguistic and cultural difference; rather, it enables us to identify, in a complex maze of attitudes and representations, more sustainable policy responses to the challenges of diversity and to design adjustments to public policies that can improve their sustainability and, even better, make them dynamically sustainable without compromising standards in areas like human rights and minority rights. Section 5 concludes with a discussion of the corresponding policy implications, which point to a renewed understanding of the notion of “boundary” as an important element in the selection and design of public policies on multilingualism and multiculturalism.

O n S u s ta in a b il it y i n General A detailed treatment of the sustainability of a public policy requires the explicit, sometimes even formal, modelling of a range of causal relationships featuring specific policy measures and their interaction with the broader context. This also applies to policies on language and culture, although an informal definition will suffice for our purposes, since this chapter is not chiefly concerned with the nature of sustainability itself but rather with its connections to language selection and design. A policy will be considered sustainable if a society can afford, without this causing disruption, to spare and invest the material and symbolic resources required to implement the policy in the long run while ensuring that the goals of the policy are achieved for the most part. For example, most developed countries have policies that redistribute purchasing power from the rich to the poor through a system of tax and subsidies, and these policies can be said to be sustainable.

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These policies do redistribute purchasing power, thus eliminating extreme poverty and achieving their main goal. At the same time, the tax burden thus placed on the more affluent classes is generally considered acceptable; although various forms of tax evasion exist, the more heavily taxed income groups do not all flee to other countries to avoid tax completely – they keep earning money and paying taxes, making redistribution possible in the long run. A further distinction can be made between simple sustainability and dynamic sustainability. Simple sustainability refers to the capacity of a public policy to fit reasonably well into the broader social, political, economic, and cultural environment. More informally, simple sustainability requires avoiding internal inconsistencies as well as glaring incompatibilities with existing conditions. Dynamic sustainability, however, goes beyond this simple model. Dynamic sustainability implies that a policy actually harnesses some of the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that shape the environment in which the policy is deployed; a dynamically sustainable policy can be expected to achieve a higher degree of success than other policies and engender processes that may, in the long run, make it possible to reduce or even stop policy intervention because a policy’s goals can be achieved without it. Simple and dynamic sustainability should not be seen as watertight compartments but rather as a continuum. Consider, for example, ­policies aimed at protecting and promoting regional or minority languages (RMLs). A policy focusing on reducing the cost of minoritylanguage activities, by subsidizing goods and services such as ­minority-language children’s books or minority-language radio stations, can display “simple sustainability” if its financial cost is modest and perceived as such and if it actually contributes to minority-­ language maintenance. However, the use of the minority language for activities like reading bedtime stories or listening to the radio on a long drive may drop severely if the subsidization is discontinued. Consider, by contrast, a policy aimed at restoring the social prestige of a long-neglected language, thus encouraging speakers’ sense of legitimacy and pride when they use it. Such a policy is more likely to be dynamically sustainable, because it will stimulate social demand for situations where the minority language can be used and foster a “self-priming mechanism” of language reproduction (Fishman 1991).1 The issues addressed in this chapter sit astride simple and dynamic sustainability, illustrating the continuity between them.

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M a k in g S e n s e o f Di versi ty: Is It In c r e as in g o r Decreas i ng? The term “diversity” is being bandied about so much nowadays that it may elicit reactions of lassitude. It is telling that an editorial in The Economist of 13 February 2016 is entitled “Diversity Fatigue.” This editorial points out that, in order for diversity to generate positive effects on the workplace, good intentions are not enough. They need to be complemented by hard, targeted work to embrace and process the cultural or linguistic diversity embodied in people and, thus, make the most of it. However, linguistic and cultural diversity throw up challenges that go well beyond the weariness that this demanding “diversity processing” entails. Both linguistic and cultural diversity provide classic fault lines between groups competing over material and symbolic resources. This is, per se, nothing new; contributions across the disciplines in the social sciences and beyond, including anthropology (van den Berghe 1987), political science (Smith 1991; Gellner 1997), evolutionary biology (Diamond 2013), or the combination of neurosciences with philosophy (Greene 2013), remind us that ethnicity, language, and culture are primary categories of identification for human groups. Therefore, they constitute dimensions around which inter-group rivalries may easily crystallize in terms of “us” and “them,” and ill-­ intentioned interests are adept at exploiting this proclivity. What is relatively new, however, is the sharply increased visibility of linguistic and cultural diversity, both in the material aspects of social reality and in their virtual reflection in media, political, and scientific discourse. Whereas throughout much of history diversity could be circumscribed or relatively easily avoided, it is more difficult to ignore in the early twenty-first century. That said, this seemingly self-evident (and, at any rate, often heard) observation requires qualification. On the one hand, there is no doubt that large tracts of the population are urbanized; economically advanced societies are confronted, in their daily lives, with far more linguistic and cultural diversity than would have been the case two generations ago. The number of international migrants worldwide in 2015 was close to 244 million, 57.6 per cent of whom were in developed regions.2 For example, as of 1 January 2016, the twenty-eight member states of the European Union (EU) were home to almost 50 million foreign-born residents

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(16 million of whom were born in another member state and 33.5 million of whom were born outside the EU ). This is close to 10 per cent, and it greatly exceeds that proportion in urban areas, Brussels (with a rate of 44 per cent in 2014) being a good example.3 Until a few decades ago, the encounter with diversity was comparatively rare and most people could avoid it relatively easily by remaining within the confines of a particular town and its surroundings. Even after the industrial revolution made it possible for an affluent minority to travel farther afield, “otherness” largely remained “elsewhere,” and nationstates maintained relatively clear boundaries between homogeneous linguistic spheres; living in early twentieth-century Stuttgart, Amsterdam, or Lyon meant that everyday life was conducted mainly in German, Dutch, or French, or regional variants of these languages. But nowadays, diversity can hardly be avoided, whether materially or virtually. This increased presence of diversity or “otherness” may be traced back to a combination of reasons. These include the geopolitical upheavals symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which have allowed the re-emergence and reassertion of a collection of minority languages and cultures that had experienced decades of repression. There was widely held belief that they would disappear, if only because modernity demanded it. At a symbolic level, this source of visible diversity certainly matters, and it is, of course, existentially crucial to the communities concerned. However, the demographic figures involved are relatively modest. A numerically far more important source of diversity in the everyday life of residents of prosperous Western countries is, of course, immigration. Thus, we may quickly be led to conclude that one of the effects of globalization is an increase in diversity. Let us immediately note that this increase is not equally evident everywhere. It is, in fact, rather Eurocentric to assume that the encounter with the linguistic and cultural Other is a fact of daily life always and everywhere (a point made by Phillipson 2012 or Pavlenko 2016). What is true in the streets of Toronto, Brussels, or Sydney does not hold in provincial Russian, Japanese, or Brazilian towns, which remain overwhelmingly Russian-, Japanese-, or Portuguese-speaking. Still, in the major urban centres of prosperous countries, there has been a notable increase in diversity over the course of two or three generations. For example, between 2009 and 2014, cities like Oslo, Rome, London, or Munich experienced, on average, yearly population growth rates ranging from

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1.2 per cent to 1.8 per cent, in which the foreign-born constitute a majority (see preceding note).4 On the other hand, however, diversity is decreasing mainly because small languages are progressively falling into disuse and are no longer passed on intergenerationally. Recent years have witnessed the deaths of the last remaining native speakers of Sowa in Vanuatu (whose last native speaker reportedly passed away in 2000), Akkala Sámi in Russia (2003), Eyak in Alaska (2008), or Aka-Bo in the Andaman Islands (2010). Even if we avoid the misleading metaphor of “language death,” there is no doubt that diversity is rapidly diminishing both because elements of diversity are disappearing and because, as a consequence, the population of the world is concentrated on a smaller number of languages. Furthermore, diversity is decreasing because the differences between locales, whose specific character is embodied in, among other traits, a set of linguistic and cultural features, is eroding. One of the manifestations of globalization is the worldwide spread of certain patterns of consumption and accepted modes of behaviour, whether in terms of food, music, interpersonal relational patterns or material artefacts. It is possible to watch the same television series and to eat the same dishes practically everywhere in the world. One may conclude, therefore, that diversity, far from increasing, is actually decreasing. All told then, which way is diversity headed given that we have equally compelling reasons for saying that diversity is increasing and, on the contrary, decreasing? This apparent paradox can be resolved by making a distinction between objective and subjective diversity. Objective diversity is reflected in the number of different elements that make up diversity (what the specialized literature calls “richness”) as well as in the relative non-concentration on a small cluster of elements in a given space (what the literature calls “evenness”). At a global level, there can be little doubt that, for the reasons listed in the preceding paragraph, diversity is decreasing. However, we do not necessarily confront this aggregate diversity every day. What we are actually experiencing in our daily lives is subjective diversity, which is more pervasive on average even when the major differences between countries, or between urban centres and rural areas, are taken into account. Thus, it is true that diversity is simultaneously increasing and decreasing – but these twin and opposing trends are unfolding at different rates. Unravelling this first paradox of diversity quickly leads us to address another – namely, that diversity is simultaneously threatening and

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threatened. It is threatened in the case of small, marginalized languages whose last native speakers are passing away; but it is often perceived as threatening when certain languages and cultures take a foothold in social, political, and cultural spheres in which they were previously unknown, or practically never observed, and in which they start competing for wavelength in radio stations, time in school syllabuses, recognition in public administration, or funding for the translation of public documents. There, again, diversity is evidenced through seemingly opposite features; resolving this second paradox of diversity requires us to acknowledge that not all components of diversity exhibit these features to the same degree, or that the extent to which they do depends on context. Some languages are perceived as threatening rather than threatened, while the reverse holds true for other languages, and the same language may be in one position in a given context and in the other position in another. Summing up, linguistic and cultural diversity, though not a novel phenomenon, is one whose complexity is embodied in increasingly frequently observable paradoxes. It has always called for the involvement of the state, whether to offer protection (when diversity is threatened) or arbitration (when diversity is threatening). What is new, however, is that globalization has modified the terms in which diversity is experienced. First, globalization reduces objective diversity while strengthening subjective diversity on average (with, however, considerable variation across contexts). Second, it weakens threatened components of diversity while increasing the presence of other components often perceived as threatening. Third, and as a consequence, it reinforces the necessity of public policies for diversity management, with missions encompassing protection as well as arbitration at different scales – that is, at the micro level of individual choices, at the meso level of organizations (such as businesses, universities, etc.), and at the macro level of society as a whole. In other words, public policies for diversity management are proving increasingly necessary (Grin and Rossiaud 1999; Haskell 2002) just as they are becoming increasingly complex. This underscores the need for these policies to be sustainable and has important implications for the selection and design of policy. Given that these challenges emerge in the wake of globalization, one temptation may be to develop containment strategies in the hope of warding off globalization, and some politicians do advocate various modes of “deglobalization.” It is difficult, however, to expect that

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globalization, notwithstanding localized expressions of backlash, can seriously be reversed, in particular because of the growing international integration in the production processes of goods and services as well as the rapid development of information and communication technologies. It does not follow that any form of globalization should be uncritically embraced; rather, we need to devote more attention to the concept of alter-globalization, a provisional calque from the earlier French term altermondialisation, which, surprisingly, still seems to have no widely used English-language equivalent.

D iv e rs it y V e rs u s “ S uperdi vers i ty” The foregoing considerations about diversity in general highlight the increased importance of policies of official multilingualism and multiculturalism, but given how stretchable these notions are (and how far they are actually stretched in some debates about linguistic and cultural diversity), it is important to clarify what they actually mean. As Albert Camus famously wrote, “mal nommer un objet, c’est contribuer au malheur du monde [misnaming things adds to the misfortunes of the world].”5 A convenient entry point into this discussion is the notion of change, in particular those changes that are brought on by processes of globalization, which we shall try to characterize – rather than define – through some of their major effects on diversity. One of them is a qualitative mutation of the phenomenon of migration. This mutation is reflected in four types of diversification, affecting •

•

•

•

the linguistic and cultural pairs that combine migrants’ origin and destination; migration trajectories, with a higher occurrence of onward and return migration; the socio-economic profiles of migrants, including in terms of age group and education; and the motivations and goals of migration.

In light of the above, it is arguably preferable to think less in terms of classic “migration” than in terms of “mobility.” Classic migration, of course, still occurs, but the term mobility does justice more readily to the complexity of these four diversifications of which classic patterns of migration (from late nineteenth-century Norwegian migration

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to the US Northwest to Italians’ relocation in Argentina and Turkish Gastarbeiter in Germany) offer specific examples. These four types of diversification combine with other trends that characterize modern diversity in important ways – in particular, as noted above, the re-legitimation of traditional languages and cultures, from Welsh in Britain to Inuktitut in Canada. Together, they lend renewed and heightened saliency to diversity in many linguistic environments across the world even if, as discussed earlier, this must not be construed as a universal development. To describe this increased saliency of diversity, the term “superdiversity,” attributed to Vertovec (2007), has gained considerable popularity. Superdiversity – at least in the United Kingdom, which was the case Vertovec was referring to – is said to be characterized by “a dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socioeconomically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants who have arrived over the last decade” (ibid., 1024). The vagueness and elusive character of “superdiversity,” as well as the problematic conditions of its spread in sociolinguistic discourse, have been exposed by Pavlenko (2016). My problem with “superdiversity,” apart from its imprecision, resides in the way in which it is typically used, which misrepresents diversity by confusing the part with the whole. Given its explicit focus on immigrants, it ignores other contributors to diversity – not just the traditional linguistic minorities and national minorities mentioned before, first and foremost in Europe (Grin 2013), but also Indigenous or Aboriginal groups whose situation is generally considered through the prism of separate strands of research in the social sciences (Grin 2003a). By definition, diversity is diverse; it is the joint product of all its components, including traditional minorities and, of course, majorities. By focusing on some components of diversity and erasing others, the concept of superdiversity is often used, unnecessarily, in an exclusionary way. What might merely be a surprising (but, for that matter, no less regrettable) oversight also has, however, awkward implications because of the normative undertones involved, which raise two distinct issues. On the one hand, diversity is liable to be instrumentalized in political debates. This risk is very evident in some strands of contemporary academic and political discourse in which “diversity” is adorned with a host of virtues such as openness, equality, justice, fairness, respect, understanding, and so forth (Berrey 2015), but the

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resulting policy choices may end up having little to do with the actual vitality of multilingual and multicultural experience (Minowitz 2016). On the other hand, there is a debate over the value and relevance of diversity as something good (versus something bad) and, from an economic perspective, over the extent to which diversity must be seen as a public good along the same lines as environmental quality (Grin 2003b; van Parijs 2004). I am referring to this latter debate. Results from normative political theory and from the language policy literature (including that inspired by economics) conclude, for the most part, that linguistic diversity is preferable to uniformity (Ricento 2015; Gazzola and Wickström 2016). This is borne out by evidence not just on the rates of return on investment in second or foreign language skills (Grin, Sfreddo and Vaillancourt 2010) but also on the effects of diversity on GD P per capita in developing countries (Arcand and Grin 2013). By and large, therefore, research indicates that, whether from a normative or a positive standpoint, diversity is generally something good. Of course, different components of diversity generate positive effects for society in different ways, through different processes, and their impact will be of a different magnitude, but there is no reason, when celebrating linguistic and cultural diversity, for an a priori exclusion of some of its components, lest we profess that some forms of diversity are intrinsically superior to others. For all of the above reasons, it seems preferable to avoid the term “superdiversity” and to resort to more rigorous concepts such as “complex diversity” (Kraus 2012), which is well suited to understanding mobility and stresses the social and political implications of the four types of diversification mentioned earlier. The related concept of “deep diversity” (Grin 2018) emphasizes the need to consider the interconnections among the micro, meso, and macro levels where linguistic diversity occurs – that is, the micro-level events of everyday personal life, the strategies of meso-level organizations like firms, and the macro-level context of diversity in a country, or even in the world, as a whole. Not only should these three levels be considered simultaneously, but their influence on each other must also be taken into account. Therefore, policies addressing multilingualism and multiculturalism have implications, some unintended, that emerge at different scales, as defined earlier. This is particularly evident under conditions of globalization, where the local level can hardly be insulated from processes occurring at a larger scale while local events may be given immediate international visibility through a growing variety of communication channels.

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On t h e M a k e u p o f L ingui sti c Di versi ty Discourses on multilingualism and linguistic diversity often make a set of twin assumptions in which, unfortunately, the difference between a normative stance and a positive proposition also tends to get blurred. These assumptions relate to the question of boundaries, whose role and meaning are unavoidably affected by globalization. The first assumption is that the boundaries between components of diversity are eroding (as a matter of empirical fact); the second is that these boundaries should erode (because boundaries are somehow suspect and preferably dismantled and eliminated). Both assumptions are doubtful, albeit for different reasons. Consider, first, the notion of boundaries between languages. This is, of course, a classic question that has attracted linguists’ attention since the early days of the discipline, where it is linked to the question “what is language?” (Calvet 2004). Recent discussions, however, insist on the importance of developing a multilingual “conception of plurilingualism” (Lüdi, Höchle, Meier, and Yanaprasart 2016) to avoid fixed visions of languages as “idealised, timeless and decontextualized ‘objects’” (ibid., 11). A number of sociolinguists, like Shohamy (2006), emphasize the intrinsic hybridity of (any) language, and others, such as contributors to volumes edited by Makoni and Pennycook (2007) or Blommaert, Rampton, and Spotti (2011), call into question the very possibility of distinguishing between “named” languages since they are supposedly transcended by actual practices in multilingual communication. One step further takes us into the lands of (trans)languaging (García 2010; Creese and Blackledge 2010). The actual usefulness of terms like “languaging” and “translanguaging” is open to question, but they are by and large unproblematic if they only refer to what essentially amounts to classic code-switching. A classic example is that of a pedagogical sequence in which “pupils do their work in a language other than that in which information was presented to them” (Edwards 2012, 35). These terms are more disturbing when they are used to encapsulate the sweeping claim that the very notion of distinct languages is wrong. Proponents of languaging claim that the notion of distinct languages is a misleading construct, best ignored or even discarded, simply because “translanguaging makes it apparent that there are no clear-cut boundaries between the languages of bilinguals” (Creese and Blackledge 2010, 555). On the strength of a somewhat idiosyncratic interpretation of the speech of (some) bilinguals in specific contexts, many authors following this

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line of argument boldly extend their interpretation to speech in general and conclude that actors do not produce discourse in languages like “German,” “English,” or “Wolof,” which are mere “inventions.” They are, instead, “languaging” – communicating by drawing on the full range of their linguistic repertoires rather than using identifiable, distinct languages. Edwards (2012, 36) dismisses this stance as “the height of absurdity” and we can easily observe that a group of speakers of English or French (even if they are fluent bilinguals in English and French) will not understand their Thai-speaking interlocutors in the streets of Bangkok unless they have learned Thai. Let us therefore restate the obvious, since this is apparently necessary: we may “language” as much as we want, but the reality remains that, “for all ordinary intents and purposes, there are separate languages, and there are distinct varieties within them” (ibid.); and for all the solecisms that may be spotted in this chapter, drafted by a non-native speaker of English, the language used here arguably remains (mostly) English – not, say, French, Wolof, or Thai. Globalization and the confrontation with complex, deep (and even “super”) diversity do not alter these basic facts, and “named” languages remain relevant constructs for describing, analyzing, and acting upon reality.6 The normative take on the question of the separability of languages raises different questions. Many participants in the contemporary academic conversation on multilingualism appear to agree (independently of the empirical validity, or lack thereof, of the claim that inter-linguistic boundaries do not exist or that if they ever did, they exist less and less as a result of globalization) that the erosion of such boundaries is a good thing.7 The usually implicit ethical justification for such a stance seems to be that the very belief in the existence of “named languages” contributes to oppression – not only, as suggested by Bourdieu, the oppression, in a given linguistic space, of the common people by cultivated elites who have mastered a variant of the language better conforming to grammatical norms but also the oppression, by speakers of a national and / or official language, of others (such as migrants) who live their linguistic lives astride languages and are therefore the vessels par excellence of the hybridity of contemporary society. Linguistic hybridization is then construed as heralding a genuinely post-modern, globalized, and cosmopolitan world. Similarly, holding on to the notion that named languages actually exist, or even promoting some of these languages, is misguided,

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backward-looking, and ideologically suspect (see Bale 2016, for an insightful rejoinder to the critique of language rights). Should we, therefore, indeed welcome as a good thing the (professed) erosion of boundaries between language(s)? My answer to this question is “probably not,” because as I shall try to show in the next few paragraphs, the celebration of the blurring of these distinctions, even if it is made (and it probably is) with the best of intentions, is objectively complicit with linguistic hegemony and is ultimately an instrument of linguistic imperialism. It is worth first recalling that, of course, people’s language practices are complex and often draw from varied and multi-faceted linguistic “resources.” It goes without saying (but nobody would deny it anyway) that languages are porous and that macro-level “linguaspheres,” such as the Romance languages, the Germanic languages, etc., may be seen as continua in which “named” languages like Italian, Provençal, Occitan, Catalan, Castilian, Gallego, and Portuguese once blended into each other. The whole project of intercompréhension (see Escudé and Janin 2010 for a well-targeted introduction), which has been actively supported by, among others, the European Commission (Blanche-Benveniste 2008), acknowledges this porosity and proposes to make use of it to develop language awareness and support language learning. It is, therefore, simply wrong to claim that there is generalized hostility toward the notion that languages are porous and may blend into each other, or that some sinister agencies (researchers? teachers? education ministries?) are wedded to the notion that languages are discrete, separate, and closed sets. However, the denial of not just the existence, but the legitimacy of named languages recasts minority and Aboriginal language activists as hapless victims of false consciousness whose struggle is tainted by association with concepts typically used by oppressors. For example, promoting the use of Tzotzil in the Mexican state of Chiapas, of Welsh in Wales, or of Pitjantjatjara-Yankunytjantjara in the Australian Western Desert and, for this purpose, promoting these languages themselves, should no longer be regarded as a worthy endeavour, but as an essentialist, reifying, and potentially nationalist error. Celebrating “languaging” comes perilously close to a dismissal of the whole linguistic human rights (L HR ) approach, blithely ignoring the fact that it is precisely in the L H R literature that members of linguistically “minoritized” groups find some of the conceptual, political, and legal tools necessary to their struggle. As pointed out by Kubota (2014,

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477), “far from being liberatory and celebratory, hybridity, when assigned a superior status, can become oppressive.” Considering such implications, which can be characterized as a form of intellectual disenfranchisement of genuinely oppressed groups, the academic sleight of hand that results in the delegitimation of “named” languages borders on the irresponsible and, arguably, amounts to an expression of imperialism. The foregoing discussion suggests that the choice of instruments with which we approach diversity matters both analytically and politically. We need tools that enable us to select and design policies for multilingualism and multiculturalism that identify their objects appropriately, making allowances for their complexity and fluidity. And, to the extent that stakeholders themselves demonstrate their awareness of the specific nature of linguistic and cultural traits (constructed or invented as the latter may be), the issue of “us and them” unavoidably resurfaces. The rest of this chapter addresses this issue. It does so, however, using a somewhat non-traditional approach by focusing on two issues: first, the identification of the locus of the boundary, in terms of language and culture, between “us” and “them”; second, the conditions that must be met for people to navigate the boundary, which does not necessarily mean erasing it, let alone denying its existence, but instead taking advantage of it as something that can be discovered, enjoyed, and possibly even put to use by exploiting its porousness. After all, the widely held belief, for which hard evidence is progressively emerging (Fürst and Grin 2017), that diversity fosters creativity presupposes that the elements making up diversity differ from each other; hence, there must be a point, a line, or possibly a transitional zone making it possible to distinguish between these elements.

As s e s s in g t h e A c c e p ta b ili ty of Othernes s As demonstrated above, •

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Linguistic diversity is manifested in the presence of elements that differ from each other through a host of identifiable markers. In plainer words, there are distinct languages, which differ from each other in terms of morphology, syntax, lexicon, and phonology – despite the obfuscation that the notion of “languaging” can create – and recognition of this plain fact in

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•

•

•

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no way requires a “fixist” or static view of language (one of the “straw men” denounced by Edwards 2012). Acknowledging this diversity between identifiable elements is a condition for oppressed linguistic groups to have some of the conceptual tools required in their struggle for recognition, as well as for the production and reproduction of their languages and cultures, which are themselves components of aggregate diversity. Diversity presupposes, by definition, the presence of mutually distinct elements, and it is precisely this non-similarity that is often celebrated as conducive to creativity and innovation; thus, the boundaries between them (as points, lines, or transitional zones) are part and parcel of diversity. Accepting the existence of boundaries, then, is a precondition for turning them to advantage; far from being a (necessary or unnecessary) evil, boundaries are consubstantial with diversity and they can be crossed to generate positive encounters and fruitful combinations.

My exploration of the nature of linguistic and cultural boundaries rests on a model whose core concept is tolerability, or acceptability – more specifically, the degree to which an expression of otherness or difference (a non-local language, a foreign mode of attire, or behavioural patterns that clearly differ from those of the majority) is easy or, on the contrary, difficult to accept for members of the majority. This issue is very close to one familiar to Canadian or at least Québécois readers under the name of reasonable accommodation (Bouchard and Taylor 2008), but with a slightly different focus – namely, on the identification of the features that make an expression of otherness acceptable or unacceptable. The theoretical side of the model (Grin 2007) has been empirically tested with a data set of over 40,000 respondents (Grin et al. 2015). Participants were Swiss young men reporting for military service, and rather than with a sample, we are dealing with nearly the entire population of nineteen-year-old male citizens over two consecutive years. This section aims not to provide a complete account of the theoretical or empirical parts of the research, but rather to simply highlight how some results can help define sustainability in diversity management policies. Bearing this goal in mind, it is important to note that the distinction between what is acceptable or not carries no normative implications whatsoever; the model is merely designed to identify and

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measure, through survey data, where the boundary is located and how it can be characterized. It follows that, just like a certain type of accommodation may be considered reasonable or not in a given society at a given point in its history, a boundary may shift. For example, certain types of ethnic and sexist jokes, which would have been considered harmless two generations ago, are seen as impermissible today. This approach makes it possible to overcome the often circular discourse of tolerance. A person or group may be deemed more or less tolerant, but people’s degree of tolerance is impossible to evaluate without reference to the specific situations or patterns of behaviour that they may be asked to tolerate. If tolerance is gauged exclusively through responses to relatively anodyne expressions of difference (say, the existence of ethnic restaurants in their neighbourhood or the use of various languages by fellow commuters on the bus back home from work), most people will appear “tolerant.” If the same people are polled on their assessment of different, perhaps less innocuous, expressions of otherness (such as the refusal by some expats to condescend to learning the local language despite years of residence or the wearing, in Western Europe, of the burqa, the full Islamic dress for women), survey results are sure to reveal that the same population is in fact “intolerant.” Classic resolutions of the conundrum, then, require lengthy and ever-tentative dissertations on the limits of tolerance, the limits of the tolerable, and so forth (discussed in Grin 2007). Another approach to this vexing problem, however, may open up new perspectives; people may demonstrate, in fact, neither tolerance nor intolerance but rather a certain degree of toleration, which itself is the joint result of two features. The first is, indeed, their unobserved degree of tolerance and the second, the degree of tolerability, which is not directly measured either, of the expressions of otherness they are being asked about. Assessments of tolerance and tolerability can only be derived from observations on professed or declared toleration. The delicate work of teasing apart tolerance and tolerability from data on toleration yields a host of novel results with possible applications to the selection and design of diversity management policies (Grin et al. 2015). The data may also be used for a slightly different purpose by submitting the toleration items to factor analysis. Factor analysis generates what is known in quantitative research as “dimensions,” which bring together subsets of items on the basis of the correlations between respondents’ answers to these items. These subsets of items may be interpreted in terms of latent features and, in our

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case, the features with respect to which boundaries are drawn between the acceptable and the unacceptable. The forty-eight items of the scale used in the questionnaire generate three dimensions, namely the following: •

•

•

openness to foreign presence (OF P ), which brings together items about the presence (as opposed to the absence) of foreign-born residents; the relativization of Swiss norms (RS N ), which brings together items concerning public and political life; and accommodation to foreign cultures (AF C), which brings together items describing possible forms of accommodation to foreign cultures in specific situations.

Perhaps the single most important result of this analysis resides in the contrast between these dimensions, which shows that different aspects of the attitudes toward difference should not be amalgamated; a high score on the first dimension (O F P ), revealing a generally positive attitude toward the presence of otherness, does not necessarily imply the readiness, by the same respondents, to call into question certain established norms regarding, for example, gender equality. Conversely, the rejection of some manifestations of otherness or even the unwillingness to countenance particular forms of accommodation does not imply an outright rejection of foreigners. Responses vary according to respondents’ characteristics, such as their socio-economic background, the extent of their experience of travel to foreign countries and, not surprisingly, their political sympathies. By contrast, religious sentiment has virtually no impact (see Grin et al. 2015, ch. 7, for details). The extent of such variation, however, is not the same for all three dimensions. It is marked for the first and third but negligible for the second (with a data set of this magnitude, all the effects measured are statistically significant, and their magnitudes can be reliably compared). The fact that the second factor (R S N ) ranks low for all subgroups, including those who simultaneously exhibit higher scores on the two other factors, hence displaying positive attitudes regarding the presence of foreigners (OFP) as well as accommodation in various specific domains (A F C ), is of particular interest to the questions addressed in this chapter. It is worth recalling that the items combined into the RSN dimension are mainly those that concern core principles of social

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and political life, such as acceptance of gender equality8 and freedom of expression, as well as respect for democratic institutions. These items constitute a set of apparently non-negotiable values, revealing a strong expectation among the majority population that immigrants will display a willingness to integrate into Swiss society by espousing these core values. Thus, the real diversity management issue is not the presence (versus absence) of diversity, or even its extent, but rather the terms on which the “them” of diversity meshes with its “us.” Our data confirms that citizens set great store by integration, placing the Swiss population, with its German-, French-, and Italian-speaking communities, closer to the “republican” model, often said to characterize French political culture, than to the “multiculturalist” model, frequently associated with the British, Canadian, or Australian approaches (Fourest 2016). It would, of course, be rash to extrapolate to the population at large, across age groups, from a survey of 40,000 nineteen-year-old men.9 However, the data set is exceptionally detailed, and the information was gathered through items describing situations of confrontation with otherness found anywhere in developed economies. It stands to reason that attitudes toward otherness are likely to be different in continental Western Europe, on the one hand, and countries like Canada, the United States, Argentina, and Australia, on the other, whose self-perceptions have long been that of immigration countries. Yet even if multiculturalist models may fare better in the second group of countries, the difference may be one of degree that varies across political cultures. Across countries, the sustainability of diversity management policies hinges on the lucid differentiation between distinct issues, such as those identified through the factor analysis results reported above.

C o n c l u s ion The foregoing considerations, both theoretical and empirical, have several implications for public policies on multilingualism and multiculturalism. It seems clear that linguistic and cultural diversity is materialized in people’s experience of it, which hinges on the differences between elements of diversity. It follows that boundaries between these elements are important objective and subjective conditions of diversity. But this positive observation must be complemented by a normative

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one. In his essay in praise of boundaries, Éloge des frontières, the philosopher Debray points out that boundaries are ethically legitimate because they offer protection to the relatively powerless against the elite project of world cosmopolitanism, which serves the interests of the powerful. In a pithy summary, he notes that “the continued existence, over the long run, of an individual or collective person is achieved at the cost of a wise humiliation, namely, that of not being everywhere at home” (Debray 2010, 36). This, of course, constitutes a challenge for policies on multilingualism and multiculturalism. From a historical and philosophical perspective, Gauchet observes, Immigration is presented by the elites as something that should not be seen as belonging to the realm of the political nor be subjected to the authority of states. The unsaid but powerful principle underpinning this view is that of radical universalism. According to this principle, the planet is peopled only by individuals, who must be able to settle where they please … The problem, however, is not whether one must or must not rub shoulders with migrants; the problem is the representation of the global world enmeshed in the discourse on immigration … We are confronting a fantasy of radical destruction in the name of freedom … Behind this freedom, we find the rationale of an idea implemented in the name of a neoliberal ideology. (Gauchet 2016, 339–49) Gauchet is talking about the “destruction” of a set of references (one might also call them resources) through which local or national communities define themselves and build their self-representation. However, the ideology criticized in this quote carries the additional risk of destruction, or at least endangerment, of diversity itself because it undermines the difference between loci as well as the moral and political acceptability of differentiation. This ideology hinges on the notion that acknowledging difference or, worse, suggesting that it serves a politically legitimate and ethically worthy purpose is intrinsically xenophobic or essentialist. But such an interpretation is deeply wrong; it is precisely the existence of difference (including, importantly, the difference between languages and between the places where they are used) that makes mutual enrichment possible. It bears repeating here that the acknowledgment of differences between components of

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diversity is neither essentialist nor static; languages and cultures obviously change over time and influence each other, but it does not follow that they ipso facto cease to exist or make sense. The denial of differences between components of diversity and the denunciation of boundaries between them also ignores the fact that, despite its costs, diversity carries, on balance, net advantages. These include material as well as symbolic aspects. Some of the literature on the economics of this matter has already been discussed, but additional arguments are emerging from current research on the links between people’s linguistic and cultural diversity on the one hand and their creativity on the other (Kharkhurin 2012; Fürst and Grin 2017), which demonstrates the existence of statistically significant and positive correlations between them. This discussion has attempted to show that policies of official multiculturalism and multilingualism are more necessary – but also more complex – than ever. Much work remains to be done to improve our understanding of this complexity. In the meantime, a general principle may guide us in the policy decisions that nevertheless need to be made in the short run. When confronting difficult choices, it is useful to refer to an ethos of diversity for inspiration. Without entering the philosophical debate on the tension between diversity and universalism, let us recall that diversity is a condition of universality. This ethos may also occasionally lead us to restrict diversity in certain contexts by applying, for example, a principle of language territoriality to guarantee a higher overall extent and vitality of diversity. But it is itself a reflection of an ethos of curiosity toward the Other and the Different. Affirming this ethos is perhaps the most fundamental condition of an effective, fair, and sustainable diversity.

N otes

Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (FTI), University of Geneva. An earlier version of this text was presented as the Maxwell Cummings Distinguished Lecture at McGill University, Montreal, on 5 May 2016. This paper has benefited from insightful comments by several colleagues at this and other events. The usual disclaimer applies.   1 The relative degree of sustainability of different measures for R ML protection and promotion is explored in the language economics literature (see, for example, Grin 2016).

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 2 International Migrant Stock: The 2017 Revision. United Nations Population Division, https://esa.un.org/migration/index.asp?panel=1.  3 Urban Europe – Statistics on Cities, Towns and Suburbs – Foreign-born Persons Living in Cities. Eurostat, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-​ explained/index.php/Urban_Europe_%E2%80%94_­statistics_on_cities,_ towns_and_suburbs_%E2%80%94_foreign-born_­persons_living_in_ cities. The reader is invited to bear in mind that this ratio is crucially dependent on the definition of the “city” adopted to compute it; other sources place the percentage of foreign-born in Brussels at 62 per cent.   4 This raises the question of the choice of proper indicators for the evolution of actors’ aggregate exposure to diversity in different locales. To my knowledge, the research on “linguistic landscapes,” which can usefully reveal patterns of unequal recognition and influence among different languages, has not proposed such a metric. An overwhelming majority of commentators appears to agree with Hollinger (1995) that we have been witnessing a “diversification of diversity,” although as Pavlenko (2016) rightly notes, this must be duly qualified. A formal measure of multilingualism at time t in locale l, using Zipf’s law, is suggested in Grin (2017, 180–1).   5 This quote, which comes from a relatively little-known essay by Albert Camus published in 1944, has become popular in a slightly altered form. See http://jeanpierredacheux.blogspot.ch/2011/01/mal-nommer-est-­ meurtrier.html.   6 Interestingly, as noted by many commentators (see Grin, Sfreddo, and Vaillancourt 2010, 195n12; Pavlenko 2016, 22–2), the authors who insist on the epistemological invalidity of (named) languages keep referring to them in their writing. As the joke goes, people who believe the earth is flat are found all around the globe.   7 The disturbing implications of this view, which is apparently espoused by many contributors to The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism, are eloquently captured in a review of this volume by Phillipson, who observes that “[t]he impression is created that while social injustice regrettably occurs, sociolinguists of ‘our times’ should celebrate living in the best of all possible linguistic worlds, and produce academic theorization attuned to it” (2013, 658).   8 The questionnaire exists in French, German, and Italian versions. The French version of this item is worded as follows: “Les étrangers venant s’établir en Suisse doivent adhérer au principe de l’égalité des sexes.”   9 A representative control sample of 1,500 women in the same age bracket generates identical results (see Grin et al. 2015, ch. 9).

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R efer enc e s Arcand, Jean-Louis, and François Grin. 2013. “Language in Economic Development: Is English Special and Is Linguistic Fragmentation Bad?” In English and Development: Policy, Pedagogy and Globalization, edited by Elizabeth Erling and Philip Seargeant, 243–66. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bale, Jeff. 2016. “In Defence of Language Rights: Re-thinking the Rights Orientation from a Political Economy Perspective.” Bilingual Research Journal 39 (3–4): 231–47. Berrey, Ellen. 2015. The Enigma of Diversity: The Language of Race and the Limits of Racial Justice. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Blanche-Benveniste, Claire. 2008. “Comment retrouver l’expérience des anciens voyageurs en terres de langues romanes?” In S’entendre entre langues voisines: vers l’intercompréhension, edited by Virginie Conti and François Grin, 33–51. Geneva: Georg. Blommaert, Jan, Ben Rampton, and Massimiliano Spotti, eds. 2011. Language and Superdiversities. Thematic issue of Diversities 13 (2). Bouchard, Gérard, and Charles Taylor. 2008. Fonder l’avenir. Le temps de la conciliation. Abridged report of the Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodation reliées aux différences culturelles. Québec: Gouvernement du Québec. Calvet, Louis-Jean. 2004. Essais de linguistique: La langue est-elle une invention des linguistes? Paris: Plon. Creese, Angela, and Adrian Blackledge. 2010. “Towards a Sociolinguistics of Superdiversity.” Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft 13 (4): 549–72. Debray, Régis. 2010. Éloge des frontières. Paris: Gallimard. Diamond, Jared. 2013. The World until Yesterday. London: Allen Lane. Edwards, John. 2012. Multilingualism: Understanding Linguistic Diversity. London: Continuum. Escudé, Pierre, and Pierre Janin. 2010. Le point sur l’intercompréhension, clé du plurilinguisme. Paris: CLE International. Fishman, Joshua. 1991. Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Fourest, Caroline. 2016. Le génie de la laïcité. Paris: Grasset. Fürst, Guillaume, and François Grin. 2017. “Multilingualism and Creativity: A Multivariate Approach.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 38: 1–15. doi: https:// doi.org/10.1080/0143 4632.2017.1389948.

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Problematizing the Ethos of Diversity: Majority National Languages and Official Language Policy

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2 Multilingualism without Multiculturalism? The Case of Luxembourg Núria Garcia

In t ro du cti on Luxembourg is characterized by an atypical multilingual constellation marked by the absence of bounded and territorialized language communities. In this sense, the Luxembourgish language situation is fundamentally different from paradigmatic cases such as Canada, Belgium, or Switzerland, where different territorialized language communities have historically coexisted inside the same state and have been in conflict over the status of their respective language. The multilingual character of the Luxembourgish state refers, first of all, to the recognition of more than one official language; since 1848 both French and German may be used as administrative ­languages, while Luxembourgish was not legally recognized as a “national language” until 1984. This official multilingualism goes hand in hand with the existence of a very high proportion of polyglots among the population. According to recent survey data, 84 per cent of the population speak at least two languages in addition to their mother tongue, and 61 per cent declare mastering three languages in addition to their mother tongue (European Commission 2012). This generalized individual multilingualism – which, broadly speaking, covers Luxembourgish, French, and German, the three languages spoken the most widely, and increasingly English – is another distinctive feature setting Luxembourg apart from most officially multilingual countries. Up until very recently, a large consensus and a strong attachment toward the historical model of multilingualism could be observed

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1912: Introduction of Luxembourgish classes in primary school curricula

2015: Referendum on non-­nationals’ voting rights at legislative elections

1984: Language law granting Luxembourgish the status of national language

1970s: Wave of Portuguese immigration

1950s: Wave of Italian immigration

1941: National ­plebiscite in favour of “three times Luxembourgish” against the Nazi occupation

Figure 2.1  Key moments in Luxembourg’s linguistic diversity and language policies

1839: Loss of francophone part to Belgium; Luxembourg becomes “German-speaking”

1815: Independence of Luxembourg

1848: French and German as ­languages of the administration in the constitution



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among Luxembourgish citizens. However, the arrival and increased presence of migrants with different mother tongues, mostly Italian and Portuguese, since the 1960s has led policy makers and various stakeholders to question the adaptability of this model to the contemporary societal context. In this chapter, I will analyze the propensity of the Luxembourgish multilingual model to accommodate increased linguistic diversity generated by immigration flows in a country where foreign residents represent approximately 45 per cent of the overall population. I will argue that, contrary to popular belief, the Luxembourgish model of multilingualism functions as a vector of exclusion instead of favouring the inclusion of the newly arrived. This is due to the fact that the multilingual language regime is not accompanied by multicultural policies accommodating the language rights of minorities. The demonstration will focus on the fields of education and politics where exclusionary mechanisms related to language are particularly salient. In the first two sections, I will present the origins and history of the Luxembourgish multilingual model and examine the formal and informal rules governing language use in Luxembourg. The third section will analyze the limits of the educational system’s capacity to ensure skills in the country’s three languages for children whose mother tongue is not Luxembourgish. The final section will focus on the obstacles created by the Luxembourgish model of multilingualism for the political participation of non-native speakers. This question was at the centre of political debates in June 2015 during the referendum on the question of whether or not to grant voting rights at legislative elections to non-nationals who had resided in Luxembourg for a number of years.

T h e D is t in c t iv e F eatures of the L u xe m b o u r g is h M o d e l o f Multi li nguali s m The Luxembourgish model of multilingualism is a relic from the past, dating back to the nineteenth century. At the time, the choice of Franco-German official bilingualism was used as part of a larger strategy aiming to differentiate Luxembourg from the powerful neighbouring countries, France and Germany. At the same time, the publication of the first dictionaries and literary works in Luxembourgish in the first half of the nineteenth century contributed to the gradual separation of this language from the German dialectal continuum. However, it was not until 1984 that Luxembourgish was proclaimed

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the national language through the adoption of a law by Parliament, while French and German kept the status of official or administrative language they had been granted in 1848.1 With the exception of this parliamentary law on language regime, official regulations regarding language are scarce. Language use is governed primarily by tacit, unwritten rules based on tradition. More specifically, the origins of Luxembourg’s multilingual constellation date back to the creation of the Luxembourgish state. While Luxembourg was recognized as a sovereign state by the Vienna Congress in 1815, it was only after the partition of the old Grand Duchy in 1839 that it became a linguistically homogeneous territory with regard to the spoken language. After the loss of the francophone province of Luxembourg to Belgium, the Luxembourgish population living inside 1839 borders was essentially German-speaking; the vernacular that would be recognized as the Luxembourgish “language” in 1984 was, at the time, considered a German dialect.2 Paradoxically, the French-German bilingual regime was implemented inside a largely German-speaking territory. Luxembourg’s nineteenth-century language policy was one of the means used to distance the country from the cultural influence of the two neighbouring countries; after alternating policies of Germanization and Francization according to changing historical circumstances, the implementation in the 1840s of a bilingual language regime encouraging simultaneously French and German was part of the elite’s strategy to preserve the independence of the country (Baggioni 1997, 338). Language education policies were a central element leading to the emergence of the contemporary multilingual constellation. According to Voss (2010, 34), “bilingualism was decreed ex officio upon a basically purely German-speaking territory. The introduction of compulsory French classes in the Grand-Duchy’s primary schools … was the precondition for Luxembourg to develop over the period of a few generations into a bilingual country.”3 Although the bilingualism implemented in the middle of the nineteenth century continued to spur debates among the elites, a consensus emerged from 1910 onwards around a narrative building on the notion of Mischkultur (literally, mixed culture). By presenting Luxembourg as a combination of the finest elements of both the French and the German cultures, this notion asserted the unique character of the Luxembourgish nation (Péporté et al. 2010, 261–5). The introduction of Luxembourgish classes in primary school curricula in 1912 can be understood in this

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context, since Luxembourgish was seen as a combination of the two “big” neighbouring languages. The teaching of Luxembourgish was not meant, however, to replace that of French and German, and specific provisions for the implementation of these classes remained vague. It has been only since the end of the Second World War that a process of valorization of Luxembourgish within the multilingual constellation has taken place, which led to its institutionalization as the national language in 1984. During the occupation of Luxembourg by Nazi Germany, the Luxembourgish language was mobilized as a means of resistance against the Germanization policy imposed by the occupier. The episode of 10 October 1941 in particular entered collective memory as a decisive turning point; a census organized by the Nazi civil administration to evaluate progress in the Germanization of the country by asking the population to respond to three questions on ethnicity, nationality, and mother tongue was diverted by the Luxembourgish resistance movement. Whereas Nazi propaganda urged the Luxembourgians to respond “German” to each of these questions, the resistance movement called upon the population to respond “Luxembourgish” three times, thus leading the Nazi administration to cancel the census after the counting of vote samples (Scuto 2006). Official historiography represents this episode of “three times Luxembourgish” as a national plebiscite in the sense of Ernest Renan (1947, 904). Hence, at the end of the Second World War, the Luxembourgish language benefited from unprecedented prestige. This did not imply, however, that it was made a political priority. The language question was of little concern in the immediate post-war period, with the result that interest for Luxembourgish declined throughout the 1950s and 1960s. It was not until the early 1970s that the issue of language once again became increasingly salient, its politicization due, to a large extent, to an intense mobilization campaign by the language promotion association Actioun Lëtzebuergesch, created in 1971. The mobilization of these linguistic entrepreneurs achieved considerable success in a context characterized by societal restructurings linked to European integration, the steel crisis, and the fear that the Luxembourgish population would disappear due to the growing numbers of foreigners in the resident population (Garcia 2014b). The 1984 law on language regime granting Luxembourgish the status of national language was thus adopted in response to pressures in favour of its recognition. That said, as the law does not contain specific provisions and financial allocations allowing for the

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promotion and learning of the Luxembourgish language, its effects have so far been primarily symbolic.

T he Im p l e m e n tat io n o f the Multi li ngual M o d e l t h ro u g h Taci t Rules To fully capture the functioning of the current Luxembourgish language regime, it is crucial to take into account not only official regulations but also tacit practices and usage, as well as representations governing language use (Sonntag and Cardinal 2015, 6). With the exception of the courts and the administration, most aspects of public life are not subject to linguistic regulations, and in theory, language choice is free. In reality, however, this freedom is heavily constrained by the weight of tradition, the continued impact of past choices, and complex social logics. Following Joshua Fishman’s theorizations, certain sociolinguists have described the Luxembourgish language constellation as “polyglossia inside a domain structure” (Hoffmann 1996, 123–41). For example, in the written press, articles in French and German can be found in the same newspaper, with a clear predominance of German over French. An exclusively French-language press market did not emerge until the end of the 1990s. Most radio programs, on the other hand, are broadcast in Luxembourgish only, although a French translation is available for television programs aired in the national language. In the areas of social life where language use is, in principle, unrestricted, the choice of one language over another is not neutral and is often conditioned by social status; a study conducted in 1996 showed that, while German is the most frequently used language in Luxembourgians’ private correspondence, two-thirds of the middle and upper classes favour French (Hoffmann 1996, 134–5). In the absence of an explicit language policy, informal practice has led to the creation of a stock of shared knowledge on the appropriate language to use in the different areas of public and private life. Building on Pierre Bourdieu’s theories, the sociologist Fernand Fehlen has shown that official multilingualism conceals the existence of what he terms a single legitimate language competence involving differential linguistic skills in Luxembourgish, French, and German. This legitimate competence requires first of all an in-depth knowledge of Luxembourgish, in the dialect of the centre region (koinè), with

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frequent borrowing of words from the French language … Then, [it requires] a good knowledge of school French,4 the written practice being at least as important as the oral one … Knowledge of German is required, but (too) good a command of the language is not well looked upon. German is used to write down what is thought or said in Luxembourgish.5 (Fehlen 1998, 16) This single multilingual competence has remained more or less unchanged, even though the arrival of large numbers of migrants has significantly altered the balance between the different languages present in Luxembourg. The conclusion of bilateral migrant labour agreements with Italy and Portugal led to a wave of Italian immigration in the 1950s and an influx of Portuguese migrant workers in the 1970s. As a result of these migration flows, and because of the small size of the country, Luxembourg is characterized today by a particularly high percentage of foreign residents compared to most European countries; according to official statistics, in 2017 non-national residents accounted for 47.7 per cent of the 590,667 inhabitants of Luxembourg. Among these foreign residents, 85 per cent are citizens of another EU member state. Notably, 34 per cent are Portuguese, 16 per cent French, 8 per cent Italian, 7 per cent Belgian, and 5 per cent German. The diversity of the population is reflected in the languages spoken in Luxembourg. The most recent national census, conducted in 2011, for the first time included questions on the language individuals spoke the best,6 as well as on the languages used at home and in the workplace. With respect to language use and skills, survey data based on a representative sample remain, however, the only available measures. The data collected in the context of the 2008 Baleine study and represented in table 2.1 below show the variation of individuals’ linguistic repertoires according to their nationality. French is the language spoken the most widely among the population as a whole, while there are important differences in proficiency in Luxembourgish and German between Luxembourgish nationals, on the one hand, and foreign residents, on the other. This data further shows the prominence of other languages – such as Portuguese and Italian, which are not accounted for by official multilingualism – together with increasing competency in English throughout the entire population. The difference between Luxembourgish nationals and foreign residents is even starker when it comes to the language spoken most

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Table 2.1  Language repertoires of the Luxembourgish population – multiple responses possible French Luxemb. German English Portuguese Italian Other Luxembourgians

96%

98%

92%

68%

5%

13%

10%

Foreign residents

94%

54%

50%

48%

41%

20%

22%

Entire population

95%

80%

75%

60%

20%

16%

17%

Source: Baleine 2008, quoted in Fehlen 2009, 81.

proficiently; the data from the 2011 census represented in table 2.2 shows that Luxembourgish is the language spoken best by 88.8 per cent of Luxembourgians but by only 8 per cent of the foreign residents. Among the latter, Portuguese and French are cited most often as the languages spoken best, while 17 per cent indicate a language other than the five languages most frequently spoken as their best language. Among these “other” languages, the languages of ex-Yugoslavia (Serbian, Bosnian, Serbo-Croatian, etc.), Dutch, and Spanish account for the largest number of speakers. The census and survey data confirm the “complex diversity” (Kraus 2012) characterizing the Luxembourgish language situation and society, where “diversity has become a multidimensional and fluid empirical phenomenon” (ibid., 13). This linguistic diversity represents a new challenge for the traditional Luxembourgish model of multilingualism, which is having difficulty adapting to a new social and linguistic context. As we shall see in the next sections, the limits of the model’s adaptability are most clearly visible in the fields of education and political participation.

T h e L im it s o f t h e E du c ati on S ys tem i n Re p ro du c in g t h e E x is t ing Multi li nguali s m Despite significant changes in the composition of the school population since the middle of the twentieth century, language education in Luxembourg has remained largely unchanged. Language education policies are primarily tailored to the needs of pupils whose mother tongue is Luxembourgish. The educational system’s role in the transmission of the legitimate multilingual competence is ambivalent; while language teaching is a crucial element for the implementation of the multilingual constellation, the system implicitly

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Table 2.2  Language spoken best by the Luxembourgish population – one response possible French Luxemb. German English Portuguese Italian Other Luxembourgians

4.2%

88.8%

1.1%

0.4%

2.3%

0.7%

2.4%

Foreign residents 23.4%

8%

5.9%

4.6%

34.9%

6.1% 17.1%

Entire population 12.1%

55.8%

3.1%

2.1%

15.7%

2.9%

8.4%

Source: Statec 2011 census, quoted in Fehlen and Heinz 2016, 39.

requires that students possess certain language skills – notably, proficiency in the Luxembourgish language – which are, however, not part of the official curriculum. German is the sole language of alphabetization for all pupils, while the teaching of French starts only in the second year of primary school.7 The Luxembourgish language, on the other hand, is not taught systematically; its teaching is limited to a weekly, one-hour lesson during the first two years of secondary school. In the same way, languages other than French or German, but spoken by a significant percentage of the population, rarely feature in school curricula. Luxembourg’s language education policy is determined chiefly by the official multilingual regime. As Luxembourgish is implicitly considered to be pupils’ mother tongue, the primary goal of the policy is the transmission of the country’s two administrative languages, i.e. French and German, to all pupils. Thus, although Luxembourg’s “trilingualism” is often presented as natural and self-evident, in reality it is the result of language planning and policy measures whose implementation relies heavily on the schools. Official trilingualism considerably limits the available options for adapting language education to a changing social reality and favours the preservation of the status quo. The relatively late start in English teaching and the lack of diversity of the languages taught are direct consequences of the priority given to the teaching of the country’s official languages and the functioning of a trilingual regime. English is not learned as a third living language until the beginning of secondary school, while Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish play a very minor role as a fourth living language for the students of certain literary streams only. The implementation of official multilingualism is claimed to be one of the school’s fundamental missions and an educational priority by policy makers, notably the minister of education:

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Schools are assigned the mission to teach German and French, which are the languages of our neighbours, English, whose use is spreading, the ancient languages that are part of our cultural heritage;8 in addition, pupils’ mother tongues need to be taken into account. This is an ambitious, if not an impossible mission that needs to be reconciled with the no less important mission to provide qualifications to the young so that they may either pursue further studies, or enter a demanding labour market.9 (Delvaux-Stehres 2007, 21) This statement illustrates the tension that exists between the role of the school system in the implementation of the official multilingual constellation, on the one hand, and its mission to provide more general instruction, on the other. Given the important hourly volume of language courses, the mission of language teaching is accomplished at the expense of other school subjects. The time allocated to language teaching in relation to total teaching time is 40.5 per cent in primary education and 35.7 per cent in secondary education (Eurydice 2012, 122). Despite Luxembourg’s low ranking in the Programme for International Student Assessment (P I S A) survey conducted in 2001 and high dropout rates, the objective of conveying skills in three languages to all students during the compulsory schooling period continues to benefit from the support of the majority of the population as well as the political decision makers. As we shall see in what follows, these policies have contributed to growing inequalities. The selective character of Luxembourgish language education ­policies is a social reality explicitly recognized by the Ministry of Education. A 1998 ministerial publication states that “failure in German is frequent mainly among foreign pupils, while failure in French creates setbacks and ends up discouraging or eliminating a significant number of Luxembourgish pupils”10 (Ministère de l’éducation nationale et de la formation professionnelle 1998, quoted in Horner and Weber 2001, 48). The position occupied by German language teaching is particularly ambivalent, as German is not only the first “foreign” language learned at school but also the language of alphabetization and of instruction for the other school subjects in primary and lower-secondary education. The architecture of the language teaching system was originally designed to cater to the needs of middle-class pupils whose mother tongue was Luxembourgish and who, given the relatively small linguistic distance between the two languages,

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could learn German very easily. For children of migrants or foreign residents whose mother tongue is mainly of Latin origin, alphabetization in German represents, on the contrary, an enormous obstacle. As a consequence, a student’s achievement in the Luxembourgish education system depends heavily on his / her mother tongue or the language spoken at home. At the beginning of the 2000s, the publication of different surveys showing that the Luxembourgish school system exacerbates social inequalities sparked controversy. Debates focused mainly on whether or not to allow students to choose between French and German as the language of alphabetization. However, the compulsory character of the order in which languages should be learned has not been questioned since. At present, all children continue to be alphabetized in German before learning French, followed much later by English. Interviews conducted with representatives of different teachers’ unions, as well as of language teachers’ and parents’ associations, confirm that the majority of these stakeholders are strongly opposed to the language education reform projects currently discussed.11 The potential introduction of a separate branch of alphabetization in French, which would mean separating pupils with Luxembourgish as mother tongue from pupils having another native language, is especially seen as putting at risk the social cohesion of the country. In the absence of change, the gap between the official model of multilingualism and the actual linguistic diversity of the population continues to increase; school statistics show that, in 2011–12, only 41.5 per cent of all primary school pupils spoke Luxembourgish as their first language at home, while 28.3 per cent spoke Portuguese and 30.3 per cent another language (Ministère de l’éducation nationale et de la formation professionnelle 2013, 104). The fact that the diversity of language repertoires is not accommodated by the Luxembourgish educational system leads to important differences in achievement between students with Luxembourgian nationality and those with foreign nationality. The percentage of foreign students who access academic secondary education leading to a high school diploma and the possibility of pursuing a university education is much lower than that observed for Luxembourgish nationals; while pupils of foreign nationality represented 35 per cent of the total number of secondary students in 2010–11, they accounted for only 19 per cent of those following an academic track but represented, on the other hand, 43 per cent of pupils in vocational training

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(Reiff 2012). A similar phenomenon is visible inside the different branches of the vocational track, which has led observers to condemn the de facto segregation between native Luxembourgish speakers and pupils with a different mother tongue that is produced by the Luxembourgish educational system.

T he De t r im e n ta l E f f e c t s of Multi li nguali sm w it h o u t M u lt ic ulturali s m Paradoxically, Luxembourg’s multilingual model proves to be more exclusive than a monolingual language regime; it requires that all pupils be proficient in three languages instead of one, although one of these languages is not systematically taught. Contrary, then, to what might be expected, the Luxembourgish model is not more inclusive of the languages of the newly arrived than are monolingual models; as stated above, the languages of the most important migrant communities, notably Portuguese and Italian, hardly feature in school curricula and, at best, can be chosen as an optional fourth foreign language by high school students enrolled in certain literary programs. In other words, when it comes to the accommodation of linguistic diversity in the schools, the Luxembourgish model of multilingualism encounters the same limitations as the monolingual models of its neighbouring countries. The fact that students are forced to adapt to an existing multilingual constellation disadvantages those whose mother tongue is not Luxembourgish, thereby fostering inequalities in the educational system. The exclusionary character of the Luxembourgish model of multilingualism is linked to the absence of multicultural policies (Kymlicka 1995, 2001) that could accommodate the linguistic diversity of the population. Luxembourg’s language education system illustrates the reluctance of policy makers and other social actors to opt for differential policies, which are seen as favouring segregation between Luxembourgish-speaking natives and migrant communities. The educational system is perceived as crucial for preserving the social cohesion of the country through enhancing interactions between pupils with different social and cultural backgrounds and conveying the same knowledge and language competence to all children and future citizens. Despite its official multilingualism and the high percentage of foreign residents, Luxembourg is not a multicultural country in the perception of most citizens, and migrants are expected to integrate

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into the existing cultural, linguistic, and political model. This combination of official multilingualism and lack of multicultural policies not only places an even heavier language learning burden on migrants than in unitary monolingual states, it also leads to particularly wide gaps in educational achievement between native and non-native speakers of Luxembourgish. The exclusionary character of the Luxembourgish model of multilingualism is not specific to the field of education; it can also be found in the political sphere. Whereas in a multilingual country political participation should be possible, in principle, in any of the official languages, in Luxembourg access to political rights and the actual exercise of political participation are strongly related to proficiency in the Luxembourgish language. This situation can be qualified as “political monolingualism” inside a multilingual society (Garcia 2014a). A certain level of Luxembourgish language skills is one of the main requirements for obtaining citizenship and gaining access to the political rights attached to this status. Knowledge of Luxembourgish further influences the political participation of nonnational residents at those levels where they already benefit from voting rights, for example at the local level. Since the middle of the twentieth century, competence in the Luxembourgish language has been an informal requirement for naturalization. With the institutionalization of Luxembourgish as the national language in 1984, proficiency in this language became a visible and easily applicable criterion for obtaining Luxembourgish citizenship. The 2008 Loi sur la nationalité luxembourgeoise (Law on Luxembourgish Nationality) formalized the level of required language skills, setting them at level A2/B1 on the reference scale fixed by the European Union.12 Today, a majority of citizens consider knowledge of the Luxembourgish language to be a necessary precondition for the integration of migrants into Luxembourgish society; according to a recent survey, only 42 per cent of Luxembourgians agree that a person may be integrated if he or she does not speak Luxembourgish.13 In a similar vein, 86 per cent of voters consider Luxembourgish language competency should be a prerequisite for obtaining voting rights.14 These perceptions are linked to the pervasiveness of a democratic norm that is historically rooted in monolingual nation-states, characterized by an overlap of one language, one state, and one nation. Luxembourgians’ conception of the link between language, citizenship,

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and nationhood appears to draw on an assimilationist model inspired by the French republican tradition (Schnapper 2003), rather than on examples of multicultural or multinational states. However, such a norm is difficult to apply to the Luxembourgish social context, which, it bears repeating, is characterized, beyond its official multilingualism, by an important linguistic diversity and a very high percentage of non-national residents. In this respect, the Luxembourgish situation bears more resemblance to the “state-nation” model than to the “nation-state” model, as defined by Linz et al. (2011), who distinguish nation-states such as France, characterized by cultural homogenization and coinciding boundaries of state and nation, from “statenations” such as Canada, Belgium, Spain, and India, characterized by cultural diversity and the dissociation of national and state membership. While the absence of bounded and territorialized language communities makes federal arrangements difficult to apply to the Luxembourgish case, a multicultural model recognizing that citizens of the same state may have different cultural and linguistic identities could, in principle, be implemented. However, the multicultural option continues to be discarded by Luxembourgish political elites as well as by the general public, who see Luxembourg as a unitary nationstate whose membership boundaries are defined by language. It is telling that the movement for the defence of the Luxembourgish language gains momentum precisely in the context of debates on granting voting rights to non-nationals. The language issue was first politicized at the beginning of the 1980s, during the debate on foreign residents’ right to vote at local elections. The issue became topical again in spring 2015 during the referendum campaign on the question of non-national residents’ voting rights at legislative elections. The long-term analysis of Luxembourgish language politics reveals that it is only at the time of these debates on voting rights that the Luxembourgish language promotion movement used notions such as “national identity” and “sovereignty.” Indeed, from the beginning of the 1980s onwards, the topic of national identity has been at the forefront, mobilized systematically in relation to the Luxembourgish language, to the point where the terms “identity” and “language” are used interchangeably. Gradually, language has come to be seen no longer as an element of the cultural heritage to be preserved but rather as an instrument to define a territory and a nation, thereby creating a distinction between those who benefit from full citizenship rights and those who need to conform to the rules established by the former.

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Without adopting an excessively instrumentalist vision, it is apparent that the Luxembourgish language is mobilized in a largely defensive way linked to the preservation of a status quo that benefits a part of the population. The language is used to allow native speakers to maintain their privileged position within Luxembourgish society. These privileges are notably political, insofar as the language argument is used to refuse the extension of voting rights to nonnational, long-term residents. Equating Luxembourgish language, Luxembourgish nationality, and citizenship rights thus leads to a circular argument by not taking into account the specific features of Luxembourg’s sociolinguistic situation. More generally, this line of reasoning precludes the possibility of considering models of democracy more adapted to our increasingly linguistically and culturally diverse contemporary societies. Beyond restricting access to complete citizenship rights via the acquisition of Luxembourgish nationality, the Luxembourgish language is also an impediment to the actual exercise of non-national residents’ political rights. Currently, around 85 per cent of foreign residents are citizens of the European Union and have, accordingly, the right to vote at both European and local elections. In 2003, an electoral reform act extended suffrage at the local elections to foreign residents from non-EU countries that have been living in Luxembourg for at least five years. Yet, while party manifestos are generally available in French and German, political debates at the national and the local levels are conducted almost exclusively in Luxembourgish. Despite Luxembourg’s official multilingualism, electoral laws ban the use of French and German in the deliberations of local councils. More broadly, even in situations not covered by formal language regulations, non-proficiency in the Luxembourgish language acts as a factor of exclusion and limits foreign residents in the exercise of their democratic rights. This is the case, notably, with respect to involvement in a political party or participation in local consultative commissions, where Luxembourgish is most frequently the sole language of communication. While in certain instances the use of French is authorized, and while certain political parties provide interpretation services, these measures are insufficient to overcome the language hurdle. Many non-national residents have internalized the idea of proficiency in Luxembourgish as a prerequisite for political participation, which has led to self-devaluation. Interviews conducted by Delfina Beirão (1997) with Luxembourgish residents from a Portuguese

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migration background show that many do not allow themselves to actively intervene in political debates or to accept collective responsibilities because of their low proficiency in the Luxembourgish language. Whereas a great number of foreign residents do not feel that they need Luxembourgish skills for everyday life in Luxembourg, not speaking the language nonetheless generates a feeling of exclusion among those who are in close contact with Luxembourgish natives and prevents them from fully engaging in civil society associations. One interviewee thus explained having refused the position of vicepresident of a consultative commission at the local level, because he considered that it would be preferable to designate a person who spoke Luxembourgish (Beirão 1997). The fact that proficiency in the Luxembourgish language remains a precondition for political participation and the effective exercise of political rights shows the limits of the Luxembourgish model of multilingualism, which de facto does not take into account the political sphere. During the June 2015 referendum on the issue of non-national residents’ voting rights, for example, the wording of the question was featured in three languages – Luxembourgish, French, and German – on the ballot. This was, however, a purely symbolic measure, as only Luxembourgish citizens, who should in principle master the Luxembourgish language, had the right to vote. The trilingual ballot alone illustrates perfectly the paradoxes that characterize the Luxembourgish model of multilingualism, as well as the refusal by the political elite to call the latter into question.

C o n c l u s ion Up until recently, the Luxembourgish model of multilingualism, built around the needs of a largely homogenous and Luxembourgishspeaking population, continued to be showcased as one of Luxembourg’s major assets. Yet, it has become apparent that this model currently serves as a factor of exclusion, rather than inclusion, and contributes to deepening the inequalities between Luxembourgish citizens and foreign residents. While these inequalities are particularly visible in the fields of education and political participation, they also affect the economy and the labour market. In light of the detrimental effects produced by the refusal to adapt the Luxembourgish multilingual model to a changing social reality, it is vital to launch a broad societal debate on the place and the role

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of the different languages comprising Luxembourg’s non-official multilingual constellation. That said, the strong correlation between the language repertoires of Luxembourgish residents and their nationality prevents prospects of possible reform. Since those who decide and have the right to vote are almost exclusively Luxembourgish speakers who benefit from the current status quo, it is unlikely a language policy that challenges the existing model of multilingualism would gain electoral support. Nevertheless, a collective reflection on more adequate and fairer language policies – especially in the field of language education – for all inhabitants of Luxembourg, regardless of mother tongue or nationality, appears essential to ensure the future cohesion of Luxembourgish society. Adopting policies of multiculturalism implemented by other multilingual states could be one way to ensure the Luxembourgish multilingual model becomes more inclusive.

N otes

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No. 613344 (Project mime). This is a revised and updated ­version of a chapter published in French in Pluriculturalisme et plurilinguisme: Des modèles officiels dans le monde, edited by Gillian LaneMercier, Denise Merkle, and Jane Koustas. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2016.   1 The distinction between “national language(s)” and “official language(s)” can be found in a certain number of officially multilingual European countries, notably Ireland, Malta, and Switzerland. The term “official ­language” is used to describe the language adopted by a government for its functioning, while the “national language” benefits from an essentially symbolic recognition but is not necessarily used by government and administration.   2 Interestingly, the Luxembourgish language itself is composed of at least four different dialectal variations, corresponding to the central, northern, southern, and eastern regions of the country. The central dialect was chosen as the koinè and, since the end of the nineteenth century, increased homogeneity between the different dialects can be observed.   3 “[E]inem im Grunde rein deutschsprachigen Gebiet wurde von Amts wegen die Zweisprachigkeit verordnet. Die Einführung des obligatorischen Französisch-Unterrichts in den Primärschulen des Großherzogtums

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… war die Voraussetzung dafür, dass sich Luxemburg im Zeitraum von einigen Generationen zu einem zweisprachigen Land entwickeln sollte.”   4 Although French and German have the status of administrative languages, in school they are taught as “foreign” languages of which it is assumed that pupils have little or no prior knowledge.   5 “[Cette] compétence légitime exige d’abord une connaissance approfondie du luxembourgeois, dans le dialecte du centre (koinè), avec de nombreux emprunts à la langue française … Puis, une bonne connaissance d’un français scolaire, la pratique de l’écrit étant au moins aussi importante que celle de l’oral … La connaissance de l’allemand est exigée, mais sa (trop) bonne maîtrise n’est pas bien vue. L’allemand est utilisé pour noter ce qui est pensé ou dit en luxembourgeois.”   6 The exact wording of the 2011 census is as follows: “Which language do you think in and speak best?” It refers only to proficiency, not frequency of use.   7 Luxembourgish primary school covers grades 1 to 6. In grade 7, students are divided into different “tracks” or streams within the secondary school system, which are equivalent to North American high school.   8 Latin can be chosen as an option by students in general secondary education while ancient Greek is rarely taught.   9 “C’est à l’école qu’est confiée la mission d’enseigner l’allemand et le français, qui sont les langues de nos voisins, l’anglais dont l’usage s’étend, les langues anciennes qui font partie de notre héritage culturel et de plus, il faut tenir compte des langues maternelles des élèves. Mission sinon impossible, du moins ambitieuse, qu’il faut concilier avec la mission non moins importante de qualifier les jeunes pour leur permettre soit d’aborder des études ultérieures, soit de s’insérer dans un marché du travail exigeant.” 10 “[L]’échec en allemand est surtout fréquent parmi les enfants étrangers, alors que c’est l’échec en français qui retarde et finit par décourager ou ­éliminer bon nombre d’élèves luxembourgeois.” 11 I conducted ten interviews with representatives of teachers’ unions, as well as language teachers’ and parents’ associations, in Luxembourg between 2012 and 2013. 12 The Common European Framework of Reference for languages contains three broad divisions, each divided into two sublevels: basic user (A), independent user (B), and proficient user (C). 13 Survey conducted by T N S Ilres on a sample of 1,179 individuals, 19–30 March 2015. 14 Survey conducted by TN S Ilres on a sample of 1,161 voters, 28 May–5 June 2015.

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R efer e nc e s Baggioni, Daniel. 1997. Langues et nations en Europe. Paris: Payot and Rivages. Beirão, Delfina. 1997. “Les langues au quotidien vues par les travailleurs immigrés portugais et leurs enfants.” forum 177: 24–31. Delvaux-Stehres, Mady. 2007. “Ce que je veux: Motifs et objectifs de la réforme de l’apprentissage des langues.” forum 264: 21­–3. European Commission. 2012. Special Eurobarometer 386: Europeans and Their Languages. http:// http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf. Eurydice. 2012. Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe – 2012 Edition. European Commission. http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/­ education/eurydice/documents/key_data_series/095EN.pdf. Fehlen, Fernand. 1998. “Langues et enjeux sociaux au Luxembourg.” In Le sondage “Baleine”: une étude sociologique sur les trajectoires migratoires, les langues et la vie associative au Luxembourg, 14–25. Luxembourg: S ES OPI – Centre intercommunautaire. – 2009. Une Enquête Sur Un Marché Linguistique Multilingue En Profonde Mutation. Luxembourg: S ESOPI – Centre intercommunautaire. Fehlen, Fernand, and Andreas Heinz. 2016. Die Luxemburger Mehrsprachigkeit: Ergebnisse einer Volkszählung. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Garcia, Núria. 2014a. “Monolinguisme politique dans une société plurilingue? Le cas du Luxembourg.” Revue internationale de politique comparée 21 (4): 17­­–36. – 2014b. “The Paradox of Contemporary Linguistic Nationalism: The Case of Luxembourg.” Nations and Nationalism 20 (1): 113–32. Hoffmann, Fernand. 1996. “The Domains of Lëtzebuergesch.” In Luxembourg and Lëtzebuergesch Language and Communication at the Crossroads of Europe, edited by Gerald Newton, 123–41. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Horner, Kristine, and Jean-Jacques Weber. 2001. “J’accuse: oder die Wahrheit über den Sprachenunterricht in Luxemburg.” forum 206: 46–9. Kraus, Peter. 2012. “The Politics of Complex Diversity: A European Perspective.” Ethnicities 12 (1): 3–25. Kymlicka, Will. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press. – 2001. Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.

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Ministère de l’éducation nationale et de la formation professionnelle. 2013. Les chiffres clés de l’Education nationale: statistiques et indicateurs – Année scolaire 2011–2012. Luxembourg: Service des Statistiques et Analyses. www.men.public.lu/catalogue-publications/themes-­ transversaux/statistiques-analyses/chiffres-cles/2011-2012/fr.pdf. Péporté, Pit, Sonja Kmec, Benoit Majerus, and Michel Margue. 2010. Inventing Luxembourg: Representations of the Past, Space and Language from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century. Leiden: Brill. Reiff, Paul. 2012. “L’évolution de l’enseignement luxembourgeois depuis 1960.” Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. http://www.statistiques.public.lu/catalogue-publications/luxembourg/ 2012/PDF-14-12.pdf. Renan, Ernest. 1947. Oeuvres complètes. Paris: Calmann-Lévy. Schnapper, Dominique. 2003. La communauté des citoyens: sur l’idée moderne de nation. Paris: Gallimard. Scuto, Denis. 2006. “Qu’est-ce qu’un Luxembourgeois? Histoire de la nationalité luxembourgeoise du Code Napoléon à nos jours.” Hémecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte 58 (1): 73–96. Sonntag, Selma, and Linda Cardinal. 2015. “State Traditions and Language Regimes: Conceptualizing Language Policy Choices.” In State Traditions and Linguistic Regimes, edited by Linda Cardinal and Selma Sonntag, 3–26. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Stepan, Alfred C., Juan José Linz, and Yogendra Yadav. 2011. Crafting State-Nations: India and Other Multinational Democracies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Voss, Peter. 2010. “Vom Land zur Nation: Schulgesetz, Schulverwaltung und Schulstatistik nach 1840.” forum 301: 33–5.

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3 The Future of Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Central Asia: The Case of Kazakhstan Brian James Baer and Zhailagul Sagyndykova

In t ro du cti on Kazakhstan stands out among the nations of Central Asia. Not only is it by far the largest country in the region, it is also the most “­successful” based on such indicators as political stability, G D P , and standard of living. As Bhavna Dave (2007, cover blurb) puts it, “Kazakhstan is emerging as the most dynamic economic and political actor in Central Asia. It is the second largest [sic] country of the former Soviet Union, after the Russian Federation, and has rich natural resources, particularly oil, which is being exploited through massive US investment.” Economic success and political stability have been achieved in Kazakhstan thanks, in no small part, to the government’s treatment of its significant ethnic and linguistic minorities. And crucial to managing the needs and interests of those minorities has been the country’s language policy. Indeed, Kazakhstan is unique in the region for its language policy, often referred to as the Three Languages Policy, the legislative basis for which was laid out in the following: Article 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan,1 the law On Languages in the Republic of Kazakhstan of 11 July 1997, and the gosudarstvennye programy (government programs) for 2001–10 and for 2011–20. The intended purpose of the policy is to promote the study of Kazakh, as the native language of the Kazakh people, without eliminating Russian, which was the official language of government and education in Kazakhstan

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Figure 3.1  Key moments in the language policies of post-Soviet Kazakhstan

April 2017: “Course towards the Future: Modernization of Kazakhstan’s Identity” reaffirms switch to Latin alphabet in all spheres by 2025

January 2017: “Third Modernization of Kazakhstan: Global Competitiveness” announces gradual transition to trilingual education

14 December 2012: Address by the President “Strategy Kazakhstan-2050: New Political Course of the Established State” announces transfer to Latin alphabet by 2025 and encourages use of English

2011: State Program for the Functioning and Languages Development 2010–20 announces “­harmonious language policy”

2001: State Program for the Functioning and Languages Development 2001–10 outlines strategy of Kazakhstani peoples’ ­languages development

August 1997: Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan enshrines Kazakh as state ­language, with Russan on equal footing

July 1997: Law on Languages in the Republic of Kazakhstan

1996: Language policy concept defines role of Kazakh as state language and Russian to be used equally

January 2018: Address by the President “New Opportunities of Development in the Period of the 4th Industrial Revolution” declares the future of Kazakhstan citizens to lie in the proper acquisition of three languages



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throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while also encouraging English, as the international language of the global economy.2 The policy involves incentivizing the study and use of the Kazakh language while outlawing discrimination against the users of other languages while the State Terminological Committee carries out “the hard work of introducing new terms into the state language” (Kuzhabekova 2000, 153). Compared to the policies of other Central Asian states, Kazakhstan’s appears as a sophisticated attempt to navigate the choppy waters of the post-Soviet period by finding a way to accommodate a resurgent ethnic nationalism with an understanding of Kazakhstan’s dependence on other nations, in particular its neighbour Russia, within a rapidly globalizing economy, as well as its own multi-ethnic history.3 Based on ethnographic data collected in northern Kazakhstan in the spring of 2014, the authors will attempt to outline how official government language policy is being played out in the lives of individual citizens of Kazakhstan, which will largely shape the future of multilingualism in Kazakhstan and, perhaps, the rest of Central Asia. Before turning to that data, we will provide a brief overview of multilingualism and its relationship to language policy in Kazakhstan.

A H is to ry o f M u lti li nguali s m in K a z a k hs tan While Kazakhstan is by far the largest of the Central Asian nations in terms of territory, it is the least densely populated. That being said, its population is ethnically diverse. Moreover, from the 1930s to the 1980s, it was the only Central Asian republic to have more ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking inhabitants than native people – making the Kazakhs an ethnic and linguistic minority. It is this unique situation, perhaps, that explains the Kazakhs’ relationship to the Russian language, seeing it as a prestige language offering many opportunities for advancement. In fact, despite the enormous losses of life and property caused by Stalinist collectivization, Kazakhs prided themselves on the “purity” of their Russian when compared with other Central Asian republics. “Russian,” argues Dave (2007, 2), “was more than just a survival tool; it also became a source of personal and collective empowerment and an emblem of becoming ‘cultured’ and ‘civilized.’” The situation was further complicated by the ethnic diversity of Kazakhstan, which was not only a natural consequence of historic

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circumstances – Kazakhstan was located on the ancient Silk Road trade route – but also “man-made”: Stalin relocated several minor nationalities, such as Volga Germans and Koreans from the Sakalin Islands, who had settled in Russia in the eighteenth century, as well as Polish, Chechen, and Ingush ethnic groups to Kazakhstan. When the Soviet Union was dissolved, the total population of Kazakhstan was 16,464,464, of which 6,535,000 (39.7 per cent) were Kazakhs, only slightly greater in number than the 6,228,000 (37.8 per cent) Russians. Other ethnicities included Ukrainians – 896,000 (5.4 per cent); Uzbeks – 332,000 (2.0 per cent); Germans – 958,000 (5.8 per cent); Tatars – 328,000 (2.0 per cent); Uigurs – 185,000 (1.1 per cent); Byelorussians – 183,000 (1.1 per cent); Koreans – 103,000 (0.6 per cent); Azerbaijanis – 90,000 (0.5 per cent), and Turks – 75,900 (0.5 per cent) (Agenstvo R K po statistike 2000, 21–2). This ethnic mix further contributed to the status of Russian as a lingua franca. The close connection of Kazakhstan with the Russian language, therefore, made the collapse of the Soviet Union especially disorienting, which is one reason why Kazakhstan “is one of the best sites to investigate the contradictory and hybrid legacy of the Soviet multinational state, and to explore how this legacy continues to shape its post-Soviet transition” (Dave 2007, 1). Indeed, while other Central Asian countries, such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan, none of which shares a border with Russia, swiftly removed Russian as an official language and abandoned the Cyrillic alphabet for their native languages, leading to an exodus of Russian ethnics, Kazakhstan preserved Russian as an official language while designating Kazakh as the state language. And while the government has, since 2007, twice proposed to abandon the Cyrillic alphabet, the measure has been twice postponed.4 In early 2017, however, the Kazakh president firmly re-committed the country to transitioning to the Latin alphabet by 2025 for the sake of “modernization” and as part of a broader campaign to promote the study of English in the Kazakh educational system (Nazarbayev 2017). Aliya Kuzhabekova (2000, 1) argues that post-Soviet Kazakhstan inherited from the U S S R “the problem of nation building in a multiethnic state and the related problem of language planning in the conditions of multilingualism and diglossia.” That legacy was one of inherent contradiction as the language problem was addressed in the Soviet Union by two fundamentally opposed policies or policy orientations: Korenizatsiia (Indigenization), which promoted the

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languages and cultures of the various ethnic peoples of the Soviet Union, in some cases providing them with alphabets for the first time; and Russifikatsiia (Russification), the unofficial policy of promoting, through a variety of incentives, quotas, and propaganda, the Russian language as primus inter pares among the languages of the Soviet peoples, turning Russian into a quasi-imperial administrative language. As Kuzhabekova notes, the shift in policy from Indigenization to Russification was reflected in “the growing intolerance of the Russian administration towards the alternative Tatar schools, where Kazakh students received Russian language instruction, but where the latter was accompanied with indoctrination into Islamic and anti-Russian values. Further evidence was the hasty attempt to transform the Arabic-based Kazakh alphabet into its Cyrillic counterpart with the underlying desire to get rid of the influence from the East” (ibid., 44). The switch to the Cyrillic alphabet may have also been based on the theories of Soviet linguist Nikolai Marr, who believed that individual languages in proximity would eventually merge into one universal language. A common alphabet would hasten that merging.5 In any case, knowledge of Russian became crucial for advancement academically and within the civil service and soon became a marker of prestige. These implicit and explicit language policies, along with the opening of Russian language schools across Kazakhstan, soon led to the creation of a monolingual, Russian-speaking Kazakh elite (Kreindler 1985, 344–61). The problem of language policy, however, extends far beyond the Soviet period. Situated between major imperial powers – such as Iran, China, and Russia – Central Asia has a long history of colonization, which is in turn reflected in traditions of diglossia and multilingualism, with a good deal of language mixing. Turkmen, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek belong to the Turkic family of languages, while Azeri, Dari, Tajik, and Bukhori are Persian. The legacy of the Persian empire can be seen in the suffix -stan, meaning “land of,” which can be found in the name of most of the countries in the region – including the autonomous republics of the Russian Federation, Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan. There were also periods of diglossia when, for example, Arabic was the written sacred language and Persian, then Russian, were the written administrative languages in the region, whereas many of the native languages of the Indigenous peoples of Central Asia were oral until the nineteenth century.

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The dissolution of the Soviet Union precipitated a radical shift in the geopolitical “supra-denotations” (Balibar 1997, 375) surrounding language use throughout Central Asia. Mindful of this, the authoritarian president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has promoted a rather sophisticated Three Languages Policy that seeks to further a domestic nation-building agenda that would preserve “the linguistic richness of Kazakhstani society” (Beisenova 2013, 653), on the one hand, and support a multi-pronged foreign policy promoting engagement with the world, and specifically, the fostering of friendly, cooperative ties with the USA, China, and Russia, on the other.6 The varied aims of the official language policy, as described by Beisenova (2013, 654), include “the preservation of the level of the Russian language awareness as a competitive advantage of Kazakhstani citizens, preserving certain functions of the national language, the creation of favourable conditions for the study and preservation of the languages of ethnic groups living in Kazakhstan, [and] promoting the study of English and other foreign languages.” The policy is certainly ambitious, if not utopian, especially when one considers the fact that the Kazakh language may be, as Kuzhabekova argues (2000, viii), “too lexically underdeveloped to successfully compete in most of the communicative domains with Russian, the state language of Soviet Kazakhstan and the present official language.” In what follows, we explore the gap between the utopian aspirations embodied in Kazakhstan’s Three Languages Policy and the lived linguistic experience(s) of Kazakhstani citizens of various ethnicities in order to better understand how government language policies are reflected or refracted in people’s lives following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For, as Brigitta Busch (2002, 248) argues, State borders do not merely separate two different administrative systems, but they are also loaded with geo-political “supra-­ denotations” (Balibar 1997, 375) … It is often precisely in the phases in which such supra-denotations of borders change that the relationship towards minorities is newly-defined by the two respective states and national questions move to the top of the agenda. Other political interests – national and supranational – determine these relationships and national or ethnic minorities are often suspected, appropriated or excluded by the respective states. When the linkage between language and identity is a close one, these processes exert influence on language use at least in

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the public and semi-public domains and can accelerate, slow down or possibly even reverse processes of language shift. The study below will document, from the point of view of individual speakers, how language use in the public, semi-public, and even private domains can affect processes of language shift. We should also mention here that the data collection described below took place against the backdrop of the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, another former Soviet republic. This is especially germane insofar as many observers commented that a shift in Ukrainian language policy may have helped precipitate the crisis. As Palash Ghosh (2014, n.p.) comments, “The deepening crisis in Ukraine involves not only issues of political sovereignty, European integration and Russian hegemony, but also language and its relationship to nationalism and ethnic identity. Immediately after the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22, the Ukrainian Parliament repealed a controversial law passed in 2012 that allowed the use of ‘regional languages’ – including Russian, Hungarian, Romanian, and Tatar – in courts and certain government functions in areas of the country where such speakers constituted at least 10 per cent of the population.” Many of the students discussed below mentioned Ukraine as a kind of cautionary tale for Kazakhstan as it tried to balance the promotion of the Kazakh language with maintaining inter-ethnic harmony. And there is some evidence that Kazakhstan has succeeded in this delicate balancing act, for as Dave argues (2007, 3), “[t]he fact that the statesponsored campaign to regenerate Kazakh and turn it into the sole state language did not acquire a decisive anti-Russian character shows the extent to which Russian had gained a natural acceptance among the Kazakhs.”

M e t h o d ology: C a p t u r in g L in g u is ti c Atti tude Researchers continually attempt to capture and “quantify” the very complex realities of language use in multilingual societies through surveys, which typically reduce the respondents’ choices to exclusive categories formulated by the researcher. So, for example, Kenzhegul Shalgimbekova (2013, 156) reports the results of a survey she conducted on language use and language identity in post-Soviet

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Kazakhstan. Responses to the question of which language the respondent considered to be his or her rodnoi, or “native” language, yielded the following results: Kazakh – 39.9 per cent; Russian – 47.3 per cent; other: 12.8 per cent. The follow-up question regarding which languages are used to conduct business at the respondants’ places of work yielded a somewhat different picture: Kazakh – 4.1 per cent; mostly Kazakh – 3.5 per cent; Russian – 49.9 per cent; mostly Russian – 23.4 per cent; Russian and Kazakh equally – 3.9 per cent; don’t know – 13 per cent (ibid.). Statistics like these, in particular the enormous difference between the percentage of respondents claiming Kazakh as their native language and the percentage who claim to use Kazakh at work, may reflect more than the simple dominance of Russian or English in professional settings; it may also reflect basic confusion over what constitutes a “native” language. As the Filipino historian Vincente Rafael notes in his book, Motherless Tongues, “Whenever I am asked what my native language is, I always hesitate to respond. I cannot point to a single one without feeling that I might be betraying the others” (2016, 5). And so, what do Kazakh respondents mean when they claim Kazakh as their native language? Is it their first language? Is it their A, or dominant langue? Or is it the historical language of one’s ethnic group, regardless of how well the individual speaks it? Moreover, the simple designation of Kazakh as a single, unified linguistic code ignores the significant dialectical differences between the Kazakh spoken in the north and in the south of Kazakhstan – not to mention the Kazakh spoken among the Kazakh diaspora communities in western China and Mongolia – as well as the phenomenon of language mixing. As Rafael goes on to say, “Whatever I happen to be speaking at the moment is always commingled and contaminated with a whole train of other languages I grew up speaking and hearing in the past and to this very day” (2016, 5). One could say, therefore, that quantitative studies like the one mentioned above reify, perhaps unavoidably, categories that are in fact often inherently contradictory and contested, lending implicit support to what Blackledge and Creese (2010, 3) refer to as “ideologies of homogeneity.” The mismatch in the data sets above suggests that quantitative approaches alone are unable to fully capture the complexity of linguistic experience, specifically the affective dimensions of language use or what is referred to in linguistics as “attitude,” defined by Brigitta

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Busch as “how people perceive themselves and through the eyes of others as linguistically interacting subjects” (2015b, 277). Once dismissed by behaviouralists as unimportant, attitude became an object of study in French Canada in the 1960s related to the question of whether bilingual education could affect change in attitude toward a minority language (Lambert et al. 1960).7 From the beginning, the study of attitude has emphasized “emotional dispositions and real and imagined belongings to communities of practice” (Busch 2006, 5). To understand the role of language attitude in identity construction in contemporary Kazakhstan requires, therefore, more qualitative data that can better capture the heterogeneous reality. To that end, we will present two sets of qualitative data collected in northern Kazakhstan in the spring of 2014: field notes taken by Brian Baer during a three-week stay in Kazakhstan, and the language biographies of students at a large state university. With this data, we will attempt to outline some of the ways in which the official government policy is being played out in the lives of individual citizens of Kazakhstan. While much statistical data has been collected related to language use in the region, this study focuses on the individuals’ lived experience of language policy – that is, how explicit and implicit language policies shape the lives of individual speakers in ways that may be unexpected and even contradict the original intentions of the language planners (for more on the methodology of the language biography, see Busch 2006).

E t h n o g r a p h ic D ata Set I : Fi eld Notes Before presenting the language biographies of the Kazakhstani students, we will present three incidents that drove home to Dr Baer the varied ways in which explicit and implicit language policies are played out in the lives of individual speakers in contemporary Kazakhstan. The first incident took place when Dr Baer was taken on a sight-seeing trip by a Kazakh colleague. At one point, they stopped for tea and a traditional Kazakh pastry at a roadside café with the chauffeur. Dr Baer had first met the driver on his arrival in Astana; he drove him the three hours to Kokshetau in the dead of night. With Dr Baer sitting in the front seat, as is the custom, they had had an opportunity to chat. At the café Dr Baer asked the driver whether he had any children, to which the driver answered that he had two daughters and gave their names. Dr Baer’s Kazakh colleague then jumped in to

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explain that these names were Arabic and that Arabic names had recently become very popular in Kazakhstan. The popularity of Arabic names, along with the building of the Hazrat Sultan cathedral mosque, the largest in Central Asia, in the Kazakhstani capital of Astana, suggested the important role of Islam in the construction of a post-Soviet Kazakh identity. It also spoke specifically to the way proper names function to negotiate identity. One student at the university recounted that, during the Soviet period, it was typical for Kazakhs to adopt a second, Russian name for school and work, often with the same first letter as their Kazakh name. As the student explained in her language biography, “I have a grandmother. Her name is Tleules. But when she was younger, I mean in the Soviet period, people used to call her ‘Tamara.’ They did it because the letter ‘T’ was the initial letter of her name no matter what the name was. I think this is a consequence of Russification. She knows a lot of national songs in Russian” (Student #14). The second incident took place at the university when Dr Baer asked a Kazakh colleague, in the privacy of his office, how well she knew the Kazakh language. She mentioned that, while she could read Kazakh and carry on simple conversations, her Russian was much stronger. She then, unprompted, told him of the shame she felt when recalling how horribly she and her fellow students at the Russianspeaking school she attended had treated their teacher of the Kazakh language, misbehaving and ridiculing her during class. This behaviour on the part of ethnic Kazakhs spoke to the fact that, despite the official promotion of the national language during the Soviet period, Russian was felt to be the prestige language; students clearly did not understand why they should have to learn Kazakh. Through incentives (passing a Kazakh proficiency test is required to get into university and to qualify for state-sponsored scholarships and grants) and nationalist propaganda underscoring the importance for ethnic Kazakhs of knowing their native language, the post-Soviet language policy has radically changed the situation, as evidenced by the growth in Kazakh-speaking schools. Government statistics for 2015–16 report 1,792,200 pupils study in Kazakh, in comparison to 832,300 pupils who study in Russian and 99,000 who study in other languages (Ministry of National Economy 2018). Indeed, the colleague who herself studied in Russian has sent both her sons to a school where the language of instruction is Kazakh.

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The third incident took place at the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Astana, attached to the Russian embassy. Dr Baer attended an event for graduates of Soviet and Russian institutes of higher education. In a roundtable format, the approximately twenty-five participants recounted their educational experience, typically in glowing terms – and in the Russian language. At one point, however, a Kazakh woman began by explaining that her Russian was not very good and so she would be speaking in Kazakh. After speaking for several minutes, she was interrupted by a Kazakh man who scolded her for speaking Kazakh when there were people in the room who couldn’t understand. She continued in Kazakh. Several minutes later, another Kazakh man began his remarks by defending the woman’s right to speak in her native language in her own country. Such public shaming would be mentioned by more than one student in their language biographies as an aspect of the “unofficial” enforcement of the country’s language policy. The incident also sensitized Dr Baer to the public spaces in which either Russian or Kazakh was the preferred language. While Dr Baer and a Kazakh colleague were greeted in Russian in almost all public settings, such as museums and other cultural sites, they were greeted in Kazakh when entering the mosque. This not only reflected the role of Islam in the construction of a postSoviet Kazakh identity but also the legacy of the Soviet suppression of religion, which made any association of Russian with Islam seem unnatural, if not untenable.

E t h n o g r a p h ic Data S et I I : L a n g uag e B iographi es As mentioned above, the data collection took place in the spring of 2014 during a three-week stay in Kazakhstan, where Dr Baer taught a graduate seminar on multilingualism and identity in the English department of a large state university. The seminar, which enrolled sixteen Kazakhstani master of arts students, was taught in English, although code-switching into Russian often occurred. In the course of that time, the students were asked to produce a language biography in which they were instructed to comment on their linguistic resources and how and where they used them. They were asked to write their biographies in English, as the course was taught in English and it would serve as a kind of neutral language. Student #16 was allowed

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to write in Russian at her request.8 For that student, Kazakh was her first language, Russian her second, and English her third. The directions for the language biographies were very open ended. The term “linguistic resources” was used to avoid introducing terms such as native language or mother tongue, which are problematic and often assume a Romantic, nationalist model of one language, one people, one territory. Moreover, students had been exposed to contemporary thinking about multilingualism in the course before writing their language biography, specifically the attempt by some scholars of multilingualism to enlarge the definition beyond proficiency in at least two standardized linguistic codes to include all of a speaker’s linguistic resources, even non-normative forms, which are deployed in negotiating one’s identity in various sociolinguistic contexts (see, for example, Blackledge and Creese 2010; Busch 2015a). Before presenting the analysis, we must acknowledge that such a small data set – consisting of sixteen student-authored language biographies – precludes the making of any conclusive generalizations, but our main purpose here is to demonstrate the utility of such qualitative data in capturing the affective side of language use in multilingual societies – or, to quote Busch, to “[cast] light on the often-neglected bodily and emotional dimensions of perception and speech” (Busch 2015a, 1), which are typically missed in purely quantitative studies. The students’ language biographies, in fact, paint a complex picture of the role of language in the construction of postSoviet Kazakhstani identity. Of the sixteen language biographies collected, fourteen were written by students who identified themselves as ethnically Kazakh, while two were written by students who identified themselves as ethnically non-Kazakh (Russian and Korean-German). Not surprisingly, perhaps, the two non-Kazakh students claimed Russian as their native language. More surprising is the fact that both studied Kazakh in school and at university but never mastered it: Since the first grade I have studied Kazakh. I studied it at school, at university. But I cannot speak it. Of course, I understand it and sometimes I can use some phrases, but I cannot keep [up] a conversation. (Student #1; Russian) When I was 9 or 10 years old I started to learn English as a ­foreign language and Kazakh as a state language. It was very

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interesting but from the first lessons I understood that Kazakh is more difficult for me. I had no problems with English but with Kazakh I had some difficulties. During school and university I learned these two languages but the results were not the same. My Kazakh is very poor though I understand that I need this ­language. (Student #2; Korean / German) Neither of the two non-Kazakh students felt comfortable speaking Kazakh, despite having studied it for many years and recognizing the “need” for the language.9 Of the fourteen ethnic Kazakhs, four avoided the whole question of which language was their first / native / mother tongue. One simply mentioned her ethnicity: “My nationality is Kazakh. My parents are Kazakh” (Student #4). Two claimed to speak Kazakh and Russian equally well, while two claimed Russian as their dominant language. Of those two, Student #7 claimed to speak only Kazakh as a young child, then Russian became her dominant language: “Now the Russian language is the language I think in, express my ideas and thoughts [in]. I speak Russian with my parents, relatives, with my friends, students and colleagues. I speak and use different layers of this language” (Student #7). The other student not only described Russian as his dominant language, he used the term “mother tongue”: “My Kazakh language is not so good because I learnt it in a Russian school and my parents speak Russian at home. As you understand, my Russian language is good and maybe it’s my mother tongue” (Student #3). While the remaining nine ethnic Kazakhs claimed Kazakh as their mother tongue, only one did so without equivocation: “In my family everybody speaks Kazakh and I know my language very well. Russian language is the second” (Student #13, who studied in a Turkish school). This student’s clarity may be related to his position as an officer in the Kazakhstani army; he embodies the official government policy of promoting the Kazakh language. In any case, the other eight Kazakhs who claimed Kazakh as their native or mother tongue expressed some ambivalence about the claim, inadvertently exposing some of the contradictions at the heart of the nationalist idea of a “native” or “mother” tongue. One Kazakh student, for example, explained that her mother was from the north and her father from the south and that they spoke very different dialects of Kazakh: “Recently, my mother said, that I am tending to speak like southerners, because, first of all,

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my father[’s] influence and second, I studied three years in Almaty. Moreover, when I was in Almaty I mostly used my native language, and [it] was a little bit difficult to switch on Russian when I came home. Now, I use Kazakh with my friends from the south, and here in Kokshetau I use Russian among my friends” (Student #11). The others felt ambivalent largely because, while claiming Kazakh as their mother tongue, they felt Russian to be their dominant language: As Kazakh is my native language, I use it all the time. But when I talk to my friends, I usually used mixed language … But I speak Kazakh with my parents. Because they don’t like [it] when I speak Russian. But my Kazakh is not pure. But at home I try not to use Russian. (Student #9) Kazakh is considered to be my mother tongue. However, in my family we mostly speak Russian. (Student #15) My first language is the Kazakh language, it is my mother tongue and the second is Russian … The Russian language holds a strong position in Kazakhstan. It has a status of an official language, the language of international communication, and it continues to perform important social and humanitarian functions … Therefore I use the Russian language, as my mother tongue. (Student #13) While Student #16, who wrote her biography in Russian, describes Kazakh as her rodnoi iazyk, or “mother tongue,” she speaks it only “v sem’e” or at home with her family. She speaks Russian “at work with colleagues, students, and friends; in everyday life and in public.” Many of the biographies attest to the central role of schools in determining which language is dominant, acknowledging the fact that proficiency in the mother tongue is not innate but acquired: “I am Kazakh. My native language is Kazakh. But when I moved to a Kazakh village I didn’t know Kazakh at all, because my parents studied at Russian school[s]” (Student #12); “I can understand and speak Kazakh but my written language is poor enough. I think it is connected to the fact that I was given to a school and kindergarten where Russian was a medium of instruction” (Student #14). Several Kazakh students expressed an emotional or affective reaction, feeling shame over the

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fact that their “native” language was not their dominant language or that Kazakh officials could not speak their native language well: Kazakh is my mother tongue but it doesn’t mean that I know it perfectly. Shame on me!!! (Student #14; emphasis added) Unfortunately, I don’t use Kazakh as often as I did when I was younger. I speak Kazakh [when] talking to some of my relatives and adult people. But when I try to speak Kazakh, code switching happens because of the lack of vocabulary. (Student #7; emphasis added) When I listen to the politicians’ speech I become angry with the “bad pronunciation” of those few Kazakh words in their speech such as “Good morning” and “Good bye.” (Student #6; emphasis added) While these students appear to have internalized the nationalist dictate that one’s native language should be one’s dominant language, one student mentions the public shaming by young Kazakh poets, who, one could argue, have the most to gain from the promotion of the Kazakh language: “There is a group of Kazakh people, mainly young poets, in our town, who consider themselves to be Kazakh elite, and they speak Kazakh only, and use Russian to tease the people who don’t know their mother tongue” (Student #10). The language biographies of the students attest to the power in post-Soviet Kazakhstan of Romantic, nationalist conceptions of language (one language, one people, one territory). This was evident in the emotional investment of Kazakh students in learning Kazakh and the lack of emotional investment among the non-Kazakh students – compare the emotional responses of the Kazakh-identified students with that of the Korean-German student, who wrote, “I understand that I need this language” (Student #2; emphasis added). At the same time, however, many students expressed the “cosmopolitan” idea that knowing many languages is a benefit both materially and spiritually: “It is interesting to know foreign languages. If a person knows one language, he is [only] one person” (Student #8); “I think it is important to know languages. The scientists say that if a man knows a number of languages s/he becomes younger and more beautiful. Hope it is

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true! In fact, when you know a great number of languages, you broaden opportunities and this can lead you to success!” (Student #14). Student #14 also notes that she speaks Russian at home and school but English with her friends on Facebook and Skype. The comments by these students suggest that the promotion of Kazakh need not take place at the expense of other languages and that national and supranational identifications are not mutually exclusive, reflecting what Dave (2007, 4) describes as the regime’s successful blending of “the Soviet-style discourse on internationalism and ethnic harmony with a determined nationalization.” It should also be noted that the students’ experience of multilingualism is not restricted to the mastery of discrete, standardized linguistic codes. Several students mentioned code-switching as a characteristic of their languaging, especially with their peers: When I talk to my friends I usually use mixed language. I mean I use the languages at the same time … But I speak Kazakh with my parents. (Student #9) Most of my friends and other young people in our town mostly speak Russian [plus] English words, when they are in public eyes. Because they consider it more fashionable or glamorous. And they often include slangs and abbreviations in their speech. (Student #10) I use English with my groupmates. Sometimes when we speak Kazakh or Russian we use some English phrases. (Student #12) These students’ biographies reveal the varied ways language is deployed to negotiate one’s identity in specific social contexts in postSoviet Kazakhstan, some of which align with government language planning policy, while others do not.

C o n c l u s ion It is very likely that the attitude of Kazakhstani citizens about the Kazakh language will determine the extent of its spread among the population, and that a lack of an affective connection to the Kazakh language may lead to the marginalization of non-ethnic Kazakhstanis who fail to master the language. The importance of

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affect is implied by Student #2 who, while admitting to having had no success “learning Kazakh with teachers,” mentions that she plans to study the language on her own because she has “a lot of friends who speak Kazakh and who are Kazakhs.” While more research certainly needs to be done with a greater population of Kazakh citizens in different regions of Kazakhstan, these preliminary findings underscore the importance of attitude or affect in the study of language use in multilingual societies, something best captured in the speakers’ own words.

N otes   1 The law states: “1. The state language of the Republic of Kazakhstan shall be the Kazakh language. 2. In state institutions and local self-administrative bodies the Russian language shall be officially used on equal grounds along with the Kazakh language.”   2 For a general overview of the Three Languages Policy, see Sagyndykova, Svinarchuk, and Kurbina (2017).   3 For a comprehensive review of the goals and realities of language policy in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, see Suleimenova and Smagulova 2005.   4 The first written alphabet for Kazakh, then referred to as Kyrgyz, was an Arabic-based script introduced in 1923. This script was changed to a Cyrillic script in Soviet Kazakhstan in 1928, but the Arabic-based script continued to be used in Kazakh communities in China and Mongolia.   5 For more on Marr’s theories, see Shlapentokh 2011.   6 Note that Kazakhstani will be used to refer to citizens of Kazakhstan, regardless of their ethnicity, while Kazakh will be used to refer to ethnic Kazakhs.   7 On language attitude, see also Deprez and Persoons 1987; Fasold 1984; Johnstone 2000.   8 This student’s remarks were translated by Brian Baer from Russian.   9 These students’ lack of proficiency in Kazakh aligns with 1999 census data indicating that only 14.9 per cent of ethnic Russian Kazakh citizens claim proficiency in Kazakh, 15.4 per cent of ethnic German Kazakhs, and 28.8 per cent of ethnic Koreans (Agenstvo RK po statistike 2000, 33, 71, 181–3.

R efer e nc e s Agentstvo RK po statistike. 2000. Itogi perepisi naseleniia 1999 goda v Respublike Kazakhstana. Vol. 1. Natsional’nyi sostav naseleniia RK . Almaty: Agentstvo RK po statistike.

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Balibar, Etienne. 1997. “Qu’est-ce qu’une frontière?” In Mondialisation, migration, droits de l’homme: un nouveau paradigme pour la recherche et la citoyenneté, edited by Marie-Claire Caloz-Tschopp, and Pierre Dasens, 519–33. Brussels: Bruylart. Beisenova, Zhainagul S. 2013. “Language Shifts in Case of Language Policy of Kazakhstan.” Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 2 (8): 653–9. Blackledge, Adrian, and Angela Creese. 2010. Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London / New York: Continuum. Busch, Brigitta. 2002. “Changing Borders, Changing Identities: Language and School in the Bilingual Region of Carinthia.” In Transcending Monolingualism. Linguistic Revitalisation in Education, edited by Leena Huss, Antoinette Camilleri Grima, and Kendall A. King, 243–59. Lisse / Abingdon / Exton / Tokyo: Swets and Zeitlinger. – 2006. “Language Biographies: Approaches to Multilingualism in Education and Research.” In Language Biographies for Multilingual Learning, edited by Brigitta Busch, Aziza Jardine, and Angelika Tjoutuku, 5–18. Cape Town, South Africa: Praesa. – 2015a. “Expanding the Notion of the Linguistic Repertoire: On the Concept of Spracherleben – The Lived Experience of Language.” Applied Linguistics: 1–20. – 2015b. “‘Without Language, Everything Is Chaos and Confusion …’ Corporal-Emotional Linguistic Experience and the Linguistic Repertoire.” In Emotion in Language: Theory – Research – Application, edited by Ulrike Lüdtke, 273–88. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Dave, Bhavna. 2007. Kazakhstan: Ethnicity, Language and Power. London / New York: Routledge. Deprez, Kas, and Yves Persoons. 1987. “Attitude.” In Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, edited by Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus Mattheier, and Peter Trudgill, vol. 1, 125–32. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Fasold, Ralph. 1984. “Language Attitudes.” In The Sociolinguistics of Society, 147–79. Oxford, Blackwell. Ghosh, Palash. 2014. “Watch Your Tongue: Language Controversy One of Fundamental Conflicts in Ukraine.” IBT imes, 3 March. http://www. ibtimes.com/watch-your-tongue-language-controversy-one-fundamentalconflicts-ukraine-1559069. Johnstone, Barbara. 2000. Qualitative Methods in Sociolinguistics. Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press.

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Kreindler, Isabelle. 1985. “The Non-Russian Languages and the Challenge of Russian: The Eastern versus Western Tradition.” In Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages: Their Past, Present and Future, edited by Isabelle Kreindler, 345–61. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Kuzhabekova, Aliya. 2000. “Past, Present and Future of Language Policy in Kazakhstan.” M A thesis, University of North Dakota. https://arts-­ sciences.und.edu/summer-institute-of-linguistics/theses/_files/docs/2003kuzhabekova-aliya-s.pdf. Lambert, William E., Richard C. Hodgson, Robert C. Gardner, and Samuel Fillenbaum. 1960. “Evaluational Reactions to Spoken Language.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 60: 44–51. Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Committee on Statistics. 2018. “Number of the Pupils in General Education Schools by Kind of Studying Language.” Accessed 17 May 2018. http:// stat.gov.kz. Nazarbayev, Nursultan. 2017. “Course towards the Future: Modernization of Kazakhstan’s Identity.” Accessed 14 January 2018. Official Website of the President of Kazakhstan. 12 April. http://www.akorda.kz/en/events/ akorda_news/press_conferences/ course-towards-the-future-modernization-of-kazakhstans-identity. Rafael, Vincente L. 2016. Motherless Tongues: The Insurgency of Language amid Wars of Translation. Durham/London: Duke University Press. Sagyndykova, Zhailagul, Anna I. Svinarchuk, and Tamara A. Kurbina. 2017. Polilingval’naia kommunikatsiia v Kazakhstane: Rechevoe i tekstovoe predstavlenie [Polylingual Communication in Kazakhstan: Oral and Textual Representation]. Kokshetau: Mir pechati. Shalgimbekova, Kenzhegul S. 2013. “Funktsionirovanierusskogoiazyka v iazykovomprostranstve Kazakhstane (naprimere Kastanaiskoioblasti) [Functioning of the Russian Language in the Linguistic Space of Kazakhstan (Based on the Example of Kastanai Oblast)].” Vestnik Cheliabinskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 1, 292: 153–7. Shlapentokh, Dmitry. 2011. “The Fate of Nikolai Marr’s Linguistic Theories: The Case of Linguistics in the Political Context.” Journal of Eurasian Studies 2: 60–73. Suleimenova, Eleonora D., and Zhuldyz S. Smagulova. 2005. Iazykovaia situatsiia i iazykovoe planirovanie v Kazakhstane [The Language Situation and Language Policy in Kazakhstan]. Almaty: Qazaq universiteti.

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Protecting and Revitalizing Endangered Traditional Minority Languages

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4 Minority Language Protection in Italy and Local Initiatives to Protect Francoprovençal in Apulia Adriana Di Biase

In t ro du cti on Italy is one of the most linguistically heterogeneous countries in Europe due to the presence of dozens of minority languages and dialects, besides the national language of Italian, spoken on its national territory. Some of these minorities have attracted a growing interest in the last couple of decades and have received the official status of languages worthy of preservation and promotion. This growing interest has been enjoyed by Francoprovençal, a language spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland, northwest Italy, and in two small villages in the province of Foggia (in the Apulia region) in southern Italy (Favre 2010). Francoprovençal has gained official status on both national and regional levels. The national status has not changed the imbalance of power between Italian and this minority language, since Francoprovençal is spoken only by a small number of people. However, on the local level, organizations and municipalities have been trying to correct the unequal relations between the national language and Francoprovençal by sponsoring different types of initiatives. This chapter focuses on Francoprovençal in Apulia and aims to illustrate some of the initiatives – in the forms of cultural events, education, publishing, scholarly research, and translation – promoted by local authorities to preserve and promote the use of this language. Before doing so, it is important to give an overview of the rich

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Figure 4.1  Key moments in the history of Francoprovençal

1947: Italian Constitution protects minority languages

1800s–mid-1900s: Big debate occurs over a lack of unified national identity

1861: Unification of Italy

1269: Francoprovençal came to Apulia

2014: Courses in French and Francoprovençal start to be held in Apulia

2012: Research facility C E S L I F is founded to promote and protect Francoprovençal in Apulia

2012: Apulia Regional Law No. 5: Francoprovençal receives protection on a regional level to protect and promote its heritage

2007: First biannual literary competition “Giuseppe La Nave” is held

2005: Calendar in Francoprovençal starts to be published, also including proverbs, advice, historical information about the village

1999: Italian Law No. 482 recognizes Francoprovençal and other minority languages as protected



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presence of languages on the Italian territory, provide some information about Francoprovençal, and discuss how Italian legislation manages the Italian language, minority languages, and the various dialects spoken in the country.

T h e L in g u is t ic R ic hness of I taly Italy is one of the richest countries in Europe in terms of the number of languages spoken on its territory.1 The reason behind the presence of so many languages lies in the historical background of the country. Italy experienced centuries of political migration of groups with diverse languages and cultures: the Romans, the Normans, the Arabs, and the French, just to mention a few. All these civilizations left their footprints on the country’s language diversity. Moreover, Italy is a country of very recent unification compared to some other European nations. The standardization process of national languages was relatively easy in those European countries where unification took place in the fifteenth century or earlier (Tosi 2001). However, Italian unification took place only in the late nineteenth century, and the country’s complex and diverse internal linguistic situation has been impossible to erase simply by choosing one language as the national language over the others (ibid., 3). Italy was unified in 1861. But political unification did not lead to a unified national identity, and the country was still divided due to the presence of strong regional and local identities. As Italian statesman Massimo D’Azeglio (Gigante 2011) remarked, “fatta l’Italia, facciamo gli italiani [we have made Italy, now we must make the Italians].” In this same period, the government had to choose a national language and a big debate – commonly called the Questione della lingua – occurred (Tosi 2001, 2). Some of the major figures of the time discussed which of the languages spoken in Italy should be chosen as the national one, and they were divided into two groups with different opinions on how to deal with this situation. On one side, there were figures like the Italian novelist Alessandro Manzoni, who thought that the state should declare war on dialects and the educational system should be used to enforce Florentine. On the other side, there were figures like the linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, who disagreed with Manzoni’s point of view. In his Proemio (Foreword) to the first issue of the Archivio Glottologico Italiano

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(Ascoli 1873), Ascoli pointed to a lack of cultural density2 as the reason behind the presence of many different dialects on the Italian territory. He did not propose an opposing language to Florentine, but he thought that dialects and regional contributions would be beneficial to a common national language. Ascoli suggested focusing on the social and cultural development of the country rather than on the imposition of one language, as this would eventually lead to a linguistic unification (Formigari and Gambarara 1995). Ascoli’s theory never became popular, whereas Manzoni’s theory did. Florentine was adopted as the Italian national language. One hundred and fifty years after unification, Italian is the national language and is spoken throughout the national territory, but regional and local identities still play an important role thanks to the use of dialects and minority languages.

T h e D if f e r e n t L a n g uages Spoken t h ro u g h o u t I taly Different frameworks exist that classify the languages spoken throughout Italy. For example, Maraschio and Robustelli (2010) distinguish between national language, dialects, “historic” minority languages, and “new” minority languages. Dialects are defined as local languages that are mistakenly conceived of as inferior to Italian. “Historic” minority languages are spoken by Indigenous people; they derive from Romance, Germanic, Slavic, Greek, and Albanian. Certain minority languages are defined as “new” because their presence in Italy is a consequence of immigration over the last few decades. These minority languages, which currently represent only 5 per cent of the overall population, are mainly spoken by people coming from Eastern Europe, north and west Africa, and South America (Dal Negro 2005, 113). The future of this third group is unknown (Maraschio and Robustelli 2010, 73). Another framework that classifies the various languages spoken on the Italian territory is the one proposed by Silvia Dal Negro. Her framework is used in the present chapter because it simplifies the complex linguistic landscape that exists in Italy (Dal Negro 2005). Dal Negro’s classification originates from Law No. 482 adopted by the Italian government on 15 December 1999, which confirms Italian as the official language of the Italian Republic and ratifies the existence of twelve minority languages that must be protected and promoted. Dal Negro distinguishes three different types of minority languages.

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First, there are languages that represent a classic case of diglossia, in which languages compete locally with the national language. Second comes the case of Abstandsprachen. The last group encompasses linguistic enclaves. The first category comprises languages spoken in the regioni a statuto speciale (special administrative regions) in which certain minority languages “enjoy equal status in all domains of public communication” (ibid., 116). Some examples are German in South Tirol and French in the Aosta Valley. The second category is represented by Abstandsprachen. This term was coined by Heinz Kloss and is used to define languages which “cannot be ascribed to the ItaloRomance group (or Italian) or to any other Romance standard language” (ibid., 117). Francoprovençal is part of this group since it is a different language from Italian due to the similarities it presents with French and Occitan, although it also presents differences with respect to the latter. The third and last category comprises linguistic enclaves, or languages that are or were spoken outside Italy as national languages, but that have been used in Italy for a very long time with little or no contact with the corresponding standard language (ibid., 119). Two examples of languages belonging to this group are Albanian (spoken in Apulia and Sicily) and Modern Greek (spoken in Apulia and Calabria).

O n F r a n c o p rovençal Francoprovençal is a Gallo-Romance language that was discovered by the famous Italian linguist and dialectologist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli. He looked at linguistic diversity in France and noticed that Francoprovençal was not the fusion between Langue d’Oc (spoken in the south and at that time called “Provençal”) and Langue d’Oil (spoken in the northern half of France), as had been thought up to then. It was different from both of them, but it also showed some similarities with each. Ascoli (1873, 61) described Francoprovençal as follows: “I call Francoprovençal a type of language that brings together some specific characteristics of its own along with other characteristics that have things in common with French and also with Provençal. Francoprovençal does not derive from the merging of different elements, but rather it confirms its own historical independence, but a little differently from those by which the principal neo-Latin languages distinguish themselves from one another.”3

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Francoprovençal is spoken in parts of France, Switzerland, northwest Italy, and southeast Italy. It is a fragmented language and its local variants are very different from each other; consequently, sometimes mutual intelligibility (Chambers and Trudgill 1980, 34) between speakers of the different variants is not met and comprehension is hindered. There is neither a “pure” form of Francoprovençal, nor is there an established label used to identify the language. This is why speakers use local terms to name this language (see Project Gutenburg). Besides Francoprovençal, other names have been suggested through the decades. “Romand” has been used in Switzerland since 1494 (Kristol 2005) and it is also used by those linguists who believe that the word Francoprovençal is “inappropriate” (Dalby 1999/2000, 402). In the 1960s “Burgundian” was suggested. This name, though, was not successful because it created confusion with historical, political, and geographic regions that had the same name (Meune 2007). Other names used for Francoprovençal, mainly by native speakers, are patouès (patois) and nosta moda (our way [of speaking]). Some Savoyard speakers call Francoprovençal Sarde because their ancestors were subjects of the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the House of Savoy. Moreover, Gaga is used to refer to the local variety spoken in the former French region of Forez and is also used in some local publications. Gaga originates from the way inhabitants of Saint-Étienne are called, and it became popular thanks to Auguste Callet’s story, La légende des Gagats (see Linguateca n.d.). More recently, Arpitan has been used to highlight the independence of this language from other linguistic groups (Bessat and Germi 1991). The term was invented in 1973 by Joseph Henriet, the founder of the Arpitaniste movement; it refers to “a vast region around Mont Blanc,” which makes it hard to adapt it to the other varieties of Francoprovençal. This is probably why the term has not been adopted by academics (Ledgeway and Maiden 2016, 352).

Whe r e F r a n c o p rov e n ç a l i s Spoken and How It   C a m e to B e S p oken i n I taly As noted above, Francoprovençal is spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland, and in different areas of Italy. More specifically, Francoprovençal can be heard in the southern Aosta Valley, the northwest Italian region of Piedmont, and in the two small villages of Faeto and Celle di San Vito in Apulia, southern Italy (see Project Gutenberg).

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Communities of Francoprovençal speakers have also been reported in North America (Nagy 2011). The largest communities are in the Greater Toronto Area and on the Atlantic Coast of the United States of America (Donzella 2006). Regarding vitality, there are different estimates for speakers of Francoprovençal in the different areas, but no reliable and recent census data exists. Kasstan (2015, 3–4) has provided an overview of these numbers. He claims that Ball (1997, 68) reported figures by Kloss and McConnell (1984) to suggest there were just 30,000 speakers in France at the time of his writing. In contrast, Moseley (2007, 246) provided more recent data and suggested there were around 35,000 in the Savoie region and 25,000 residing in other parts of the Francoprovençal-speaking zone in France (Kasstan 2015, 3–4). For his part, Tuaillon (1993, 142) estimated around 50,000 to 60,000 speakers are left in France. As regards the Francoprovençal presence in Italy, the Ethnologue archive (Gordon 2005) uses figures dating back to the 1971 census and reports 70,000 speakers, 700 of whom are in Apulia (Nagy 1996). In turn, Salminen (2007) carried out a more recent study, and his figures showed that some 28,000 speakers are thought to live in Italy (see also Kasstan 2015, 3–4). Earlier figures by Tuaillon (1988, 204) suggested that there might have been as many as 70,000 speakers in Italy at the time of his writing. This contrasts with Salvi’s data that suggested the number would have been closer to 90,000 (Kasstan 2015, 3–4). Lastly, for Switzerland, Meune (2009, 1–2) used figures from the 2000 census and illustrated that roughly 16,000 people are thought to speak Francoprovençal in Italy. As we can see, there is significant disagreement over the precise number of Francoprovençal speakers. The problem lies in the geographical fragmentation of the communities where Francoprovençal is spoken, as well as in what is meant by the term “speaker” (Dorian 1981, 114). From the figures cited, in fact, there is no distinction between different types of speakers with varying levels of proficiency. More recent data published by Bert et al. (2009, 49–51) highlight these problems (see also Kasstan 2015, 3–4). A similar issue concerns the way and the place in which Francoprovençal originated. No definite information is available, but the most credible hypotheses go back to two different theories, one supported by German scholars and the other by French scholars. The first theory returns to the Burgundians, whereas the second one sees

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Francoprovençal as an archaic form of French. The Burgundians were a Germanic tribe that invaded the Roman Empire during the fifth and sixth centuries A D . They settled in northwest Gaul and founded a reign that lasted until the eighth century, when it became part of the Carolingian Empire. The region where they settled is thought to coincide with the area of Francoprovençal. The Burgundians spoke a Germanic language that soon disappeared but that influenced the language spoken in the areas where they were living. In the same period, the Franks founded a reign in north Gaul that unified the country. Their own language mixed with Latin and gave rise to the Langue d’Oil. In the southern area of the country, however, Germanic settlements were rare, and people continued speaking Latin. This language gave birth to Occitan, or Provençal (Camosci 2012). Gaston Tuaillon and other French scholars support the second theory, according to which Francoprovençal is an archaic form of French that, at some point, stopped accepting the innovations that were produced in the area around Paris. This might have happened when an important event occurred in the political, religious, and cultural arena: the development of the regional metropolis of Lugdunim – Lyon today (Gardette and Horiot 1983). Both these hypotheses see Francoprovençal as originating beyond the Alps, quite far from the southern Italian region of Apulia. So, it is clear that Francoprovençal was brought down to Apulia by people from France. However, the way in which this migration and settlement happened has never been confirmed, and different theories currently coexist. According to one theory, in 1269 Charles of Anjou sent a contingent of soldiers to control the castle of Crepacore and granted them the right to settle along with their families in the neighbouring farmhouses and surrounding areas (Granatiero 2015). Then, with the Edict of 1272, Charles of Anjou informed his soldiers that the war was over; they were allowed to remain in the area rather than go back to France if they wished. However, in 1340, when hostilities between the House of Anjou and the Crown of Aragon started again, the majority of the inhabitants left the settlement to move to the area now called Faeto, while others moved to the territory now called Celle di San Vito. Legal expert Michele Vocino has suggested another theory (Occhipinti 2009). According to him, Charles of Anjou suggested to a group of his soldiers that they should move to Lucera. Because of the excessive heat, this group of people and their families moved from

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Lucera to the nearby mountainous area covered in beeches (in Italian faggeto), from which the name Faeto derived. Yet another theory claims that Francoprovençal was brought to Apulia by a group of peasants coming down from the French Alps (ibid.). In any case, it seems obvious that all theories go back to the presence of the Angevins in Italy in general, and in Apulia in particular.

P rot e c t io n o f M in o r it y Languages i n I taly The protection of minority languages in Italy is regulated on different levels. On the European level, one instrument of protection is the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (E CRM L ) drawn up by the Council of Europe. The treaty binds the signatories to promote the use of regional and minority languages on the territory of the country in different domains, including education, the media, the courts, and state bureaucracy (Perta 2008, 1217). Italy signed the ECRML in 2000 but has not ratified it yet. In March 2012, the Council of Ministers of the Italian government approved ratification, but as of today the Parliament has not taken any formal decision on the matter because, among other reasons, laws governing the protection of minority languages have been applied only partially or are totally non-existent (Sierp 2008, 316). On the national level, minority languages receive protection in Italy from both the constitution and Law No. 482, enacted in 1999. Article 6 of the constitution declares: “La Repubblica tutela con apposite norme le minoranze linguistiche [The Republic protects minority languages with specific regulations].” Article 2 of Law No. 482/1999 reiterates the commitment to protect minority languages – though not all of them. Some linguistic enclaves, Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek among them, as well as Francoprovençal and other minority languages, are protected, although other enclaves and minority languages, such as Venetian and Piedmontese, are excluded. This law produced enthusiasm but also anger and disappointment, especially in those communities that were left out (Dal Negro 2005, 115). Furthermore, it determined the spheres to which protection is to be applied. In particular, •

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Section 4 declares that, in kindergartens (par. 1) and elementary and middle schools (par. 2), language activities as well as cultural activities may be carried out using the minority language;

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Section 4 par. 3 declares that elementary and middle schools may extend education to adults; Section 4 par. 5 declares that, upon pre-enrolment in school, parents may express their intent to take advantage of minoritylanguage teaching; Section 7 par. 1 declares that, in municipalities, employees may use the minority language in the execution of their activities; Section 9 par. 1 declares that, in public administrations, the written and oral use of the minority language is permitted. Only the armed forces and the police shall be excluded; Section 16 par. 1 declares that regions and provinces may establish institutes to protect linguistic and cultural traditions of the populations who speak the minority language. They may also favour the establishment of autonomous sections of cultural institutions that already exist (see Parlamento Italiano 1999).

Francoprovençal receives protection also on a regional level through Regional Law No. 5 of 2012, Norme per la promozione e la tutela delle lingue minoritare in Puglia (Regulations for the Promotion and the Protection of Minority Languages in Apulia), which declares the following: “In order to promote the preservation and development of the linguistic, historical, cultural, artistic, religious-liturgical, and folk heritage of these communities, the Apulia Region supports legally and financially initiatives aimed at protecting the preservation, recovery, and development of their cultural identity, promoting initiatives and incentives for the remaining populations in their places of origin and for the deepening of their historical and linguistic roots.”4

F r a n c o p rov e n ç al i n Apuli a Nowadays, Francoprovençal still plays an important role in people’s lives in Apulia. It is currently spoken by the population and is used in several domains, such as elementary schools, songs, books, and publications of different types (Nagy 2011), as well as in everyday informal communication. This is the result of two main reasons: first, the pride of Francoprovençal speakers in their own language and identity, and second, the geographical position of the two villages in which Francoprovençal is spoken in Apulia. Local speakers are proud to speak the local variety of Francoprovençal. This pride is evident in the number of people who use the

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language on a daily basis. Ninety-one per cent of the population declare they speak Francoprovençal, while the remaining 9 per cent state they have a passive knowledge of the language.5 In these two villages, Francoprovençal competes with Italian and the local dialects, but the community of speakers has maintained a sense of distinct identity and has resisted the Italian national identity. Even though Italian has gradually become their primary language, the local people “have remained bilingual, resisting homogenization against all expectations” (Perta 2008, 1221). One of the reasons for their pride lies in the fact that this language is associated with the high prestige of French (ibid., 1218). As for geographical position, Faeto and Celle di San Vito are situated on mountaintops at 800 m (roughly 2600 ft.) and 700 m (2300 ft.) above sea level, respectively, and they are quite isolated from other towns. The closest major city is Foggia, located some 50 km (31 miles) from Faeto and Celle and not easily accessible. However, despite their relative isolation, which has helped Francoprovençal remain alive, the future of this language is uncertain, and there is a high chance it will soon disappear. According to the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing, Francoprovençal is “endangered” in Italy and a “seriously endangered language” in Switzerland and France because very few people speak it (Wurm and Heyward 2001, 29). In the 14 April 2002 issue of the Italian national newspaper La Repubblica, an article on Faeto appeared. The author expressed his concerns about the future of Francoprovençal, claiming that over 50 per cent of the local population is between seventy and eighty years old, whereas the remaining 50 per cent is under forty. At the time of the publication, the mayor of the village was Antonio Marella. He explained that the village was missing people over forty and under seventy because they had emigrated in the seventies and that, as a result, Francoprovençal could die in twenty years [from 2002] (LaRepubblica.it 2002). Many initiatives have been promoted in Apulia by local authorities to preserve the use of Francoprovençal. For the purpose of the present chapter, the initiatives have been divided, following Sandra Lee McKay’s framework, into corpus planning, status planning, and acquisition planning (McKay 1993). Corpus planning refers to prescriptive interventions having to do with language. Some of the most common ways to apply prescription to languages are through grammar books and dictionaries. A bilingual Francoprovençal (as spoken in Faeto)

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and Italian glossary with more than 13,000 words has been published, which contains the “normal” and International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions, the latter of which was overseen by Sara Bonomo, a French professor. A rhyming dictionary with Francoprovençal words included in the glossary was also published.6 As well, scholar Naomi Nagy has carried out research in the village of Faeto. While doing so, she was asked to write a descriptive grammar. The local community of speakers wanted her to do this to preserve their language for future generations, and they were interested in having material they could use to teach the local variant of Francoprovençal in school (Nagy 2008, 398). One of the challenges Nagy faced was to develop standardized spelling for a language everyone used in its oral form but that very few people used in written form. Each writer would use his / her own transcription system, and they could write following etymological patterns or current pronunciation and adopt the French-style or Italian-style spelling system. Nagy asked native speakers to translate into the local variant of Francoprovençal and then write down an Italian sentence. In their responses, none of the speakers wrote the sentences alike, even though some similarities could be found. In the end, she decided to bypass the spelling issue by linking audio recordings of the texts to grammar on the web. In this way, people could listen to the information rather than having to read it. One improvement she was planning to introduce was having multiple forms of each page with spelling alternatives. So, for example, the user could select a French-style, Italian-style, or IPA system and then access the written text following a specific spelling system (ibid., 410). Despite the challenges that Francoprovençal imposes on linguists because of the great regional variations of the language, some success has been attained. Different grammars and proposals have been published, among which is the orthographic standard (Orthographe ORB supradialectale standardisée) proposed by linguist Dominique Stich and included in his dictionary published by Éditions Le Carré (Stich 2003). Not only does Stich’s standard present a close representation of Francoprovençal phonology, it indicates French spelling conventions with silent letters and Latin roots. Stich’s proposal has received wide consensus because it attempts to unify several written forms and is easiest for French speakers. Status planning refers to initiatives with the intent of promoting the language, notably in the form of translations, books, magazines,

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and cultural events (McKay 1993). The publications produced are of very different types. For example, some collections of short stories and poems are available in Faeto, such as Cunte é cuntariélle de Faìte, which is distributed along with a C D . The Gospel of St Luke and other texts have been published in book form and made available on the official websites of the villages in both languages (Italian and Francoprovençal). In 2005, a calendar was published in Francoprovençal that also included proverbs, advice, historical information about the villages, gastronomy, and recipes. As well, Faeto publishes a biannual magazine called Effepi on Francoprovençal culture and current events in the village. Other types of publications in Francoprovençal, such as the anthology Cunte d’ajére è d’avì: premio letterario Francoprovenzale (Today’s and Yesterday’s Stories: Francoprovençal Literary Prize) include the texts submitted to the literary competition “Giuseppe La Nave.” This competition has been taking place every year since 2007 and is sponsored by the local magazine Il Provenzale together with the municipalities of Faeto and Celle San Vito. Another form of status planning consists of scholarly research, focusing both on minority languages in Apulia in general and Francoprovençal in particular. As for research on the latter, journal articles, books, conference proceedings, theses, and dissertations have been written from different perspectives, either focusing on grammar, the history of the language, or its promotion. Here are some examples: •

•

•

Language Contact and Language Change in the Faetar Speech Community, by Naomi Gail Nagy (1996); Le comunitá francoprovenzali di Celle di S. Vito e Faeto. Cultura locale e dinamiche migratorie (The Francoprovençal Communities of Celle di San Vito and Faeto. Local Culture and Migrant Dynamics), by Diego Donzella (2006–07); Tutela e promozione delle lingue locali nella prospettiva dello sviluppo territoriale: i casi del francoprovenzale in Puglia e dell’Arberesh in Abruzzo (Protection and Promotion of Local Languages from the Perspective of Territorial Development: The Case of Francoprovençal in Apulia and Arberesh in Abruzzo), by Frédéric Bienkowski (2010).

In addition, a research facility was founded after the 2012 Regional Law was passed. The facility is called C E S L I F (Centro Studi della

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Lingua Francoprovenzale) and it aims to promote and protect Francoprovençal in Apulia. Its objective is to create an observatory unit to monitor all the initiatives regarding Francoprovençal language and culture and to implement intercultural exchanges with minority realities.7 C E S L I F also plans to create a laboratory divided into two areas: a linguistic area for the study of elements of lexicology, phonetics, and grammar of Francoprovençal, and a historical area for research on its origins, history, and traditions. It further plans to create a database to collect and catalog all texts and documents in the language. Lastly, different types of cultural events have been organized by the two villages. Francoprovençal Day in Celle di San Vito is 12 August, while in Faeto this day is celebrated on 18 July. Villagers display the old professions, people play and dance to traditional music while wearing folk costumes, and Mass is celebrated in Francoprovençal. Theatre and choral performances take place as well. There is a day on which students and researchers from The United World College of the Adriatic,8 who come from different parts of the world, meet to talk about minority languages and Francoprovençal. The last occurrence of this event took place on 29 February 2016 in Greci (a town almost two hours east of Naples where Arbëresh, an ancient Albanian language, is spoken) and 1 March 2016 in Faeto. The attendees had the chance to get in touch with people from a different minority language and culture. They visited the towns’ museums, the local proloco (organizations that seek to promote the towns and their immediate areas), and the CESLIF facilities (Lucerabynight. it n.d.). The last element proposed by Sandra Lee McKay’s framework is acquisition planning, which refers to the opportunities taken to teach and disseminate knowledge of the language. The main initiative in this category is the collaboration between the municipalities of Faeto and Celle San Vito, together with the international French cultural organization La Renaissance Française and the association LEM Italia. Since 2014, these entities have been organizing courses in French and Francoprovençal.9 When the courses were first offered, there was room for a maximum of twenty people. Enrolment has doubled for the 2017 offerings. These courses last two weeks and the attendees take six to seven hours of classes every day, six days a week. The courses cost between €350 and €490 and the participants receive a certificate of attendance

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at the end of the two weeks. The fee includes language classes taught by native speakers and university professors, as well as a wide variety of activities such as excursions, movies in Francoprovençal, conferences and debates, cultural activities, and half-board accommodation (Associazione Borghi 2016). This situation seems positive because the national and regional laws both attempt to reduce the unequal power relations between the national and minority languages, as well as support various initiatives aimed at preserving Francoprovençal and its cultural and linguistic identities. In practice, however, the situation is not that idyllic because the funds allocated by the regional institutions for the initiatives are decreasing, and it is becoming more and more difficult for local authorities to organize and sponsor events and projects. For example, in 2015, the Apulia Region allocated a total of €10,000 to twenty-eight different projects that had been submitted by the local municipalities and associations. According to documentation provided by the Apulia regional body, 40 per cent of the €10,000 was to go to local institutions, 30 per cent to schools, and only 30 per cent to associations, newspapers, and the municipalities. This means that the municipalities received €4,000 (Associazione Borhgi 2015). Obviously, this made the local groups angry at the Apulia regional body because the local municipalities, in accordance with Regional Law No. 5/2012, had put effort into creating projects aimed at promoting and sponsoring Francoprovençal language and culture. As the mayor of Celle di San Vito noted, it is nonsense to have a law and talk about minority language protection if there are not enough funds to support the projects and, as a consequence, some projects need to be self-sponsored.

C o n c l u si on From a linguistic point of view, Italy is one of the most heterogeneous countries in Europe. Besides the Italian national language, numerous dialects and minority languages are spoken on Italian territory. Over the last decades, several of these minority languages have acquired official status in an effort to preserve and promote them, one of which is Francoprovençal. The language has received protection on different levels, from the Italian Constitution as well as national and regional laws. This protection has allowed local municipalities and organizations to initiate projects designed to preserve and sponsor the use of Francoprovençal.

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The present chapter has described some of the initiatives that have been put into place in the Apulian villages of Faeto and Celle di San Vito in the form of publications, translations, scholarly research, cultural events, and education. These initiatives have been presented according to Sandra Lee McKay’s framework of corpus planning, status planning, and acquisition planning. The initiatives showed two important elements: the deep pride of the local population and their motivation. First, the community of speakers of Celle di San Vito and Faeto are very proud of their identity and language. One way they show their pride is by using Francoprovençal on a daily basis and in different domains, regardless of the competition from Italian and other local dialects. Second, the villagers show a strong motivation to preserve their linguistic and cultural heritage. For example, when scholar Naomi Nagy went to Faeto to carry out research, she was asked to write a descriptive grammar. Villagers wanted to pass their linguistic heritage onto future generations. In addition, they wanted to use the material to teach Francoprovençal grammar at school. Unfortunately, though, in some cases people’s pride and enthusiasm clash with the lack of regional funds, as happened in 2015. This resulted in the local organizations and villagers self-sponsoring their projects. The hope for the future is that regional authorities will allocate more funds so that more initiatives may be sponsored.

N otes   1 To date, the exact number of languages spoken in Italy is unknown.   2 In this context, “cultural density” means that, at the time, few people in Italy knew Italian. The socio-cultural level of the vast majority of the ­population was low and Italian was not a popular language.   3 “Chiamo franco-provenzale un tipo idiomatico, il quale insieme riunisce, con alcuni caratteri specifici, più altri caratteri, che parte son comuni al francese, parte lo sono al provenzale, e non proviene già da una confluenza di elementi diversi, ma bensì attesta sua propria indipendenza istorica, non guari dissimile da quella per cui fra di loro si distinguono gli altri principali tipi neo-latini.”   4 “Al fine di promuovere la salvaguardia e la valorizzazione del patrimonio linguistico, storico, culturale, artistico, religioso-liturgico e folklorico delle suddette comunità, la Regione Puglia sostiene legislativamente e finanziariamente iniziative intese a garantire la conservazione, il recupero e lo sviluppo della loro identità culturale, promuovendo iniziative e incentivi per

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la permanenza delle popolazioni nei luoghi di origine e per l’approfondimento delle ragioni delle loro radici storico-linguistiche.”   5 Carmela Perta (2007) carried out a pilot study in the village of Faeto and interviewed thirty-four subjects. The interviewees were divided into four categories according to age: category 1 (three to eighteen years of age), category 2 (nineteen to thirty-nine), category 3 (forty to sixty-nine), category 4 (over seventy). Ninety-one per cent of those interviewed claimed they were fluent in Francoprovençal, while the remaining 9 per cent (belonging to category 1) claimed they had a passive knowledge of the language. No interviewee claimed to speak only Italian.   6 Comune di Faeto, Realizzazioni.   7 Comune di Faeto, Centro studi della lingua francoprovenzale.   8 The United World College of the Adriatic (UWC A D) is an independent school belonging to United World Colleges (UWC), which is an international movement that gathers students from around the world, selected based on merit. The movement aims to promote peace and international co-operation.  9 Frontiera TV, Faeto ospita l’UFIS , l’Università Francofona dell´Italia del Sud: al via le iscrizioni.

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Beppeley. 2012. “I Francoprovenzali, chi sono, da dove vengono?” I Camosci Bianchi (blog), 9 March 2012. Accessed 28 February 2017. https://camoscibianchi.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/i-francoprovenzalichi-sono-da-dove-vengono/. Chambers, J.K., and Peter Trudgill. 1980. Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Comune di Faeto. “Centro studi della lingua francoprovenzale.” Accessed 22 March 2016. http://www.comune.faeto.fg.it/cms/cms_area. php?idarea=16. – “Realizzazioni.” Accessed 20 September 2016. http://www.comune. faeto.fg.it/cms/cms_arg.php?idarg=48. Dalby, Davis. 1999/2000. The Linguasphere Register of the World’s Languages and Speech Communities, vol. 2. Hebron: Linguasphere Press/Gwasg y Byd Iait. Dal Negro, Silvia. 2005. “Minority Languages between Nationalism and New Localism: The Case of Italy.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 20: 113–24. Donzella, Diego. 2006. “Le comunità francoprovenzali di Celle di S. Vito e Faeto: Cultura locale e dinamiche migratorie.” PhD diss., Università degli Studi di Torino. Dorian, Nancy. 1981. Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Economist, The. 2011. “Avanti.” 25 February. Accessed 23 March 2016. http://www.economist.com/node/18226545. Favre, Saverio. 2010. “Francoprovenzale, comunità.” Enciclopedia Treccani. Accessed 24 February 2016. http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ comunita-francoprovenzale_(Enciclopedia-dell’Italiano)/. Formigari, Lia, and Daniele Gambarara. 1995. Historical Roots of Linguistic Theories. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Frontiera TV. 2016. “Faeto ospita l’U FI S , l’Università Francofona dell´Italia del Sud: al via le iscrizioni.” 5 May. Accessed 27 November 2016. http://www.frontieratv.it/articolo.asp?id=1658. Gardette, Pierre, and Brigitte Horiot. 1983. Études de géographie linguistique: Paris: Klincksieck. Gigante, Claudio. 2011. “‘Fatta l’Italia, facciamo gli italiani’: Appunti su una massima da restituire a d’Azeglio.” Incontri. Rivista Europea di Studi Italiani. 26 (2): 5–15. Accessed 13 May 2017. http://doi. org/10.18352/incontri.830. Gordon, Raymond G., Jr, ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Dallas, Texas: S I L International. Accessed 17 February 2017. http:// www.ethnologue.com/15.

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Granatiero, Francesco. 2015. “Un saggio sul provenzale pugliese.” Poesia E Dialetti (blog), 6 October. Accessed 15 December 2016. https:// fgranatiero.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/il-francoprovenzale-di-faeto-ecelle-di-san-vito-e-la-grafia-dei-dialetti-alto-meridionali/. Kasstan, Jonathan Richard. 2015. “Variation and Change in Francoprovençal: A Study of an Emerging Linguistic Norm.” PhD diss., University of Kent. Kloss, Heinz, and Grant D. McConnell. 1984. Composition linguistique des nations du monde. Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Kristol, Andres. 2005. “Politiques et discours linguistiques explicites en Suisse occidentale (XV–XVIII siècles).” In Sprachendiskurs in der Schweiz: vom Vorzeigefall zum Problemfall? Le Discours sur les langues en Suisse: d’un modèle d’exemple à un cas problématique?, edited by Schweizerische Akademie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, 49–64. Bern: Académie Suisse des sciences humaines et sociales. LaRepubblica.it. 2002. “Faeto, Il Regno degli Ottantenni.” 14 April. Accessed 25 September 2016. http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/ archivio/repubblica/2002/04/14/faeto-il-regno-degli-ottantenni.html. Ledgeway, Adam, and Martin Maiden. 2016. The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Linguateca. n.d “Franco-Provençal Language.” Accessed 22 April 2016. http://www.linguateca.pt/GikiCLEF/GIRA/pool/GikiCLEF2009 DocumentPool/en/f/r/a/Franco-Provençal_language_c50a.xml. Lucerabynight.it. n.d. “Faeto: Arbereshe -Francoprovenzale, Presente e futuro.” Accessed 26 September 2016. http://www.lucerabynight.it/ zoom.asp?id=43954&Faeto-_Arbereshe_-_Francoprovenzale,_ Presente_e_futuro. Maraschio, Nicoletta, and Cecilia Robustelli. 2010. “Minoranze linguistiche: la situazione in Italia.” In National, Regional and Minority Languages in Europe, edited by Gerhard Stickel, 73–80. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. McKay, Sandra Lee. 1993. Agendas for Second Language Literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meune, Manuel. 2007. “Le franco(-)provençal entre morcellement et quête d’unité: histoire et état des lieux.” FRANCO(-)PROVENÇAL . Accessed 22 March 2007. http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/monde/franco-­ provencal.htm. – 2009. “Une langue sans nom et sans renom? Le défi de l’enseignement du francoprovençal.” CREOLE 17: 2–4. Moseley, Christopher. 2007. Encyclopedia of the World’s Endangered Languages. Oxford: Routledge.

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Nagy, Naomi. 1996. “Language Contact and Language Change in the Faetar Speech Community.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania. – 2009. “The Challenges of Less Commonly Studied Languages.” Variation in Indigenous Minority Languages 25: 397. – 2011. “Lexical Change and Language Contact: Faetar in Italy and Canada.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (3): 366–82. Occhipinti, Martina. 2009. “Ce.S.Do.Me.O.” La minoranza linguistica Francoprovenzale nei comuni di Faeto e Celle di S. Vito (FG ). Accessed 23 July 2015. http://www.cesdomeo.it/doc/Tesi_Laurea_FP_Faeto.pdf. Parlamento Italiano. 1999. “Legge 15 Dicembre 1999, n. 482: ‘Norme in materia di tutela delle minoranze linguistiche storiche.’” In Gazzetta Ufficiale 297, 20 December. Accessed 13 May 2018. http://www.­ camera.it/parlam/leggi/99482l.htm. Perta, Carmela. 2007. “Lo status delle lingue minoritarie tra mantenimento e perdita linguistica.” In Additional Online Papers: Multilingualism across Europe: Findings, Needs, Best Practices, edited by Andrea Abel, Mathias Stuflesser, and Magdalena Putz, 41–50. Bolzano: Accademia Europea Bolzano. Accessed 30 April 2017. http://docplayer.org/609696Additional-online-papers-multilingualism-across-europe.html. – 2008. “Can Language Politics Ensure Languages Survival? Evidence from Italy.” Language and Linguistics Compass 2 (6): 1216–24. Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press. “Arpitan.” Accessed 27 February 2017. http://www.self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/Arpitan. Salminen, Tapani. 2007. “Europe and North Asia.” In Encyclopedia of the World’s Endangered Languages, edited by Christopher Moseley, 211–82. London: Routledge. Sierp, Aline. 2008. “Minority Language Protection in Italy: Linguistic Minorities and the Media.” Journal of Contemporary European Research 4 (4): 303–21. S I L International. 2010. Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: frp. Accessed 3 January 2016. http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation. asp?id=frp. Stich, Dominique. 2003. Dictionnaire francoprovençal/français, français/ francoprovençal: Dictionnaire des mots de base du francoprovençal: Orthographe ORB supradialectale standardisée. Thonon-les-Bains: Éditions Le Carré. Tosi, Arturo. 2001. Language and Society in a Changing Italy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Tuaillon, Gaston. 1988. “Le Franco-provençal, langue oubliée.” In Vingtcinq communautés linguistiques de la France, vol. 1, edited by Geneviève Vermes, 188–207. Paris: Éditions l’Harmattan.

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– 1993. “Faut-il, dans l’ensemble Gallo-Roman, distinguer une famille ­linguistique pour le francoprovençal?” In Langues, dialectes et écriture (Les langues romanes de France), edited by Hervé Guillorel and Jean Sibille, 142–9. Paris: I.E.O.-I.P.I.E. Wurm, Stephen A., and Ian Heyward. 2001. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing. Paris: UNESC O Publishing.

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5 Dyw un iaith byth yn ddigon – One Language Is Never Enough: Language Policy and Translation in Modern Wales Anastasia Llewellyn

In t ro du c t i on While Ireland’s struggle to revive its native tongue through language policy and translation has been extensively studied, not least by Michael Cronin (1996), few are aware of another Celtic revival – that of Wales and the Welsh language, which had until recently largely escaped the notice of translation scholars.1 Nevertheless, translation and interpretation are playing an increasingly important role in language planning and policy in Wales and, thus, in the preservation of Welsh identity. “Welsh has become more visible, with a new sense that it is part of all Welsh people’s identity, be they Welsh speakers or not” (Kaufmann 2012, 329). Historically part of the British Empire, and today still part of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Wales often finds itself relegated to a mere footnote within the greater context of Britain. Most notorious is the Encyclopædia Britannica entry, which “encapsulated all the humiliation and patronizing indifference which helped to launch the modern nationalist movement to its principality – ‘for Wales, see England’” (Morgan 1981, 3). That said, Wales should not be completely dissociated from England, as they do indeed share a close relationship of conquered and conqueror. The themes of dominance and resistance remain relevant, but they ought to be discussed from beyond an imperialistic lens. Baumgarten and Gruber (2014, 39)

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Figure 5.1  Key moments in the status and promotion of Welsh

1965: The Hughes-Parry Report, The Legal Status of the Welsh Language, recommends Welsh be given equal standing with English in law; as a result, the Welsh Language Act, 1967 grants certain rights

1962: Cymdeithias Yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) is founded and begins a long campaign of civil disobedience

1847: The “Treachery of the Blue Books”: the English government considers the Welsh language to be a drawback to the Welsh population

1535: The first of two so-called Acts of Union absorb Wales into the English political entity

2050: The Welsh government hopes to see the n ­ umber of Welsh speakers in Wales rise to one million

2012: The National Assembly for Wales (Official Languages) Act 2012 declares that English and Welsh must be treated equally in the conduct of National Assembly for Wales proceedings

2011: The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 recognizes Welsh as an official language in Wales

1997: The second referendum on devolution is narrowly successful; as a result, the National Assembly for Wales is established in 1999

1993: The Welsh Language Act, 1993 grants Welsh equal status with English in public life in Wales

1973: The Kilbrandon Commission issues its report on the possibility of changes to the U K ’s constitution; this leads directly to the 1979 referendum on devolution, which fails

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Figure 5.2  Map of concentration of Welsh speakers in 2011 Source: Wikimedia Commons

write in their survey of Welsh translation history, “It might seem controversial to reduce Welsh translation history to a narrative of oppression, suffering and violence, yet it is a history that was and remains significantly determined by its relationship with forces of domination and hegemony.” Wales is a country, though not an independent state. It is part of the United Kingdom, having been assimilated into the English political entity by Henry VIII’s Laws in Wales Acts, commonly referred to as the Acts of Union, in the sixteenth century (ibid., 30). As part of the U K , Wales has members of parliament at Westminster, the British Parliament. Beyond that, the Welsh government, the executive, has

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responsibility for policy and budget priorities and is accountable to the National Assembly for Wales, the legislature, which has progressively taken over more and more secondary legislative powers from Westminster as a result of the ongoing devolution process (Laffin et al. 2012). Briefly, devolution is the transfer of powers from the Parliament at Westminster to Wales (and Scotland). Cementing Wales as a bilingual nation has been a key policy within the devolution process from the start (Musk 2010, 182). Until the late nineteenth century, Welsh was the language of the majority, despite the upper classes having long been anglicized in order to curry favour with the British monarchs. Industrialization brought about the generalized switch to English. As such, Welsh is fairly new to minority language status. According to the 2011 census, “there are 562,000 people in Wales who can speak Welsh, representing 19 per cent of the population” (StatsWales n.d.). Welsh may only be spoken by just under one fifth of the population, but the percentage of the population fluent in the language has increased since the 1980s (Statistics for Wales 2012), and a “growing number of non-Welshspeaking families [are] sending their children to be educated in Welsh schools” (Kaufmann 2012, 331), which is cause for cautious optimism among advocates for the language. That said, there is concern that learners do not necessarily have the opportunity to use Welsh outside the classroom, whether because of their own reluctance to practise or for lack of local infrastructure, particularly in regions with fewer native speakers. Promoting the learning of the language can boost the language’s status only if learners then practise their skills outside the classroom. Another cause for concern is the fact that language learning is a costly endeavour, in both time and effort, on the part of institutions, teachers, and learners (Phillipson 2003, 147). Toury (1985, 7) wrote that translation “may certainly serve as a means for both actual preservation and development” of minority languages, and Welsh is an example of that. Translation and interpretation are prime tools in securing Welsh speakers’ rights to live and work in their own language, as a result of legislation requiring the availability of Welsh-language documentation and service in all governmental bodies dealing with the public. Indeed, the Welsh government has been making great strides toward implementing a translation framework to meet the growing demand for quality translations between English and Welsh – particularly toward the latter – in administration and communication with the public.

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Barakos (2016) offers an in-depth survey of language policy as it applies to businesses operating in Wales. I endeavour to examine the changing status of the Welsh language and the increasing use of translation and interpretation as tools for the preservation and promotion of the language at the governmental level, as well as the language’s role in Welsh people’s sense of identity. Furthermore, I seek to explore the efforts made by the government, public bodies, and universities to meet the growing demand for qualified practitioners. Finally, I must address the current system’s shortcomings. To discuss the Welsh government’s ongoing attempts to foster the Welsh language, one must begin by defining both language planning and language policy. The term “language planning” is perhaps best defined as pertaining to “deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of their language codes” (Cooper 1989, 45). This implies intentional actions – for example, a decision by the government to encourage certain language habits, which could have a significant impact across a range of areas. Bright (1992, 311) defines two types of language planning: corpus planning, to do with codification and standardization, and status planning, to do with attitudes and political implications of language choices. Cooper (1989) adds a third, language acquisition planning, which involves language learning and practice. For the purposes of this chapter, I will principally deal with the latter two types of language planning. Definitions of language policy vary greatly, and I rely on a definition stemming from the field of translation studies. Meylaerts (2011, 743) defines language policy as “the set of legal rules that regulate language use in the public domain,” adding that “any language policy presupposes a translation policy.” Meylaerts also proposes a complementary definition of translation policy as “a set of legal rules that regulate language use for purposes of education and communication, the latter covering the language of legal affairs, of political institutions, of the media, and of administration” (ibid.). Language and translation policies thus refer to the legislation enacted with respect to the above definitions. Likewise, Spolsky and Shohamy (2000, 2) define language policy as an explicit statement, generally in some formal document, by an entity that has some form of authority over those expected to abide by said statement, although Spolsky (2004, 8) later posits that language policy exists even where it has not been mandated by

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authorities. While I am focusing on concerted efforts to manage language use, language practices and beliefs play an intrinsic part in any involvement on the government’s part (Spolsky and Shohamy 2000, 10). Spolsky’s further comment that, “even when there is a formal, written language policy, its effect on language practices is neither guaranteed nor consistent” (2004, 8) is quite apt when it comes to Wales, as is his notion that any effects of governmental policy are in turn subject to the effects of community practices (ibid., 222). Kaplan and Baldauf (1997, xi) helpfully distinguish between language planning and language policy, writing that “the exercise of language planning leads to, or is directed by, the promulgation of a language policy by government (or other authoritative body or person).” With the shift toward postcolonial and cultural approaches to translation studies, attention has increasingly been paid to minority languages. It is crucial to acknowledge, as Cronin (2000, 43) does, that it is high time translation scholars turned their attention to pragmatic translation, which could benefit as much from a “cultural turn” as literary practice has. Bandia (2006, 54–6) expands on the importance of the cultural turn and power relations: “New approaches to studying translation phenomena revealed the limitations of previous methodologies, bringing to the forefront issues of gender, ethics, postcolonialism, globalization, and minority in translation, all related to what is generally referred to as the postmodern condition … introducing other paradigms of investigation such as power relations, ideology, and identity.” Kaufmann (2012, 336), in her work on translation and language policy in Wales, concludes that everyday translation can “influence identities.” This corroborates Phillipson’s assertion that, “in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the most powerful source of group identity was the nation, a key constituent of which was a national language” (2003, 41).

P r e - D e vo l u t io n L anguage Poli cy Traditionally, language policy in Wales was quite simple. The so-called Acts of Union in the sixteenth century banned the Welsh language from public life, with English being used for all official and administrative affairs. It is quite likely the language would not have survived at all if not for the publication of the Bible in Welsh in 1588.2 Due to the sanctioned use of Welsh in church, Welsh maintained a place in public life and remained the language of the general population, but

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the power elite functioned in English alone. In the eighteenth century, circulating schools brought literacy to nearly half the population (Spolsky 2004, 81–2). In 1847, the English government reported on the state of education in Wales in what became known as the “Treachery of the Blue Books,” concluding that the Welsh language was a drawback to the Welsh population. The report characterized the Welsh as a backward, uneducated people (Baumgarten and Gruber 2014, 36). While they may have been offended, there was little visible outcry from the Welsh, who recognized the advantages speaking English could bring their children. This was compounded by the fact that, when the Education Act of 1870 made schooling compulsory, crucially, the Welsh language was banned from schools (Thomas 1992, 255). Despite the acceptance of English as the language of upward mobility, there remained concern for the survival of the Welsh language on the part of many native speakers. As early as the sixteenth century, Welsh intellectuals had been advocating the language’s preservation. The achievements of bardic poets “had shaped, fostered and perpetuated a distinctive Welsh consciousness of nationhood” (Williams 1971, 3). The twentieth century saw the foundation of several social and political movements campaigning for the Welsh language. The Welsh Education Department, which advocated education reform and Welshlanguage teaching, appeared in 1907. Perhaps most relevant to the current situation in Wales, Plaid Cymru (the Party of Wales) was founded in 1925 and began campaigning to preserve Welsh culture and further the aims of self-government (Plaid Cymru n.d.). Among the stated goals of what is now the second party in Wales is the following: “To create a bilingual society by promoting the revival of the Welsh language” (ibid.). In 1940, the National Union of Teachers of Welsh was formed to campaign for Welsh-language teaching and an independent Welsh education system. The following year saw the founding of the Young Wales Union, a pressure group concerned with the protection of Welsh culture and language. Their activities included the production of a newsletter for Welsh servicemen and campaigning for Welsh-language schools and improvement in Welsh-language media (Cardiff University n.d.). In 1962, Cymdeithias Yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) was formed and began a long campaign of civil disobedience in favour of Welsh-language rights (ibid.). As the twentieth century progressed, Welsh-language activists began to gain ground. The Welsh Courts Act 1942 would be the first piece of legislation in four centuries to change the status of the Welsh

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language, permitting limited use of the language in the courts. As a result of the efforts of concerned parents, the first private Welshmedium primary school opened in 1939 (Williams 2003, 10). The first Welsh-language state primary school was established in 1947, one hundred years after the Blue Books, although the first Welshlanguage secondary school would open only in 1956 (ibid., 41). In 1964, the Labour government at Westminster acknowledged the needs of the Welsh by creating the Office of the Secretary of State for Wales, which was responsible for several areas of public life in Wales, including education, the arts, and the economy. In 1965, the Hughes-Parry Report, The Legal Status of the Welsh Language, produced as a result of pressure from the Welsh Language Society, recommended Welsh be given equal standing with English in law (Cardiff University n.d.). In 1966, the first Member of Parliament from a party based solely in Wales, Gwynfor Evans of Plaid Cymru, was elected to the U K Parliament. The following year, in light of the findings of the HughesParry Report, the Welsh Language Act 1967 was passed, granting Welsh people the right to testify in Welsh in court and the right to have official government forms translated from English (ibid.). In 1973, the Kilbrandon Commission issued its report, having examined the structures of the UK ’s constitution and the possibility of changes to these structures, in response to growing demand for Welsh and Scottish independence. The report formed the basis of the White Paper, “Democracy and Devolution: Proposals for Scotland and Wales,” leading directly to the Welsh Act 1978, which called for the first referendum on devolution. The creation of a Welsh assembly would require a 40 per cent vote in favour. This first referendum in 1979 failed, with only one quarter voting in favour of a Welsh assembly, but the campaign for devolution would continue, and the 1997 devolution referendum was successful, albeit by a narrow margin (Rawlings 1998, 475). The outcome of the 1997 referendum was the establishment, through the Government of Wales Act 1998, of the Welsh National Assembly in 1999, which took over responsibilities from the Secretary of State for Wales and gained the power to enact secondary legislation.

T h e Welsh Language Act 1993 Despite ongoing campaigns for the protection and promotion of the language, Welsh achieved equal status with English in public life in

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Wales only in 1993, with the passing of the Welsh Language Act 1993 – equal status in public life, but not status as an official language of the country. Still, the introduction of the Act states that in “the administration of justice in Wales the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality” (United Kingdom Government 1993), which is to say that Welsh speakers gained the right to speak Welsh in court proceedings under all circumstances. Still, the exact meaning of equal status was subject to much debate (see Mac Giolla Chríost 2016). The Act also provided for the establishment of a Welsh Language Board to promote the use of Welsh, and all organizations in the public sector providing services to the Welsh public were mandated to treat Welsh and English on an equal basis and offer services in both languages (United Kingdom Government 1993). Even with this progress, and in spite of having been the language of the majority until the late nineteenth century, Welsh would not become an official language in Wales until 2011. The 1993 Act made language schemes compulsory for all public bodies providing service to the public or exercising “statutory functions in relation to the provision by other public bodies of services to the public in Wales” (ibid.). The underlying purpose of these schemes is to put into practice the guiding principle of the Act, that is, treating Welsh and English as equal (Williams 2000, 32). A language scheme consists of a document detailing the measures the body proposes to take regarding the use of the Welsh language in the provision of services. All schemes are meant to include “a time-table for giving effect to the measures proposed in the scheme,” as well as an outline of “the ways in which the public body will ensure that the scheme is publicised” (United Kingdom Government 1993). Kaufmann (2012, 337) points out that translation and interpretation play an important role in these language schemes, as they are key to internal and external communication in Welsh. Some schemes have explicit sections on translation, whereas others simply gloss over the specifics. One major difficulty arises from the ambiguous wording of the Act, which allowed for differing interpretations of the proposed effect of language schemes: “so far as is both appropriate in the circumstances and reasonably practicable, to the principle that in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice in Wales the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality” (United Kingdom Government 1993; emphasis added). But what constitutes “appropriate and reasonable?” This issue would come to the fore

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with the National Assembly for Wales (Official Languages) Act 2012, the intricacies of which are detailed by Mac Giolla Chríost, Carlin, and Williams (2016), and which I will briefly discuss. Along with promoting Welsh, the Welsh Language Board was also responsible for investigating all complaints, but a lack of resources made this a virtually impossible function. Moreover, the preparation of language schemes is no small task, and it has thus taken a long time for public bodies to create them and receive Board approval. For one, a competent and / or qualified individual is required for such a task, and many public bodies do not have the necessary funding or infrastructure. This is not surprising, given that the entity in charge of enforcing the preparation of schemes itself has no means to do so. No public body escapes the need for a language scheme, and the Wales Office of the British government (the successor of the Secretary of State for Wales) has had to create one, covering everything from employee language training to public meetings and telephone calls (Wales Office / Swyddfa Cymru, n.d.).

Iaith Pawb – A National Action Plan for a Bilingual Wales During its first term, the Assembly undertook a thorough review of the condition of the Welsh language, and, in 2003, launched Iaith Pawb – A National Action Plan for a Bilingual Wales, the opening statement of which reads, “The Welsh Assembly Government believes that the Welsh language is an integral part of our national identity. The Welsh language is an essential and enduring component in the history, culture and social fabric of our nation. We must respect that inheritance and work to ensure that it is not lost for future generations” (Welsh Language Unit 2003, 1). This echoes the notion that the Welsh language is a real marker of identity. Barakos (2016, 385) points out that, in the context of Welsh language policies, language is predominantly tied to the social constructs of identity, nationhood, and culture. Our purpose here is not to assess whether the Welsh language truly is a marker of identity, although there is plenty of evidence that this is the case (see Baumgarten and Gruber 2014; Kaufmann 2012; Williams 1971). What we can assert with certainty is that the Welsh government has used the trope of language-as-identity to further its agenda of promoting the Welsh language across the board. Merkle (2013, n.p.) states that a “concrete expression of support [for a

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minority language] is the investment in official-language institutions – e.g. education, health, legal, literary, cultural – that allow the official minority-language citizens to communicate in their language,” and the Welsh government has certainly shown such support. Yet, much of the success of legislative measures depends on citizens’ wholehearted engagement in practising and upholding the language. The document emphasized the “mainstreaming” of Welsh language policy – that is, “factoring linguistic impact assessment into policies in areas such as economic development, social care or health care” (Welsh Language Unit 2003, 12–13). The role of the Welsh Language Board was also discussed in some depth, as was the use of language survey techniques for measuring progress (ibid., 14–15). Specifications and strategies were put forward, including the government’s Cymru Ar-lein (Wales Online) strategy for harnessing the power of information and communication technology “to enhance communities, their culture and languages, to promote social inclusion and help combat the digital divide, to raise the status of the Welsh language” (ibid., 28). The action plan listed several ways in which translation would be used to support the use of the Welsh language, notably the development, in concert with Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru (Association of Welsh Translators and Interpreters), of a national translation strategy. Emphasis was also placed on the need to develop lexicographical and machine translation tools for translators and anyone working with the Welsh language, as well as on the project of a national database of standardized terms (ibid., 49). In hindsight, we see that some of the measures have been implemented, but most remain works in progress.

T he Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 Nunberg (1997, 6) states that “the decision to invest a language with official status is almost never based on merely practical considerations. Language always trails symbolic baggage in its wake and frames the notion of national identity in a particular way.” After decades of campaigning on the part of language activists came arguably the most important piece of legislation concerning the Welsh language in Wales, the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, which finally recognized Welsh as an official language.3 Welsh language rights were further cemented by the establishment of a Welsh Language Tribunal, to give individuals and bodies the right to appeal decisions made in relation

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to the provision of services in Welsh (National Assembly for Wales 2011). A Welsh Language Partnership Council was also created to advise the government on its Welsh-language strategy. Additionally, the Comisiynydd y Gymraeg / Welsh Language Commissioner took over from the Welsh Language Board as an independent body mandated to conduct official investigations to assess instances of suspected attempts to interfere with the freedom of Welsh speakers to use the language with one another. The aim of the Welsh Language Commissioner, much like that of its predecessor, is to promote and facilitate use of the Welsh language and handle complaints, although its role with regards to promoting the use of the language has yet to be fully defined (Mac Giolla Chríost 2016, 122). The Commissioner’s two guiding principles are that, in Wales, the Welsh language should be treated no less favourably than the English language, and “persons in Wales should be able to live their lives through the medium of the Welsh language if they choose to do so” (National Assembly for Wales 2011). Given the dominance of English on a national and international level, there is a long way to go before the second guiding principle truly applies. Mac Giolla Chríost (2016, 216) deems the current system more complex than necessary, and argues for a restructuring of Welsh regulatory regime, including the office of the Commissioner. The Welsh Language Commissioner’s website has in-depth sections about language rights and duties, and the enforcement thereof, as well as information concerning infrastructure. The Commissioner produced a sixteen-page advice document about bilingual drafting, translation, and interpretation, which explains how to find a translator and the tools translators use. The document also points out that texts should always be revised, even when translated by a professional (Comisiynydd y Gymraeg / Welsh Language Commissioner 2012, 5). These guidelines are laid out in very general terms, however, and are clearly aimed at businesses looking to hire translators for the first time.

T he National Assembly for Wales (Official Languages) Act 2012 The National Assembly for Wales (Official Languages) Act 2012 was an amendment to the Government of Wales Act 2006, which established the National Assembly for Wales and outlined how it should

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function. The amendment was made to section 35 (Equality of treatment), declaring that “the official languages of the Assembly are English and Welsh [and] must, in the conduct of Assembly proceedings, be treated on a basis of equality” (National Assembly for Wales 2012). More explicitly, the Act made English and Welsh the official languages of the National Assembly for Wales, while simultaneously contributing to furthering their inequality in practice by failing to add legislation aimed at enforcing the translation of Assembly proceedings into Welsh (see Mac Giolla Chríost et al. 2016, 212). Despite the language’s official status, not everything is translated into Welsh. Kaufmann (2012, 337–8) sums up the state of affairs: The ideal situation might be to translate everything produced by government, parliament and public institutions. However, in the National Assembly for Wales, where the different functions and implications of translation are widely acknowledged, documents have to be “prioritized.” Complete translation is impracticable because of the workload, the cost and the dearth of qualified translators … There is also the feeling that “prioritizing” violates the principle of equality. If the National Assembly, the one institution that best represents a separate Welsh identity, stops providing services and documentation bilingually, other institutions may see this as a green light to return to English-only services. In this sense, the symbolic element of translation is inseparable from its practical value. As such, any decision regarding whether to translate or not falls under heavy scrutiny, and its weight should not be underestimated. The 2012 Act stemmed from a highly politicized public debate regarding the purpose and function of the Welsh translation of the official record of the proceedings of the National Assembly for Wales (Mac Giolla Chríost et al. 2016, 212). In July 2009, the Commission of the National Assembly announced that the official record would be made only of the words spoken in the language in which they were spoken; that is to say, English contributions would no longer be translated into Welsh. It was argued that this would save around £250,000 per year. Public dispute followed, with Plaid Cymru arguing that this change would mean the Welsh language had lower status than English in the Assembly. The Welsh Language Board declared that this was counter to the commitments made in the Assembly’s

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Welsh Language Scheme. An interim agreement was reached to publish an “English-to-Welsh translation of the proceedings within 10 days rather than within 24 hours” (ibid.). There followed a series of legal challenges about the application of language schemes to Crown bodies, as well as the reach of the Welsh Language Board. Much attention was paid to “the nature and extent of sovereignty in the Welsh context” (ibid.). Ultimately, it was concluded that the Board had no power over the Assembly and could not compel it to produce a fully bilingual record. So, the Board which had previously struggled with lack of funding now also found itself lacking the authority to carry out its mandate. Following deliberations, which largely focused on the principles that define what a “true” record is, an independent panel came up with recommendations. Controversially, the Commission of the National Assembly did not even debate these, instead passing them immediately. In the end, the Commission committed to producing a fully bilingual record of proceedings within five working days, without enshrining this duty in the legislation itself. Spolsky and Shohamy (2000, 30) point out that the fundamental purpose of language policy is often symbolic: “it may well be that the statement of the policy is as important as or more important than the effective implementation.” Recognizing the Welsh language as an official language of Wales has symbolic value in itself.

A Living Language: A Language for Living – Welsh Language Strategy 2012–17 The government’s strategy is a holistic one. There has been a concerted push toward making Welsh-language learning accessible to people of all ages, from primary school to the workplace. In the report A Living Language: A Language for Living – Welsh Language Strategy 2012–17 (Welsh Government 2012, 14), which builds on 2003’s “Iaith Pawb,” the government’s long-term vision is “to see the Welsh language thriving in Wales,” a goal in which the government intends to be a leader, while working with a number of partner organizations. The concrete objectives for 2012–17 included upping the number of Welsh speakers, creating opportunities for them to use Welsh, and increasing citizens’ awareness of the significance of the language as part of the national heritage (ibid.). The government’s guiding policy is twofold: they mean to encourage people to learn the language and to use it. Lack of opportunity to speak Welsh is a major barrier to

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promoting the language. The report identified six strategic areas that cover most aspects of life: the family, children and young people, the community, the workplace, Welsh-language services, and infrastructure (ibid., 16). Despite the many goals and aims outlined in the report, the implementation of any measures is laid out only in vague terms. The report does expand on the guiding principles for the implementation of these measures but, again, avoids extensive details. For example, one principle is the provision of grants for promoting the use of Welsh, but there is no discussion of specifics. There certainly appears to be goodwill on the part of the government, but there is paltry evidence of concrete measures being taken to achieve language goals and even less evidence of the means to enforce organizations to fulfill their responsibilities.

Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers The Welsh government announced in August 2016 a plan to reach one million Welsh speakers by 2050 (Welsh Government 2017), nearly double the current number. Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers supersedes A Living Language as the official language strategy. The ministers’ foreword to Cymraeg 2050 reads, “This is certainly a challenging ambition, but a challenge we believe is worthwhile and necessary if we are to secure the vitality of the language for future generations” (Welsh Language Division 2017a, 2). Three main axes are discussed in the document: increasing the number of Welsh speakers, increasing the use of the language, and providing the necessary infrastructure and context (ibid., 4). Welsh-language transmission within families and Welsh-medium education will serve as the main means of achieving this ambitious goal (ibid., 26). The government has also published a document entitled Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers – Work Programme 2017–21, laying out a short-term plan to “focus on setting solid foundations” for attaining the larger goal (Welsh Language Division 2017b, 4). In May 2017, the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee of the National Assembly for Wales published Achieving the Ambition: Inquiry into the Welsh Government’s New Welsh Language Strategy, a report which offers recommendations concerning areas of action to prioritize, targets and milestones, financial resources, education, and more (Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee 2017).

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T h e L a n g uag e In du s try i n Wales The fact that Welsh has only recently been made an official language explains the lack of a well-established translation industry, as the profession is still in its infancy, having sprung up only in the 1970s. As a direct result of the passing of the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales in 1999, the young translation industry in Wales grew immensely in the 1990s and early 2000s and continues to expand as it strives to meet the demand for translation and interpretation. Public bodies either have in-house translation and interpretation services or hire freelancers to fulfill their needs (Kaufmann 2012, 333). The National Assembly for Wales itself has a dedicated Translation and Reporting Service, which provides translation and proofreading to Assembly staff (National Assembly for Wales Assembly Commission 2013, 23). There is serious concern on the government’s part that the demands for professional translators and interpreters working in Welsh and English must be met in order to satisfy the need for bilingual documents and interpretation at all manner of events (Welsh Government 2012, 49). The government states that it is interested in ensuring “that robust accreditation and regulation structures are in place to provide assurances with regard to quality” (ibid.), although they do not expand on how they intend to reach this goal. There is also concern that training needs to be developed further to include instruction in different styles, as well as editing, bilingual drafting, and so on. The government is very interested in using computer tools to ensure efficiency, consistency, and value for money, and has developed its own terminology bank. Cost is another major issue, and the government requests that people cooperate in exploiting scarce resources as responsibly as possible (ibid., 50). Translators and interpreters are regarded as tools rather than collaborators when it comes to language policy, and some language planners view translation simply in terms of terminology and language technology, missing the bigger picture (Kaufmann 2012, 335). The Welsh government does see translation as a tool for encouraging and supporting more Welsh speakers to use the language in public cultural events (Welsh Government 2012, 50). Language policy-makers could benefit from the input of experienced translators, instead of simply regarding their work as a means to achieve the goal of language parity. Finally, the government considers that it is important for people

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to feel confident in drafting documents in Welsh or bilingually, and that public bodies must ensure they have staff in place to deal with Welsh documents, instead of having to translate them in-house (ibid.). While training the general population to draft bilingual documents would have the benefit of reducing the need for translation, there is cause for concern with such a strategy. The assumption that anyone who speaks English and Welsh can translate between the two languages is flawed, and the risk of producing poor translations may not trounce the need to reduce costs. One entity significantly involved in efforts to produce a sufficient number of quality professionals is Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru. “The association was established in 1976 to provide a forum for the discussion of issues relating to Welsh / English translation and interpreting” and is a member of the Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs (Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru 2015). The association deals only with translation between the two official languages, and its regulatory activities are funded by the Welsh Language Commissioner. Membership requires the successful completion of two examinations of two hours and five minutes each. Exams can be written from English to Welsh, from Welsh to English, or both (ibid.). Generally, Welsh-speaking translators are expected to have the language skills to work in both directions, as most native Welsh speakers learn English nearly simultaneously. Translators are not required to complete a translation qualification, although most do study languages at university, and the association’s website lists translation programs available at Welsh universities. Most notably, the association considers that translators “are also expected to possess a clear understanding of the cultural background of both languages” (ibid.). The association itself offers workshops and professional development courses and also consults with “higher education institutions on the improvement of their translation courses” (Kaufmann 2012, 333). There is an increase in demand for high-quality training, but few university programs are geared toward translation between English and Welsh. In a bid to meet the need for qualified translators and interpreters, several of the universities in Wales now offer programs in translation, modern languages, Celtic studies or Welsh. Cardiff and Bangor universities are both heavily involved in research into language policy. There are incentives for students to study in the arts and humanities, including translation; at Swansea University, for example, students who graduate with a first-class degree (comparable to a

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North American honours degree) and who register to pursue the master’s automatically receive a full tuition refund for their bachelor’s degree, together with a generous scholarship for the master’s (B. Evans 2015). Translation students at Swansea are taught to use computerassisted translation tools to be able to work within international organizations such as the E U and the U N , and public bodies in the UK such as the National Assembly for Wales. There is a clear emphasis on culture as well as language. Most programs are not specifically geared toward translation between English and Welsh, however. The Swansea University website points out that, “demand for translation services world-wide is growing rapidly as translation gains recognition as a vital tool for commerce and democracy,” and one of the core skills they claim to develop in their students is “international outlook” (Swansea University n.d., 16). The Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol (Welsh National College), established in 2012 as a framework for developing and supporting Welsh-medium higher education (Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol 2017b), introduced a postgraduate course in professional translation studies in September 2016, offering a certificate, a diploma, and an MA (ibid.). Research in the field of translation studies is growing within Welsh universities, with a focus on tackling current issues in translation, language policy, and language planning. Beyond Welsh studies, scholars at Welsh universities are particularly interested in other minority languages (such as Catalan and Basque), translation in non-state cultures, cultural translation, and language planning (School of Modern Languages and Cultures 2001–16). Additionally, in 2012, Bangor University ran a research group called Translation in NonState Cultures: Perspectives from Wales, which resulted in several publications on the subject (see Baumgarten and Gruber 2014; Kaufmann 2012; Miguélez-Carballeira et al. 2016). Developed by the Centre for the Standardization of Welsh Terminology at Bangor University, Porth Termau (National Terminology Portal) provides access to a number of terminology dictionaries, including standardized terminology databases for area subjects, such as education (Uned Technolegau Iaith/Language Technologies Unit 2001–15a). The portal also includes links to other Welsh language and terminology databases. While originally part of the School of Education at Bangor University, the Centre has been housed by the Language Technologies Unit at Canolfan Bedwyr, Bangor University’s Centre for Welsh Language Services, Research and Technology, since

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2001 (ibid.). Furthermore, initiated on St David’s Day 2016, CorCenCC (Corpws Cenedlaethol Cymraeg Cyfoes – The National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh) is a £1.8m collaborative project, the aim of which is to present Welsh as it is spoken today. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (E S R C ) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (A H R C ) and led by Dawn Knight of the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University, CorCenCC calls upon Welsh speakers of all levels to contribute (CorCenCC – National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh 2018). Another valuable resource is Porth Corpora Cenedlaethol Cymru, the Welsh National Corpora Portal, which provides easily searchable bilingual corpora (Uned Technolegau Iaith/Language Technologies Unit 2001–15b). Concerning the need for standardized terms, Huw S. Thomas (2013, 180) states that “it is remarkable that the Welsh language is responding so quickly to a rapidly developing world, without the support of substantial funding.” Translation had, of course, been necessary since the inception of the Assembly in 1999, but the Welsh Government Translation Service was established in 2005 to support the Assembly Government in providing public services in both languages, with two translation units in Cardiff. Very little information is available about the Translation Service itself, with the focus being on the Service’s resource portal, BydTermCymru, which includes a general style guide, resources for translating legislative texts, and translation memories. The terminological database, TermCymru, is updated weekly and searchable by subject, and was developed by the government as a tool for achieving terminology standardization. In addition to the usual fields, such as “subject,” “definition,” and “plural,” TermCymru provides the “status” of each term, i.e. a letter grade indicating the degree to which it has been standardized. This feature has the potential to be extremely useful, particularly if updated regularly. The government considers technology to be an important area of development, and significant resources are being invested in computer-assisted translation. The National Assembly for Wales has partnered with Microsoft to produce a Welsh version of the Microsoft Translator and Bing Translator machine translation systems to save time and reduce costs. The Assembly Commissioner responsible for the Welsh language acknowledges that the quality of machine translation is inferior to that of human translation, but stresses that “the language system provides a means to achieve a level of understanding and to enable more people

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to communicate bilingually” (National Assembly for Wales 2016). Jeremy Evas (2014, 35–6) elaborates on the state of Welsh language technology in the European context, concluding that the technology available at present is imprecise, and improvements are needed. A report on translation tools in Wales “highlighted the significance of the translation industry for the Welsh economy and even stressed that the sector was an important employer of women and was located in any possible area of the country” (Chan 2015, 367). While there are no firm numbers on the size of the translation industry in Wales, a 2005 survey of 455 translators in Wales showed that 66 per cent were female (Prys et al. 2009, 8); another survey of 310 members of the Welsh Association of Translators revealed that 59 per cent worked as freelancers (ibid., 13). Provided practitioners are trained appropriately, the growth of the translation industry in Wales and the possibility of working remotely could certainly provide women and people in rural areas with work opportunities they would not otherwise have.

O u t l ook It is all very well to grant the Welsh language official status, but in practice it is clearly impossible to produce the volume of translation required to put the Welsh language on an even playing field with English. Kaufmann (2012, 341–2) argues that translation should go hand in hand with language planning to promote the Welsh language. More specifically, she says, “When translating between English and Welsh, the aim is to strengthen connections between the different cultural spaces and linguistic identities of Wales,” before adding that a reasonable translation policy would include plans for selecting what should be translated into Welsh and mechanisms for dealing with the question of representation of Welsh identities. We see here the concern for culture and not just words. The Welsh are acutely aware that, “just as language serves as a collective bond through the act of imagemaking, translation functions not only as an image-making device in situations of unequal cultural relations, but also as a vehicle for cultural survival” (Baumgarten and Gruber 2014, 29). The Welsh government certainly casts translation as a positive act and does not consider it as merely a necessary evil. “Legislative devolution, a new language regime and a new basis for language policy all suggest more powerful reform measures designed to boost the fortunes of the Welsh language” (Williams 2013, 88). That said, there will

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always be detractors who consider the money spent on translation to be wasted, since everyone speaks English anyway. Clearly, though, the point of institutionalized bilingualism is to allow all Welsh people the option of using their mother tongue, despite the dominance of English. When it comes to language planning and translation, the government’s stated goals are to increase bilingualism, and particularly Welsh literacy, with significant work going on in the field of education. As can be seen from the plan to reach one million Welsh speakers by 2050, there appears to be a willingness on the part of the government to provide services in Welsh, but there are currently insufficient resources to meet all the translation demands in Wales, and that is why so much effort is being put into training professionals and developing reliable tools to avoid having to translate selectively. Still, the insufficient number of translators points toward the lucky problem of a government committed to enacting its plans to support and promote the Welsh language. Moreover, concrete efforts are being made to meet the demand for translators, while preserving a standard of quality. Detractors cite the high costs as a reason not to translate into Welsh. The total annual cost for the Welsh Government Translation Service for 2013–14 was just over £2.5 million (Welsh Government 2015, 2); this is, of course, not counting the millions spent by non-­ governmental organizations and businesses. The question of budget is always a difficult one, and the effects of the ongoing Brexit process are likely to have a huge impact on the Welsh nation as a whole, particularly on language and education spending. Indeed, several parts of Wales are among the poorest regions of the European Union (D. Evans 2015); as such, “Wales receives a benefit of £245 million per year from the European Union, a figure which marks one of the largest financial gains in any area of the United Kingdom” (G. Evans 2016). As the UK leaves the European Union, how will Wales compensate for this loss of funding? That has yet to be seen, but the impact will surely be severe. Within days of the vote, Plaid Cymru had already begun advocating independence from Britain in order to rejoin the European Union.

C o n c l u s ion Despite having to compromise and being unable to enforce the translation of all government documents, from its inception the Welsh government has shown an eagerness to preserve and promote the

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Welsh language through a series of statutes. Much yet needs to be done to improve access to service in Welsh and increase the number of opportunities to use the language. An approach involving more tangible measures, as well as concrete mechanisms for evaluating their efficacy, might help further these goals. In addition to work in language planning and language policy, further research is needed into translation policy specifically. The Welsh situation could surely benefit from a comparative analysis with other successful official minority language settings, such as Canada, and more particularly the province of New Brunswick, which is officially bilingual and operates on a minimal budget. There is no doubt that, as a general rule, the Welsh language plays an important part in the sense of identity of the Welsh people, whether or not they speak the language, and the government has played a key role in ensuring this remains so, clearly having taken to heart the words of the Welsh national anthem: “may the language endure for ever” (Welsh Government 2016).

N otes   1 See the 2016 special issue of the journal Translation Studies, “Translation in Wales: History, Theory and Approaches” (Miguélez-Carballeira et al. 2016).   2 For an in-depth discussion of this, see the author’s master’s thesis on the subject (Llewellyn 2018).   3 For a detailed analysis of the debate surrounding the wording of this measure, as well as the meaning of “official language,” see chapter 7 of Mac Giolla Chríost 2016.

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6 International Models of Language Policy and Language Planning: Official Bilingualism in Ireland and Sociolinguistic Reality Maeve Conrick

In t ro du cti on As a country with two official languages, Ireland offers an interesting focus for analysis from the perspective of language policy and language planning (L P P ) as well as notable opportunities for examining possible comparisons and contrasts with other bilingual countries internationally, such as Canada. Despite its relatively modest demographic size by international standards, with 4.76 million inhabitants (Central Statistics Office Ireland 2016a), Ireland displays levels of linguistic and sociolinguistic complexity that underline that lack of size does not necessarily equate to lack of complexity in sociolinguistic terms. The circumstances that gave rise to the current linguistic landscape in Ireland are indeed complex and rooted in a long history of language contact and change (see for example Ó Murchú 2008, 2014). This chapter contextualizes official bilingualism in Ireland, drawing comparisons with Canada in particular, in relation to macro-level issues of L P P , such as status planning and the legislative framework; the demographic evidence provided by data collected, for example, in the form of census statistics; specific contexts of language use, such as language in education; and associated public debate, particularly in the media. The focus of the chapter is therefore on analyzing, first, the factors that underpin the current linguistic landscape in Ireland in relation to the status and use of official languages and, second, the sociolinguistic reality of contemporary use of the Irish language.

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1937: Constitution of Ireland

2003: Official Languages Act

Figure 6.1  Key moments in the status and promotion of Irish

1922: Constitution of Ireland

2007: Irish declared official language of the E U

2016: Irish census



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Figure 6.2  Map of concentration of Irish speakers in 2011 Source: Wikimedia Commons

S tat u s P l a n n in g : T h e L e gi s lati ve Framework f o r O f f ic ia l L a n g uages i n I reland Status planning is an integral component of L P P , and the official status accorded to a language is an important factor in the ways in which stakeholders and others construe the standing of the language(s) in question, as well as their relationship to or with it. Status planning

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also provides a platform for policy-makers to develop strategies to promote, implement, and monitor the influence of L P P measures adopted as a consequence of the provisions contained in official constitutional documents and associated legislation and administrative regulation. The issue of identity is crucial in this context, as is the role of language in the creation and performance of identity both within social groups and at an individual level. The notion of identity, including the role it plays in relation to language, is complex and often vaguely defined. However, Edwards (2009, 11) provides a fulllength treatment of the relationship between language and identity1 and addresses the role of language in the “nationalist tapestry” as follows: “The argument is essentially that the symbolism of language provides the most central rallying-point while, at the same time, its more ordinary communicative aspects permit a quick enumeration of in-group members … it is entirely predictable, once language has been deemed the most central and most sacred girder of identity, that strenuous attempts will be made to assert its primacy, to differentiate it from other forms and to protect it.” Key moments in the formation and self-definition of nation-states often involve the desire to enshrine a position on language(s) in the foundation documents that define nation and nationhood, an obvious example of which is a written constitution. Provisions at the constitutional level copperfasten the status of the official languages in both Ireland and Canada, underlining the key role that language plays in the self-definition of both countries. However, the status that each country attributes to its official languages differs very significantly: linguistic duality – a central tenet in Canada’s policy on official bilingualism, which is celebrated annually by Linguistic Duality Day2 – is not a feature of the Irish approach. In fact, the contrary is the case. In Ireland, the foundation of the state in 1922 was accompanied by the adoption of a written constitution, which enshrined the status of the Irish language as the national language: “The National language of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) is the Irish language, but the English language shall be equally recognised as an official language. Nothing in this Article shall prevent special provisions being made by the Parliament of the Irish Free State (otherwise called and herein generally referred to as the ‘Oireachtas’3) for districts or areas in which only one language is in general use.” (Ireland 1922, Art. 4)

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This general approach was continued in the more recent version of the constitution of Ireland, Bunreacht na h-Éireann, adopted in 1937 and currently in force, which provides as follows: 1. The Irish language as the national language of Ireland is the first official language, 2. The English language is recognised as a second official language, 3. Provision may, however, be made by law for the exclusive use of either of the said languages for any one or more official purposes, either throughout the state or in any part thereof. (Ireland 1937, Art. 8) The 1937 constitution text, with slightly different wording from the 1922 constitution text, again specifically recognizes the precedence of the Irish language as the “national” language but also as the “first official language,” thus making the hierarchy of status abundantly clear. The status of English, despite being characterized as an “official language,” clearly occupies a somewhat lesser position as a “second official language.” For the avoidance of doubt regarding precedence, the constitution clarifies that the Irish version will take precedence in the event of a conflict between the two texts: “In case of conflict between the texts of a law enrolled under this section in both the official languages, the text in the national language shall prevail” (Ireland 1937, Art. 25.4.6). The constitutional position of Irish as the national language of the state has been confirmed by the Irish superior courts on a number of occasions. In April 2001, the Supreme Court in the Ó Beoláin case issued a unanimous judgment on the status of Irish in the context of the constitution:4 [I]t is not possible (at least in the absence of law of the type envisaged in Article 8.3) to exclude Irish, which is the national language and at the same time the first official language of the State, from any part of the public discourse of the nation or from any official business of the State or from the official business of any of its members. Nor is it possible in these contexts to treat it in a manner which is less favourable than the way in which the second official language is treated. Neither is it possible to

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prevent those who are capable and desirous of using Irish in making their case or in communicating from so doing or to ­disadvantage them when so doing in any national or official ­context. (Ó Beoláin v. Fahy 2001) An aspect of the impact of the judgment was that the original intended title of the Official Languages Bill – the Official Languages (Equality) Bill – was amended to omit the word “Equality,” on the grounds that legislation could not confer “equality” on the Irish language, given its pre-eminence under Article 8.1 of the constitution (as quoted above).5 However, in the subsequent Ó Maicín case (2014), the right to have a trial and be heard by an Irish-speaking jury was deemed not to be an absolute constitutional legal right, as this right had to yield to the constitutional right of others to use English as an official language and the competing constitutional imperative that juries be truly representative. The right by the state to empanel a jury was held to be greater than the right to a trial conducted with a jury of Irish speakers. There was a dissenting judgment by Justice Hardiman in this case, which levelled criticisms at the Irish government, as follows: “[t]he actions of the State in relation to the Irish language have been uniformly minimalist and grudging. They have opposed in the Courts citizens who attempted to get statutes and statutory instruments which affected them directly in the Irish language. They have struggled against applications by citizens for official forms in the Irish language” (Ó Maicín v. Ireland 2014). The status accorded to the Irish language in the 1937 constitution has evoked robust criticism in the intervening years, some of which has been substantial and high profile, most significantly in the recommendations presented by the Constitution Review Group (1996), which was set up by the Irish government in 1995 with the remit “to review the Constitution, and in the light of this review, to establish those areas where constitutional change may be desirable or necessary.”6 The Constitution Review Group described the constitutional primacy of Irish as “unrealistic, given that English is the language currently spoken as their vernacular by 98% of the population of the State” (ibid., 15). The report proposed that the following wording should replace Article 8: “The Irish language and the English language are the two official languages. Because the Irish language is a unique expression of Irish tradition and culture, the State shall take special

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care to nurture the language and to increase its use” (ibid.). This recommendation was not subsequently pursued by the government in the form of a referendum put to the people of Ireland, as is required for any proposal to change the constitution. Since the adoption of the constitution in 1937, thirty-four amendments have been made to the text following referenda that have been carried (Ireland 1937: iv–xiv), so it is not the case that the constitution has remained unchanged with regard to other articles. Though linguistic issues have regularly been the subject of (often heated) political and public debate, Article 8 has remained as it was drafted and enacted in 1937. The Canadian position differs significantly, as alluded to above, in that both official languages have equal status under the Canadian Charter, which provides that “English and French are the official languages of Canada and have equality of status and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and Government of Canada” (Canada 1982, sec. 16.1). In addition, special provision is made to protect minority educational rights, subject to certain conditions (sec. 23), which operates at provincial level given provincial responsibility for education.7

O f f ic ia l L a n g uag e s Legi slati on Probably the most important development in the recent past in relation to status planning on language matters in Ireland is the enactment of the Official Languages Act 2003 (see Conrick 2006b). While the constitution set down language rights in principle, providing the public with the right to carry out its business with the state solely in Irish, practice has not matched the aspirational nature of the constitution’s intentions. Often, services were not made available by public bodies in Irish as well as in English, and people who wanted to conduct their business in Irish often felt they had to make the pragmatic choice of conducting their business in English. The only other option, before the Official Languages Act 2003 came into force, was to take a case to the courts (see An Coimisinéir Teanga n.d; Hogan and White 2003). Guidelines on the provision of services had been issued by Bord na Gaeilge (the state board for the Irish language) in 1993, but these were ineffective and largely ignored, as was possible given their nonstatutory status, which did not require compliance. By 2002, the view on the part of those wishing to promote the position of Irish – not least the then minister for community, rural, and Gaeltacht8 affairs,

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Éamon Ó Cuív – was that a formal statutory system was needed.9 When the president of Ireland signed the Official Languages Act 2003 into law, it was the first time the provision of services in general through the medium of Irish was put on a statutory basis. The timing was very much in contrast to Canada, where the first official languages legislation dates back to 1969.10 The drafting of the Irish legislation was influenced by the Canadian experience, and Canadian experts, including the Commissioner of Official Languages, were consulted during the preparation of the legislation (see Conrick and Regan 2007, 39). The Irish Official Languages Act 2003 consists of six parts and two schedules, with a preamble outlining the purpose of the Act: An Act to promote the use of the Irish Language for official purposes in the State; to provide for the use of both official languages of the State in parliamentary proceedings, in Acts of the Oireachtas, in the administration of justice, in communicating with or providing services to the public and in carrying out the work of public bodies; to set out the duties of such bodies with respect to the official languages of the State; and for those purposes, to provide for the establishment of Oifig na dTeangacha Oifigiúla [Official Languages Office] and to define its functions; to provide for the publication by the Commissioner of certain information relevant to the purposes of this Act; and to provide for related matters. (Ireland 2003, 8) The Act legislates for the following contexts: the right of members of the public to use their choice of official language in their dealings with organs of the state, i.e. the Houses of the Oireachtas and in the courts (pt. 2); communication with public bodies, including publication of documents, official stationery, and language schemes (pt. 3); the establishment of the Official Languages Office and the attendant post of An Coimisinéir Teanga (Official Languages Commissioner) (pt. 4); and place names (pt. 5).11 The First Schedule lists all of the public bodies that mandatorily came within the ambit of the Act when it was enacted in 2003 and the Second Schedule provides information on the post of An Coimisinéir Teanga. Among the important provisions of the Act, in terms of its public visibility, is the obligation on public bodies covered by the Act to prepare “schemes / scéimeanna” (pt. 3, sec. 11–18) on the services they

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provide to the public through Irish, to be agreed with the relevant government minister (now the minister for culture, heritage and the Gaeltacht). Currently, An Coimisinéir Teanga details 115 schemes that have been confirmed for public bodies, the earliest in 2005, and many of them have been reviewed and renewed on more than one occasion.12 This provision in the Act contributed significantly to the visibility in the media of the new official languages regime, as public bodies placed advertisements in the national newspapers requesting feedback from members of the public on services they would expect in Irish so that draft schemes could be prepared. Another development of note in relation to status of languages in Ireland is the passing of the Irish Sign Language Act 2017, which gave legislative recognition to Irish Sign Language (ISL). The Act was signed into law by the president of Ireland on 24 December 2017 and represented the successful conclusion of a long campaign by the deaf community for official recognition of I S L .13 The Act provides as follows: An Act to provide for the recognition of Irish Sign Language and for that purpose to set down principles to guide the operations of public bodies; to require public bodies to prepare and implement action plans on Irish Sign Language; to provide for classes for the parents of deaf children; to permit the use of Irish Sign Language in legal proceedings; to provide for the making available of sign language interpreting services; to introduce statutory targets regarding the accessibility of television programming; to provide for the regulation of Irish Sign Language interpreters, deaf instructors and Irish Sign Language teachers for that purpose to establish the Irish Sign Language Council; to provide for the establishment of registers; to provide for continuing education requirements; to provide for offences; to amend the Broadcasting Act 2009; and to provide for related matters. (Ireland 2017) While the Act stops short of characterizing ISL as an official language – which could only have been done on foot of a successful referendum – many of the provisions provide similar rights to those enjoyed by official languages. The term “native language” is, however, used in the Act: “The State recognises the right of Irish Sign Language users to use Irish Sign Language as their native language” (Ireland 2017, sec. 3.1).

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An C o im is in é ir T e a n g a – The Offi ci al L a n g uag e s C o m m i ssi oner 1 4 Planning for the establishment of the office of An Coimisinéir Teanga was influenced by the corresponding role in Canada, as was acknowledged by the first Coimisinéir Teanga, Seán Ó Cuirreáin: “The legislation here – ­ and the office of the language commissioner – were modelled to a greater or lesser extent on best practice in the international context – including the Canadian experience” (Ó Cuirreáin 2005). The position has been in existence in Canada since the adoption of the first Official Languages Act in 1969, while it has been established in Ireland only since 2003. The role of the Canadian commissioner was described by Graham Fraser in his most recent (and final) Annual Report as commissioner as follows: “to work to achieve the equality of Canada’s two official languages, to investigate complaints from those whose language rights have not been respected, to intervene before the courts, to promote the use of both official languages in the federal workplace and to promote the idea that Canada’s linguistic duality is a key element in our national identity, and a value rather than a burden” (Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages 2016b, i). Despite the stated influence of the Canadian model, while there is overlap in some provisions, there are fundamental differences in how the role of the commissioner was defined in the Irish Act. The difference in status of the two official languages in the two jurisdictions explains one such distinction: the Irish commissioner’s role is to promote just one of the official languages, Irish. Another very significant difference between the two models is the fact that the Canadian commissioner has the right to “appear before the court on behalf of any person who has applied under section 77 for a remedy under this Part” (Canada 1988, sec. 78.1b) and to “seek leave to intervene in any adjudicative proceedings relating to the status or use of English or French” (ibid., sec. 78.3), and the Irish commissioner does not have similar substantive and procedural rights. On the evidence that the Irish commissioner has more limited powers than his/her Canadian counterpart, it appears that the role is, by definition, less influential. Another important difference between the two models – which may on the face of it appear to be a simple difference in administrative process, but which is nonetheless significant – is the fact that the Canadian commissioner submits his/her Annual Report directly to Parliament, while the Irish

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commissioner reports to the government minister, who, within a specified time will “cause a copy thereof to be laid before each house of the Oireachtas” (Ireland 2003, sec. 30.2). This again restricts the sphere of operation of the Irish commissioner, who does not have direct access to the Parliament but communicates with it, at least in the case of the annual reporting mechanism, indirectly through the relevant minister.15 The first appointee to the role of commissioner in Ireland was Seán Ó Cuirreáin, who was appointed on 23 February 2004 for a term of six years, and his term was renewed for another six years in 2010. However, he announced his intention to step down in 2013, in controversial circumstances, citing the lack of competence in Irish in the civil service and public bodies, which, he believed, led to Irish speakers feeling obliged to conduct their business in English (see O’Regan 2013). He formally resigned in February 2014, and, in a final appearance before the Oireachtas sub-committee on the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010–2030 (Government of Ireland 2010), he was highly critical of the government’s performance, or lack thereof, in relation to the Irish language. One media commentator summarized the Commissioner’s criticisms as follows: “Irish language Commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin has said the Irish language is being continuously driven out to the margins of Irish society in a process accelerated by the inaction of Government, the civil service and the public sector” (Ó Caollaí et al. 2014). As is clear from his reports and statements, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, during his tenure of the post of commissioner, was quite outspoken in expressing his views and did not shrink from highlighting difficult issues in his Annual Reports. Though the tone of his Inaugural Report (An Coimisinéir Teanga 2005) was more measured than his comments before the Oireachtas sub-committee in 2014, he selected some issues for special mention, including one which had been and remains highly controversial in Ireland – the Irish language in the formal education system (primary and secondary): Hundreds of millions of euro are being invested – perhaps as much as €500m annually – in the teaching of Irish in the educational system (in line with the teaching of English and other subjects), when one takes into account the percentage of the school time-table devoted to the language from the infants in primary school to the school leavers at Leaving Cert level …

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This clearly raises the question: is the State getting value for money from this investment, if it is true that so many are going through the educational system without achieving a reasonable command of the language – even in the case of students who succeed in getting a high grade in Irish in their final examinations? (An Coimisinéir Teanga 2005, 6–7) The report had immediate public impact with debate in the media and in the Dáil (House of Representatives), which was reminiscent of that provoked by the first Annual Report of Dyane Adam, as Canadian commissioner, for 1999–2000, though Adam’s Report was presented in much stronger terms: How can it be then that the Office of the Commissioner must, year after year, present the government with a lengthy list of shortcomings identified in the implementation of this policy? How can it be that many government institutions are still characterized by an at best passive, if not defensive, attitude with regard to their obligations, and that they all too often take action only in response to court injunctions or threats of court remedy … ? The lack of overall government commitment to implementation of the Act is distressing. Implementation of the Act is not the responsibility of the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, but very much the government’s responsibility. (Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages 2000, 7–8) Adam clearly and forcefully identifies where the responsibility for action lies. Ó Cuirreáin’s approach in referring to the “value for money” argument in relation to the teaching and learning of Irish is an interesting one, not least because it is an argument which is more usually deployed on the opposing side by those who criticize the use of state money to fund promotion of the Irish language in the education sphere and in other social contexts. Ó Cuirreáin was quite measured in his comments on how the issue should be addressed; he avoided pointing the finger at specific groups and called instead for a comprehensive review of a range of aspects of language teaching, including professional training, textbooks, curriculum, and examinations. In 2005 there was quite a furor as a result of the recommendations and a flurry of media articles (see for example Holden 2005; Siggins 2005) and letters to

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newspaper editors of national newspapers, including calls to “Abandon Irish as an official language and watch it flourish” (Ruddock 2005). The Commissioner welcomed the debate, clearly signalling his intention to raise and address controversial issues in a direct manner.

L an g uag e in U s e a n d D emoli ngui sti c Data As well as being interested in matters such as status planning, sociolinguists are also keenly interested in the reality of language use, with a view to examining how language is used in a range of social contexts. It is not uncommon for the lofty principles enshrined in official documents such as constitutions to be at some remove from the sociolinguistic reality of how a language is used – or not used – by speakers. The reports by language commissioners in both Ireland and Canada provide rich data on the numerous challenges posed by the implementation of policy in practice. The most recent Annual Report from the Irish Commissioner was published on 27 June 2017 (An Coimisinéir Teanga 2017) and the range of issues raised was similar to previous years, with the exception of a statistical spike in complaints about names and addresses in Irish, precipitated by the rollout of the national postcode system, Eircode, by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. The top four complaints were in the same relative order as in the previous year’s report, and some of the issues will be familiar to Canadian audiences: •

• • •

Provision of a language scheme (including identity cards, websites and forms) (34.6 per cent) Lack of Irish on signage and stationery (21.6 per cent) Problem with use of name and/or address in Irish (14.4 per cent) Replies in English to correspondence in Irish (9.0 per cent)

Members of the public have also asserted their constitutional right to services in Irish, often through the courts. On such occasions, there tends to be extensive coverage in the media, for example, in the case of road traffic legislation, such as the issuing of parking tickets (McDonald 2009) or breath alcohol test statements. In 2015 the Irish High Court ruled that a breath alcohol statement was not a valid piece of evidence because it was in English only and a bilingual version was required for the form to be “duly completed” and therefore

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valid. Around 1,400 alleged drunk-driving prosecutions had been delayed across the country in the court system as a result of the ruling (see Cherfi and Managh 2015). The ruling compelled the minister for transport to draw up emergency legislation with the intention of closing the loophole. However, the director of public prosecutions appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeal, and the High Court decision was overturned in 2016 on the ground that the “deviation was purely one of form rather than substance” (The Irish Times 2016) and so the failure to produce the Irish form of the statement was not legally fatal. The decision of the Court of Appeal was upheld by the Supreme Court on 20 December 2017 (see Carolan 2017). The more general issue of how many people in Ireland speak Irish, how frequently, and for what purpose (especially outside the educational sphere) is an issue that is frequently debated and cited as an argument for proposing a change to the official status of Irish on the grounds that the official position should reflect more closely the reality of language use; it is also used as an argument to question the continuation of various language programs in place for supporting and promoting the use of Irish and for its inclusion in the school curricula. As discussed earlier, the Constitution Review Group (1996) referred to the fact that English is, by a wide margin, the vernacular of the people of Ireland, despite the constitutional status of the Irish language as the “national language.”16 A major source of relevant data is census statistical data on language use, which is made available publicly by the Central Statistics Office in Ireland (and similarly in Canada by Statistics Canada). Census data have the advantage of comparability over time at regular intervals, so that trends can be identified and analyzed, thus providing opportunities for informing and, indeed, shaping – if the opportunities are taken advantage of – policy at a macro level. The Irish census contains a language question on the use of Irish,17 question number fourteen in the most recent census that was taken in Ireland on 24 April 2016. A preliminary report was published on a very limited number of questions, with estimates of population change, housing and vacant dwellings, and migration published on 14 July 2016 (see Central Statistics Office Ireland 2016a), with data on the language question published in 2017.18 The text of the language question (which has not changed since 2011) is as follows:19

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Q.14 Can you speak Irish? Answer if aged 3 years or over. Yes / No If “Yes,” do you speak Irish? Daily, within the education system Daily, outside the education system Weekly Less often Never The results from 2016 indicate that 1,761,420 people, or 39.8 per cent, compared to 41.4 per cent in 2011, responded that they were able to speak Irish, which represented a slight decrease (-0.7 per cent) on the figure for 2011 (1,774,420). Of the 1.76 million people, 73,803 spoke Irish daily outside the education system, a number that was 3,382 fewer than in 2011 (Central Statistics Office Ireland 2017a, 66; 2012a, 25). The evolution of numbers of speakers of Irish is captured in table 6.1 based on data from the Central Statistics Office Ireland.20 On the face of it, the figures look good and show an increase in speakers of Irish over time in absolute numbers, notwithstanding the slight percentage decrease over the last census period. However, the accuracy of census figures is often challenged (not only in Ireland). In commenting on census returns, it must be borne in mind that census data are based on self-reporting by citizens, and the argument is advanced that people are more likely to report the situation they aspire to rather than the situation that actually prevails. Of course, demolinguistic census data are not – nor are they intended to be – assessment tests of linguistic competence, which are more properly the domain of linguists, and which cannot be expected to form part of census data collection. The release of the 2011 statistics on the use of Irish provoked a robust series of letters to the editor of The Irish Times (the principal newspaper of record in Ireland), arguing about their accuracy: I would like to challenge any one of the letter writers who accept the accuracy of the 2011 Census (which states 1.77 million speak Gaeilge [Irish] on a daily basis), to stand with me on the main street of any large town or city in Ireland (apart from Galway) to hold a short conversation with passers by, as Gaeilge.21 Any takers?

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Table 6.1  Irish speakers and non–Irish speakers (number) 1996–2016 1996

2002

2006

2011

2016

Thousands Irish speakers

1,430.2

1,570.9

1,656.8

1,774.4

1,761.4

Non–Irish speakers

2,049.4

2,180.1

2,400.9

2,596.2

2,807.8

Source: Central Statistics Office Ireland 2017b, Table EA039.

I live part of the year in Wales, where you can hear more Welsh in five minutes than Irish in a year in nearly every part of Ireland (this is no exaggeration). The unwelcome truth is that very few of us have any intention of ever speaking Irish. Instead we have long ago opted for cuplafocalarism.22 This consists of putting road signs, notices, documents and all the rest of it into Irish (even better if it can be done at European level) regardless of whether it is used or not. (The Irish Times 2014)23 These examples are representative of the strong feelings evoked by language matters not only in Ireland but also in other countries where attitudes toward language provoke the expression of opposing views. Further and more detailed evidence of language use is provided in reports by linguists and LPP experts, which address the question of language use specifically. A particularly important linguistic context in Ireland is that of Gaeltacht areas (Irish-speaking geographical regions), given the centrality of native speakers to the vitality of a language. Several reports on the use of Irish and linguistic competence in Irish in the Gaeltacht have been published in recent years. One such report is that commissioned by the state agency, Údarás na Gaeltachta (Ó Giollagáin and Charlton 2015) and based on the census figures for 2006 and 2011. The report concluded that “[d]aily speakers of Irish have fallen below a 67 per cent tipping point in 134 out of 155 electoral areas in the Gaeltacht” and that “[t]he situation is so bad, the crisis is so pressing that a new strategy is needed and has to be implemented by those at the highest levels in the State” (Ó Caollaí 2015). Overall, the Údarás report was critical of the state’s approach to Irish in the Gaeltacht. The current language commissioner, Rónán Ó Domhnaill (2015), also expressed his concern about the worrying decline in the social use of Irish and called on the government to publish a revised Official Languages Act 2003 to ensure the provision

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of state services through Irish in Gaeltacht areas. His comments echo the criticism in his Annual Report, published only a few months earlier (An Coimisinéir Teanga 2015a), in which he complained that “[t]he Department of Education has not put a system in place which ensures that teachers teaching in Gaeltacht Schools and Gaelscoileanna [Irish language immersion schools] are fluent in the Irish Language. I simply cannot accept that” (An Coimisinéir Teanga 2015b). Ó Giollagáin (2014) comments on research that showed that the ability of young Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht has been “compromised by early bilingualism” and that they are exhibiting a “subtractive form of bilingualism.” He attributes this worrying trend to several factors, including the educational environment: “The linguistic disadvantage in Irish is mirrored in the sociolinguistic disadvantage of Irish-speaking communities generally; that is, Irish as a spoken language has been severely eroded, even in Gaeltacht areas. When the findings of this study are examined alongside other recent research, it is clear this linguistic dysfunction has emerged from a breakdown in the relationship between the home transmission of Irish, community reinforcement and educational structures” (Ó Giollagáin 2014). These comments reinforce those made by the Commissioner and raise significant concerns about the seriousness of efforts to support the Irish language in the most crucial context of native speakers. The president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, has also recently expressed concerns about the commitment to Irish at the “highest levels” of the state: We have much to learn from the approach applied in other countries to preserve their languages or to improve the provision of state services. It has been a matter of concern to me for many years that there is a shortcoming in our State system, in relation to Irish at the highest levels. In the various government departments and among senior officials of local authorities and State agencies, Irish is rarely heard and in my opinion there is some cultural issue which is restricting the system, and senior officials within it, which prevents them from demonstrating the leadership that we would expect and that they should demonstrate.24 (President of Ireland 2016) As head of state, the president’s comments carry considerable moral, if not political, weight and his concern for the future of Irish is evident in this and in other speeches he has made during his term of office.

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T r e n d s a n d F u t u re Prospects While the situation of Irish may have given rise to grave concern on several fronts, from the support structure for native speakers25 to the efficacy of official language measures for ensuring the vitality of the language, as signalled by the Language Commissioner, the picture is not necessarily as negative as some would portray it. It has often been said that reports of the demise of the Irish language have been premature or greatly exaggerated (see Wallace 2015). There are many positive factors that need to be taken into account in any assessment of the future prospects of the Irish language. One indicator of success is the rise and success over several decades of the Gaelscoileanna, which provide immersion education through the medium of Irish, with comparable motivation as immersion education in French in Canada and bilingual education in the Breton language in Brittany, France.26 The majority of the Gaelscoileanna are in urban settings rather than in Gaeltacht areas, the latter being predominantly rural, an indication of greater spread and reach across the country and in more densely populated areas. The stated objective of the Gaelscoileanna group is “To establish and sustain a high standard of Irish-medium education throughout the country as well as to develop and strengthen the Irish speaking community” (Gaelscoileanna 2016). The statistics they provide on total numbers of schools for 2015–16 are as follows (noting that data for naíonraí [nursery schools] were pending): Primary schools in the 26 Counties, outside Gaeltacht areas: 144 Primary schools in Gaeltacht areas: 124 Primary schools in the 6 Counties (Northern Ireland): 35 Total number of primary schools: 303 Post-primary schools and Aonaid [Units27] in the 26 Counties, outside Gaeltacht areas: 42 Post-primary schools and Aonaid in Gaeltacht areas: 22 Post-primary schools and Aonaid in the 6 Counties: 6 Total number of post-primary schools and Aonaid: 70 (ibid.) At the international level, the fact that Ireland is a member of the European Union (EU)28 means that the country operates in a broader context than purely the nation-state and this may also be considered to provide a lifeline in relation to the use, survival, and vitality of

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Irish. Irish was declared as an official language of the EU (the twentythird) in 2007, though the road to full recognition of Irish as an official working language of the E U was not without its challenges and followed a sustained campaign at the highest political levels. A derogation from full implementation of its status as a working language of the EU was put in place, so that not all E U Institutions were obliged to translate all documentation into Irish immediately (see Government of Ireland 2015). Notwithstanding the derogation and consequential delay in full implementation, the impact of this change is enormous and may be characterized as the most significant change in the status of the Irish language in recent times. Its impact is described by Uí Chollatáin as follows: “All key European Union legislation is translated into Irish and Irish is now interpreted at ministerial council meetings and European Parliament plenary sessions and on a practical level. As a result of this, applicants for jobs with E U institutions can list Irish as one of the two official E U languages required” (Uí Chollatáin 2009, 1109). Furthermore, the availability of prestigious career positions for those with advanced proficiency in Irish in the E U has given Irish a much higher profile in terms of employment opportunities for graduates. As a result, universities (for example University College Dublin, see Uí Chollatáin 2009) are now providing courses that provide specialized training for students, directly targeting posts such as lawyer-translators in the E U for graduates with the appropriate skills. Interest in the Irish language is also growing in the broader international context, in countries like the United States, Australia, and Canada. Much of that interest may be for cultural and heritage reasons, given the extent of the Irish diaspora around the globe. Foundations such as the Fulbright Commission and the IrelandCanada University Foundation (I C U F ) manage programs to send teachers of Irish to a growing number of third-level institutions in the US and Canada. I C U F 29 sends Teagascóirí Ghaeilge (language teachers) to eight Canadian universities and the Fulbright Commission sends Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants (F L T A s) to approximately ten US universities.30 The fact that a Gaeltacht was established in Canada at Tamworth/Erinsville, Ontario, the first outside Ireland31 (see North American Gaeltacht 2014; Krashinsky 2011), is testament to the commitment of many to the promotion of the Irish language, in somewhat unexpected circumstances. The launch in 2012 of Google’s Endangered Languages Project, which aims to preserve

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and revive about 3,000 endangered languages, including Irish, and of an Irish-language version of Gmail in 2014 (and the fact that Microsoft 2013 and Microsoft 2016 are available in Irish versions) are also indicative of how new technologies can be harnessed for cultural and linguistic purposes, given sufficient goodwill and commitment. As an aside, while the arrival of a computer virus is not to be welcomed, the fact that a virus targeted Irish language users (Burke 2012) must be an indication at least of an increased level of international visibility of the language!

C o n c l u s ion As we have seen, the position of the Irish language is protected by a reasonably robust legislative framework in Ireland, notwithstanding the fact that the Language Commissioner has pointed to the desirability of further strengthening the Official Languages Act 2003 to ensure strict compliance by state bodies. As has been reported, there are serious shortcomings in the observance of official language obligations, and when this observation can be made in reference to specific state bodies, including government departments, it is a matter of some concern, as these bodies would have been expected to give a lead in at least compliance with official policy if not active promotion. Clearly, protections such as those afforded by official policy documents are of limited consequence or efficacy if they are not observed and enforced. From a sociolinguistic point of view, if the level of language use falters as speakers make pragmatic choices on their individual and collective preferences, this is an area that will continue to be problematic and will require the attention of policy-makers if the language is to be preserved and promoted into the future. There is enormous goodwill toward the language on the part of the population at large, which is reflected in the positive demolinguistic picture ­presented by the census data, including the interest shown in Irish by recent migrants to Ireland. The coexistence of Irish as a de facto minority language, despite its “national language” status, with the international linguistic colossus that is English is a major challenge in Ireland, as it is in many other international contexts. The predominance of English is unlikely to change but that need not be a reason for neglecting to pursue the many advantages of bilingualism (or plurilingualism in the case of an increasing number of people)32 at both personal and collective levels.

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The broader social context of Ireland has changed significantly over recent decades, from the economic boom of the “Celtic Tiger” years of the 1990s and early 2000s to the economic crash of 2008 and a subsequent return to a period of economic growth, with the result that the patterns of immigration and emigration have been in flux. Census 2011 shows a country of increased linguistic and cultural diversity, with 514,068 residents speaking a language other than Irish or English at home (Central Statistics Office Ireland 2012b, 27). Polish is by far the most common foreign language spoken after English: “Amongst European nationals living in Ireland in 2011, Polish was the most common language with 112,811 speakers, followed by Lithuanian, Russian, Romanian and Latvian” (ibid.). Many studies, including sociolinguistic studies, have reported on the increasing linguistic diversity of Ireland and the consequential adjustments that have been made to address changing needs, whether it be in the context of schools or in the court system, or indeed in the context of the definition of what constitutes citizenship (see Conrick 2009). For example, in its Annual Report for 2015, the Courts Service reports having provided interpretation for seventy-one different languages (An t­ Seirbhís Chúirteanna – Courts Service 2015, 18), though care is taken to point to significant reduction in costs and that “The Service is mindful of a person’s right to use Irish in court irrespective of his / her reason for being in court, for example as a witness, a defendant, a plaintiff or a victim.”33 Regan (2016) provides an interesting analysis of the linguistic integration of Polish speakers who have migrated to Ireland, as well as discussing the need to review notions of identity, “Irishness,” and what it means to be Irish in light of the changing face of modern Ireland. The cultural and linguistic enrichment that increased diversity represents is to be welcomed and, if anything, increased bilingualism and multilingualism can only enhance openness to language acquisition generally, including acquisition of Irish. The crucial points here are ensuring that the language continues to be supported and promoted and that services in Irish are widely available and of sufficient quality, if its status as the first official language is to have real substantive meaning. A very interesting focus of interest is the international expansion of Irish. The advances made outside Ireland are notable, including the teaching of Irish as a living language, and they contribute significantly to the exposure of Irish beyond the island of Ireland. This progress in the international standing of Irish must be a source of

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satisfaction to those who have worked tirelessly to promote the language, at home and abroad. In a discussion on “Irish in the Global Context,” Romaine (2008, 24), while acknowledging various declines in the language, notes with approval the success of the sterling efforts that have been made to promote the language: “Irish would certainly be a lot worse off without all the work on its behalf. Most threatened languages will not achieve anything like the relative success of Irish.” What the long-term outlook will be remains to be seen. There are, however, many positives that may be built on in terms of language use and an obvious goodwill to continue to work and take advantage of the many tools that modern society provides, which can be used to enhance language promotion. If these various initiatives are supported by the requisite L P P measures in Ireland, with the requisite political will, the future of the Irish language can be viewed with optimism.

N otes

  1   2

  3

  4

The author would like to thank Professor Regina Uí Chollatáin, head of the School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore at University College Dublin, for providing very helpful research materials. See also Blackledge and Creese 2010, in particular chapters 8 and 9; Crowley 2016; Regan 2016. For more detailed discussion of the principle of linguistic duality, see Conrick 2006a. For details of Linguistic Duality Day up to 8 September 2016, the eighth anniversary of its introduction, see Canada n.d., which presents the rationale for the institution of the day as follows: “On the second Thursday in September, we celebrate the founding principles of our country and our rich heritage as citizens of a bilingual country. Canada’s two official languages are a fundamental element of our public service.” For discussion of linguistic duality in the context of the plans for the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017, see Canada 2013. The constitution defines the Oireachtas as follows: “The Oireachtas shall consist of the President and two Houses, viz.: A House of Representatives to be called Dáil Éireann and a Senate to be called Seanad Éireann” (Ireland 1937, Art. 15.1.2). See An Coimisinéir Teanga n.d. for references to and excerpts from judgments in court cases on the Irish language. For further comment on this case see Ó Conaill 2008.

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  5 See Ireland 2002 for details of Oireachtas debates on the Official Languages Bill.   6 For full details of the remit and composition of the Constitution Review Group, see The All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution 2005.   7 For further discussion of language in education policy in Canada, in particular in Québec, see Conrick 2005; Conrick and Donovan 2010.   8 The term “Gaeltacht” refers to an Irish-speaking region.   9 See O’Halloran 2003 for commentary on views expressed by the Minister on various linguistic issues (including signage) during the debate in the Dáil on the Official Languages Bill. 10 For full details of Canada’s official languages legislation, see Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages 2016a. 11 Part 6 is headed “Miscellaneous” and is a short section which refers to the role of the Ombudsman. 12 For a full list of public bodies covered by the Act, see https://www.­ coimisineir.ie/userfiles/files/PublicBodiesUndertheOfficialLanguagesAct. pdf. See http://www.coimisineir.ie/sceimeanna?lang=EN for full details of all schemes which have been confirmed, as well as ongoing information on draft schemes and those which have been superseded or have lapsed. 13 An account of the history of I S L was provided in a personal communication from Darren Bryne, which is gratefully acknowledged. 14 The Official Languages Commissioner is normally referred to by the ­official title in Irish, An Coimisinéir Teanga; the Act does also use the English term “Commissioner.” 15 Nonetheless, the Commissioner may be invited to appear before Oireachtas sub-committees (an example of such an appearance is referred to in the next paragraph). 16 See YouTube 2009, which is a humorous short film depicting a young Chinese man who spends six months learning Irish, in preparation for travelling to Ireland, in the belief that he is learning the vernacular of the country and who arrives in Ireland only to find a somewhat different reality. 17 Beginning in 2011, there is also a census question (question number ­fifteen) on foreign languages spoken in Ireland. However, the Canadian census collects much more detailed data on language than the Irish census. The most recent Canadian census was taken in 2016 (the same year as Ireland), with results on language published on 2 August 2017 and on 29 November 2017 for language of work (see Statistics Canada 2016). 18 Summary data were published on 6 April 2017 with a full profile of the Irish language published on 23 November 2017.

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19 According to the Central Statistics Office Ireland, “Question 14 will provide information to help in the monitoring of the development of the Irish language. In particular, the results will enable policy planners to assess how language proficiency and usage, in daily life and less frequently, varies with age and education participation. The usage of the language will be assessed by social class, level of education, and area, Gaeltacht or ­otherwise” (Central Statistics Office Ireland 2016b). 20 The assistance of Colman Flynn and Susan Butterly of the Central Statistics Office Ireland in compiling this data is gratefully acknowledged. 21 As Gaeilge translates as “through Irish.” 22 Cuplafocalarism is a nonce word created by the author of the letter, on the basis that the phrase cúpla focal (a few words) is often used to refer to tokenistic use of Irish. 23 Needless to say, the editor aims to ensure that there is balance in the debate and that contrary views are also allowed expression. Another letter on the same day makes the following points: “We own the Irish language, but it seems a lot of our people do not value it very highly. Maybe our new immigrants – the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Nigerians – might succeed where we have failed. ‘Níl tír gan teanga’ [Without a language there is no country]” (The Irish Times 2014). 24 “Tá go leor le foghlaim againn ón gcur chuige atá i bhfeidhm i dtíortha eile chun a dteangacha a chaomhnú nó chun feabhas a chur ar sholáthar seirbhísí stáit. Tá sé ag cur as dom le blianta fada go bhuil easpa éigin inár Státchóras maidir le so-fheictheacht na Gaeilge ag na leibhéil is airde. Ó na ranna Rialtais éagsúla agus i measc ard-fheidhmeannaigh na n-údarás áitiúil agus eagrais Stáit is annamh a chloistear an Ghaeilge agus dar liom féin tá fadhb chultúrtha éigin ag cur srian ar an gcóras, agus ar oifigigh shinsearacha sa chóras, an cheannaireacht a mbeadh muid ag súil leis a thaispeáint, agus ar chóir dóibh a thaispeáint.” 25 See, for example, an opinion piece published in The Irish Times on the issue of support for young native speakers (Ní Chéilleachair 2016). 26 Breton schools, known as Diwan, have been in existence in Brittany since 1977, and in 2016 there were 490 at all levels, with a total enrolment of 17,024, a number that is on the increase as reported by the Office public de la langue bretonne (2016): “En 2016, pour la 39ème rentrée consécutive, le réseau des écoles continue de s’étendre: il y a des ouvertures dans les 5 départements. Ce n’est que la 3ème fois que cela se produit (après 2009 et 2012). 12 nouveaux sites ont ouvert en primaire. Les 9 sites ouverts par la filière publique sont pour beaucoup dans ce résultat: c’est la première fois qu’autant de sites bilingues ouvrent dans le 1er degré

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public. [In 2016, for the thirty-ninth consecutive rentrée [beginning of the new school year], the network of schools continues to expand: new programs are opening in the five departments. It is only the third time that this has happened (after 2009 and 2012). Twelve new locations have opened in the primary sector. The nine locations opened by the public education sector count for a lot in this result: it is the first time that so many bilingual programs are opening in the public education sector at primary level].” For commentary, see Bras 2016. 27 See www.gaelscoileanna.ie for a full definition and use of the term. 28 Ireland has been a member of the EU since 1973. 29 Scholarships are jointly funded by the Department of Culture, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht and by Canadian partner universities. 30 The F L T A Awards are sponsored by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the National Lottery. 31 It was founded by Séamus Mac Concharraige in 1994 and continues to thrive. 32 For discussion of language strategy in Ireland, see Royal Irish Academy Committee for Modern Language, Literary and Cultural Studies 2011. 33 “The cost of the provision of interpretation services has fallen significantly in recent years reflecting the decreased need for interpretation services and the value for money achieved by revised arrangements entered into with service providers. Costs decreased by 75% in the years between 2008 and 2015 from €3.75m to €912,395. The Service made 7,490 requests for interpretation services in 71 different languages during the year” (An tSeirbhís Chúirteanna – Courts Service 2015, 18).

R efer e nc e s All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, The. 2005. The Constitution Review Group (CRG ). Accessed 12 October 2016. http:// archive.constitution.ie/constitutional-reviews/crg.asp. An Coimisinéir Teanga. 2005. Tuarascáil Tionscnaimh – Earrach-Nollaig 2004 Inaugural Report – Spring–December 2004. An Spidéal. Accessed 9 October 2016. https://www.coimisineir.ie/userfiles/files/Inaugural_ Report_2004_%202MB.pdf. – 2015a. Tuarascáil Bhliantúil. Annual Report 2014. An Spidéal. Accessed 17 October 2016. http://www.coimisineir.ie/userfiles/files/Tuarascail_ Bhliantuil_Iomlan_2014.pdf. – 2015b. “Statement from An Coimisinéir Teanga – 14 May 2015.” Accessed 17 October 2016. https://coimisineir.ie/userfiles/downloads/ Launch_of_Annual_Report_of_An_Coimisineir_Teanga_2014.pdf.

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– 2016. Tuarascáil Bhliantúil – Annual Report 2015. An Spidéal. Accessed 18 October 2016. https://www.coimisineir.ie/userfiles/files/Oifig_an_ Choimisineir_Teanga_Tuarascail_Bhliantuil_2015.pdf. – 2017. Tuarascáil Bhliantúil – Annual Report 2017. An Spidéal. Accessed 31 October 2017. www.coimisineir.ie/userfiles/files/Annual_ Report_2017.pdf. – n.d. Court Cases on the Irish Language under the Constitution. Accessed 9 October 2016. https://www.coimisineir.ie/userfiles/files/ LanguageRights.pdf. An tSeirbhís Chúirteanna – Courts Service. 2015. Tuarascáil Bhliantúil – Annual Report 2015. Dublin: An tSeirbhís Chúirteanna – Courts Service. Accessed 22 October 2016. http://www.courts.ie/Courts.ie/ library3.nsf/(WebFiles)/C52A3B7011B935F4802580830034C6B5/ $FILE/Tuarasc%C3%A1il%20Bhliaint%C3%BAil%20An%20 tSeirbh%C3%ADs%20Ch%C3%BAirteanna%202015.pdf. Blackledge, Adrian, and Angela Creese. 2010. Multilingualism. London: Continuum. Bras, Jean-Laurent. 2016. “Le Breton à l’école: un tableau en trompe-l’œil.” Ouest-France, 15–16 October, 7. Burke, Elaine. 2012. “Computer Virus Targets Irish Language Users.” Silicon Republic, 6 September. Accessed 19 October 2016. https://www. siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/computer-virus-targets-irish-languageusers. Canada. 1982. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Ottawa: Department of Justice. Accessed 9 October 2016. https://www.canada. ca/content/dam/pch/documents/services/download-order-charter-bill/ canadian-charter-rights-freedoms-eng.pdf. – 1988. Official Languages Act. Accessed 14 October 2016. http://lawslois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/o-3.01/. – 2008. Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality, 2008–2013: Acting for the Future. Ottawa: Government Publications. Accessed 11 October 2016. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2012/pc-ch/CH1426-2012-eng.pdf. – 2013. Duality during the 150th Anniversary Celebrations of Canadian Confederation in 2017, Report of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Ottawa: Official Languages Committee. Accessed 11 October 2016. http://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/LANG/StudyActivity? studyActivityId=7731328. – n.d. Linguistic Duality Day. Accessed 11 October 2016. http://osezdare.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1390851431175/1390851450740.

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– 2016b. Annual Report. Ottawa: Commissioner of Official Languages. Accessed 12 October 2016. http://www.officiallanguages.gc.ca/sites/ default/files/annual-report-15-16.pdf. Office public de la langue bretonne. 2016. Accessed 22 October 2016. http://www.fr.brezhoneg.bzh/. Ó Giollagáin, Conchúr. 2014. “Early Exposure to English Is Damaging the Standard of Irish among Gaeltacht Young.” The Irish Times, 9 December. Ó Giollagáin, Conchúr, and Martin Charlton. 2015. Nuashonrú ar an Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht: 2006–2011. Na Forbacha: Údarás na Gaeltachta. Accessed 17 October 2017. https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/udaras-nagaeltachta.pdf. O’Halloran, Marie. 2003. “O’Cuiv Calls for Irish Language to Be Preserved.” The Irish Times, 24 May. Accessed 11 October 2016. http:// www.irishtimes.com/news/o-cuiv-calls-for-irish-language-to-bepreserved-1.360043. Ó Maicín v. Ireland. 2014. I ES C 12. Ó Murchú, Helen. 2008. More Facts about Irish, vol. 1. Baile Átha Cliath [Dublin]: Coiste na hÉireann den Bhiúró Eorpach do Theangacha Neamh fhorleathana Teoranta [Irish Branch of the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages]. Accessed 9 October 2016. http://www. gaelport.com/MFAI2014B. – 2014. More Facts about Irish, vol. 2. Baile Átha Cliath [Dublin]: Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge. Accessed 9 October 2016. http://www. gaelport.com/uploads/documents/More%20Facts%20About%20Irish %20(2014)%20%20Helen%20%C3%93%20Murch%C3%BA.pdf. O’Regan, Mark. 2013. “Language Chief Quits over Lack of Irish in Civil Service.” Irish Independent, 5 December. Accessed 12 October 2016. http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/language-chief-quits-over-lack-ofirish-in-civil-service-29811238.html. President of Ireland. 2016. “Óráid an Uachtaráin, Micheál D. Ó hUigínn ag Cóisir ‘Ghaeilge sa Ghairdín.’” Accessed 18 October 2016. http:// www.president.ie/en/sabina-higgins/speeches/oraid-an-uachtarainmicheal-d.-o-huiginn-ag-coisir-ghaeilge-sa-ghairdin. Regan, Vera. 2016. “Tales of the Celtic Tiger: Migrants’ Language Use and Identity.” In Ireland and Quebec: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on History, Culture and Society, edited by Margaret Kelleher and Michael Kenneally, 113–30. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

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Romaine, Suzanne. 2008. “Irish in the Global Context.” In A New View of the Irish Language, edited by Caoilfhionn Nic Pháidín and Seán Ó Cearnaigh, 11–25. Dublin: Cois Life. Royal Irish Academy Committee for Modern Language, Literary and Cultural Studies (Chair: Maeve Conrick). 2011. National Languages Strategy. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. Accessed 22 October 2016. https://www.ria.ie/sites/default/files/national_languages_strategy_ august_2011.pdf. Ruddock, Alan. 2005. “Abandon Irish as an Official Language and Watch It Flourish.” The Irish Times, 20 March. Siggins, Lorna. 2005. “Call for Review into How Irish Is Taught.” The Irish Times, 15 March. Statistics Canada. 2016. “Statistics Canada Announces Dates for 2016 Census Releases.” Accessed 17 October 2016. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ eng/about/smr09/smr09_061. Uí Chollatáin, Regina. 2009. “From Tracts to Twitter.” In ICERI 2009 Proceedings, 1109–20. Madrid: International Academy of Technology, Education and Development (I ATED). Wallace, Arminta. 2015. “The Mini-Revival of the Irish Language.” The Irish Times, April 27. Accessed 19 October 2016. http://www.irishtimes. com/news/education/the-mini-revival-of-the-irish-language-1.2186677. YouTube. 2009. “Yu Ming is ainm dom [Yu Ming Is My Name].” Accessed 18 October 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA0a62wmd1A.

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Indigenous Languages and Official Language Policy: The Canadian Example

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7 Language, Education, and the Structuring of Canada’s Social Sphere Deborah Shadd

In t ro du cti on The 1960s was a complex decade of tumult and social upheaval in Canada, as in so many other regions of the globe. With the events of the Second World War still fresh in the annals of history and the unrest of the civil rights movement growing continually stronger south of the border, issues of racism, discrimination, and social inequality were at the forefront of many Canadians’ minds, leading to an increasing number of questions about the treatment of minority language and culture groups within their own country (see Clément et al. 2012; McLachlin 2002). It was against this social backdrop, and with the hundredth anniversary of Confederation drawing steadily nearer, that in 1963 and 1964 the federal government of Canada commissioned two rather remarkable studies. The first was a report by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (R C B B ), established by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in July 1963 “to inquire into and report upon the existing state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and to recommend what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races, taking into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that should be taken to safeguard that contribution” (R C B B 1967, xxi). The second, A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada, was begun less than a year later at the request of then minister of citizenship and immigration René Tremblay, who asked that “a study be undertaken

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Figure 7.1  Key moments in Canada’s official language policies

June 1970: Indian Chiefs of Alberta submit “Citizens Plus” to the ­federal government, ­systematically rebutting every recommendation of the 1969 “Statement”

February 1970: Sixth and final ­volume of R C B B ’s report tabled

September 1969: Canada’s Official Languages Act comes into force

June 1969: “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969” is released

April 1969: New Brunswick enacts first provincial Official Languages Act

October 1967: Second and final ­volume of Hawthorn’s survey tabled

1964: A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada commissioned

July 1963: Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism established



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of the contemporary situation of the Indians of Canada with a view to understanding the difficulties they faced in overcoming some pressing problems and their many ramifications” (Hawthorn 1966, vol. 1, 5). Though these two reports are not often discussed in relation to one another, there is strong justification for considering them side by side. Not only did the concerns that led to their commissioning emerge against the same social backdrop, but both reports were also given mandates that centred on questions of language and culture, not just in and of themselves, but in specific relation to the political and economic structures of Canada. Both reports subsequently made use of very similar language and rhetoric, evidencing deep concern for the principles of equality and justice, for the status of Canada’s Charter members within the growing nation, for the established rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and for the general strength and wellbeing of the country. Both reports repeatedly emphasized the importance of language and culture to the formation and preservation of identity, not only for the particular minority groups who claimed them as their own, but also for that of the nation as a whole. And perhaps most significantly, both reports clearly and unequivocally underlined the central importance of schooling and education to all of the above. Despite the fact that education has not often been central to discussions of identity formation in Canada (see Li 1999; Mackey 2002; Thobani 2007), it is not difficult to discern why a direct connection between the two can and should be drawn. The early years of life have long been recognized as those during which children’s minds and characters are most malleable and subject to the influence of those around them, whether authorities or peers, whether for them or against them. If we add to this the consideration that, in most parts of the world, responsibility for and control of the formal education system lie largely with the nation-state’s government, the potential significance of what goes on in increasingly multicultural classrooms only grows. For, going well beyond the mere imparting of facts and figures, systems of formal education can be used to validate or decimate entire ways of knowing, seeing the world, and understanding history in the broadest sense, both past and present, with social roles, relations, and rules of engagement taught and learned right alongside. “Of course, many of these contrasting Virtues,” observed Althusser (1971, 156), “are also taught in the Family, in the Church, in the

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Army, in Good Books, in films and even in the football stadium. But no other Ideological State Apparatus has the obligatory (and not least, free) audience of the totality of the children in the social formation, eight hours a day for five or six days out of seven.” Public education is, as a result, a tool of unparalleled importance for bodies of power who know all too well that the influential teaching that begins in the classroom – the narratives told and the relational structures established – reaches far beyond individual students to impact first the collective identities of those communities to which they belong and then, by extension, that of the nation as a whole. By the very same reasoning, public education can also be seen as foundational to any process of social reform or restructuring, making it an institution that calls out for critical examination in the course of any struggle for significant change. It was this very fact that Laurendeau and Dunton recognized when, in the final Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, they wrote: “Other institutions impose a structure on our economic and social life and their importance cannot be underestimated. Changes in education, however, will facilitate reforms elsewhere and are a prerequisite for some of the other changes which must be made” (RCBB 1968, 3). Perhaps nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in negotiating the complex questions about multilingualism and multiculturalism that have been constitutive of the Canadian experience from the very moment of Confederation. Though in their breadth and depth these are issues that touch nearly all aspects of political and social life in Canada, it has very often been over the problem of education that attendant clashes and conflicts have come to a head, with results ranging from peaceful resistance – like the sit-in at the Blue Quills school in Alberta (Bashford and Heinzerling 1987) – to violent protest – as in the case of the New Brunswick “School Question” (Toner 1970). It is not surprising, then, that in both of the 1960s reports, the matter of education figured prominently and centrally. In this, all those involved seemed united. However, despite this shared foundational assumption and a common rhetorical approach, there were also significant dissimilarities and dramatic contrasts between the two reports, not least in terms of the responses and reactions that greeted their release. In considering the question of Canadian social structuring and hierarchy, it is these differences that are perhaps most telling of all.

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Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism Although in 1960 nearly 30 per cent of Canadians were francophone, only 9 per cent of federal public service positions were officially designated bilingual, meaning that many government services were available only in English (Commissioner of Official Languages 2009, 3). This both resulted from and recreated a situation in which the Frenchspeaking population of Canada lagged significantly behind its anglophone counterpart in several ways. Due to the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in Québec and the consequent struggle between religious and secular leaders to maintain social control of the province, Québec was literally decades behind all other nine provinces in developing a coherent system of public education, with the result that levels of enrolment and educational attainment remained well below standards in other parts of the country (Henchey 1972), with ripple effects that stretched all the way to federal institutions. It was only after the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Education in the Province of Québec released its final report calling for swift and dramatic reform that the province began an overhaul of its schooling system (Pigeon 2009), introducing changes that would come to be at the heart of that wider social movement now known as the Quiet Revolution: a concerted effort to raise the popular level of education in Québec, increase the economic competitiveness of the province, and modernize society as a whole, while at the same time insisting upon the continued maintenance and prominence of French language and Québécois culture within Canada. It was in the midst of these social tensions that Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson first established the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, co-chaired by André Laurendeau and A. Davidson Dunton. Over the course of the next seven years, Laurendeau and Dunton, along with the other commissioners appointed to work with them, crisscrossed the country holding regional meetings, both public and private, with citizens in every province. They met with each premier and received more than 400 written briefs from various groups and individuals wanting to express their particular point of view on the various questions at hand (RCBB 1967, xv–xvi). Throughout the discussion of English and French contained in the Commission’s final report, language and culture were consistently

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understood to be “inseparably linked” (ibid., xxx). Though never going so far as to conflate the two, the Commission did not hesitate to emphasize the one as a necessary condition of the other’s continued health and vitality. “Even a great cultural language, even an international language like French, under certain sociological conditions, can wither away to the point where, for certain groups, it no longer expresses the essentials of contemporary civilization. In such a case the culture itself is in mortal danger; for nobody will maintain that a group still has a living culture, in the full sense of the term, when it is forced to use another language in order to express to itself the realities which make up a large part of its daily life” (ibid., xxxv). As a direct result of this understanding, the bilingualism and biculturalism of Canada were spoken of in a single breath, the “two dominant languages” ever matched by the “two principal cultures,” both of which needed to be preserved and developed in parallel if there were to be established “an equal partnership between the two founding races” (1967, xxxi, xxxix). To assess accordingly the life and vitality of these two languages and cultures, the Commission explored the extent of English and French usage in both the public and private sectors of the business world, as well as in the organization and running of volunteer associations of all sorts. It considered ways to make both languages and cultures more evident in the national capital region, and it delved into the relevant constitutional questions and debates. But more prominent than any of these discussions, more pervasive throughout the report than any of these considerations, was the matter of education. While only one of the six volumes of the Commission’s final report was actually given the title “Education” (1968, vol. 2), each book without exception touched on schooling to one extent or another, and every section contained at least one recommendation having to do with the provision of educational opportunities. “Education is vitally concerned with both language and culture. Educational institutions exist to transmit them to a younger generation and to foster their development. The future of language and culture, both French and English, thus depends upon an educational régime which makes it possible for them to remain ‘present and creative’” (1968, 3). The schooling system was understood to be “the front line of defence” for protecting language and culture, “the basic agency” for propagating them, and an “essential resource” for every community that desired to remain healthy and strong (1967, 67, 122).

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In the end, the primary legislative recommendation of the Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1967– 70) was that English and French be formally recognized as the two official languages of Canada, a move that would pave the way for laying out linguistic and cultural rights and guarantees in areas not directly addressed by section 133 of the British North America Act (1867). The Commission concluded, “We believe that henceforth formal rights must replace simple tolerance and makeshifts. In place of the present de facto bilingualism, more or less precarious, constantly debated, and unequally accepted from one region to another, there must be official bilingualism” (1967, 73). The Commission took pains to ensure, however, that alongside this legislative recommendation came an equally primary educational one: “We recommend that the right of Canadian parents to have their children educated in the official language of their choice be recognized in the educational systems, the degree of implementation to depend on the concentration of the minority population” (ibid., 123). Though stated simply enough in the first volume of the report, the lengthy discussion that followed made clear that implementation of this recommendation would be far from simple. Dozens of more focused recommendations followed, addressing the specific curricular needs of official language minorities (1968, 49–50), the determining of enrolment for minority language schools (ibid., 158–9), the dissociation of linguistic and religious considerations in school governance (ibid., 163), the structuring of school boards (ibid., 170–1), the training and hiring of teachers (ibid., 174–6), the strategies for intergovernmental cooperation in providing funds and grants (ibid., 186–7), and more. Despite the extent and complexity of the changes required, however, the Commission was clear: the realization of a Canada where two official languages and two dominant cultures lived and flourished in equal measure crucially depended on balanced opportunities for bilingual education straight across the country. In addition to this primary investigation into the relative status of English and French, the mandate of the Commission was extended to include what was referred to as “the ethnic question” (1969b, xxv). In many ways, the views expressed by the Commission on this topic were quite positive, recognizing the role played by many immigrant families in carrying culture and civilization “in the broadest sense” to previously “unsettled” parts of the country, as well as the wealth of knowledge, skills, and traditions by which they had contributed

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to the development of “literature, music and the plastic arts in Canada” (1967, xxvi). Accordingly, a number of recommendations were made with regard to maintaining and preserving these languages and cultures, and although none called for extensive legislative changes or constitutional review, as had been the case in addressing French and English, many were concerned with education, recommending the incorporation of these languages as curricular subjects at both the elementary and secondary levels (1969b, 141, 145), with expanded opportunities made available for their study in university social science and humanities faculties as well (ibid., 167). Other recommendations addressed the presence of immigrant languages and cultures in the public sphere, suggesting policy changes that would increase their visibility in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) broadcasting (ibid., 190, 191), as well as at the National Film Board (ibid., 196) and the National Museum of Man (ibid., 222). At the same time, however, the report strove to make clear that any freedom of expression these languages and cultures had in Canada was given to them and this within strict limits and boundaries: “It will be noted immediately that while the terms of reference deal with questions of those of ethnic origin other than British or French, they do so in relation to the basic problem of bilingualism and biculturalism, from which they are inseparable” (ibid., 3). Accordingly, the common term “bilingualism” was restricted in its usage to refer only to the ability to speak both English and French, with fluency in any other language dismissed, and the notion of multiculturalism was rejected out of hand, admitting only “the basically bicultural nature of our country” (1969b, 12). To some extent, the limitations imposed by this perspective are entirely understandable, for although in 1961 members of these “other ethnic groups” in fact comprised 26 per cent of the Canadian population, the reality of their diversity and spread across the country meant that nowhere was any group sufficiently concentrated or numerous “to contemplate the institution of other official languages, or the expansion of the concept of two societies to include four or five” (ibid., 10). The activities of daily life in Canada and the movements of its ongoing governance happened in French or in English, and consequently this was where focus was naturally and necessarily maintained. Recommendations differentiating English and French as languages of instruction and other tongues as simply curricular

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subjects were easily justifiable in light of the practicalities of maintaining a public school system open to all. Nonetheless, inconsistencies in the argumentation and reasoning laid out by the Commission raise questions as to whether practicality and pure logic were the only motivating factors at play. In speaking of culture, for example, the following definition was offered: “Culture is a way of being, thinking, and feeling. It is a driving force animating a significant group of individuals united by a common tongue, and sharing the same customs, habits, and experiences. It is a style of living made up of many elements that colour thought, feeling and creativity, like the light that illuminates the design of a stained glass window” (1969b, 11). It was a broad definition, perhaps, but in no way especially objectionable. It was followed swiftly, though, by a rather odd caveat: “This definition is applied essentially to the two dominant cultures of Canada, those of the francophone and anglophone societies; to a certain degree it also fits the other cultures in this country” (ibid., 11; emphasis added). It was never made clear exactly which aspects of the definition could not be applied directly to cultures belonging to communities other than the British and the French, and yet the distinction was unmistakably there. Just as the “great cultural languages” of English and French stood in contrast to other “spoken languages and dialects” (1967, xxxv), so too were the “two principal cultures” clearly set apart from other “styles of life” and “folk traditions” (ibid., xxv). The implications of this distinction unfolded in several different ways over the course of the full report. Whereas in the discussion of English and French, language and culture were consistently understood to be inseparably linked phenomena, when attention was turned to the consideration of “other ethnic groups,” separation of the two, in light of this lesser status, unexpectedly became possible. “Many seem to believe that the members of a group who have adopted another language have completely lost their original culture. This is yet another illusion which has given rise to many misunderstandings. In Canada, we can observe the indisputable survival of some cultural traits among native groups and among a number of groups of other ethnic origins … for whom the question of language hardly arises in everyday life” (ibid., xxxvii). The urgency of fighting for the “complete preservation of a culture,” included therein the vitality and life of the language (1968, 8), was replaced with simple satisfaction at having preserved

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some “traits” of ancestral traditions to which the term “culture” may apply “to a certain degree.” When it came to the issue of educational opportunity, the distinction drawn was even more marked. Whereas for speakers of English or French, mother tongue education was considered a “top priority” and the only way to avoid “the handicap of confused thinking and limited means of expression” (1967, 130), members of other cultural groups were by contrast urged to be wary of schooling carried out in their own languages. “The role of ethnic schools in the lives of the groups that sponsor them, and in Canadian society as a whole, has been little studied. It is probable that they contribute to a feeling of cultural identity … However, this may be resented and may lead some individuals to drift away from their cultural group later on” (1969, 106–7). Rather than being that which allowed the individual “to find, at all levels of human activity, a setting which will permit him to develop, to express himself, and to create in accordance with his own culture” (1967, xli), mother tongue education in languages other than English or French was represented as something that may, in the end, have detrimental rather than beneficial effect. Self-fulfillment for members of these “other ethnic groups” was instead to be found “in adopting fully the Canadian way of life” and “being more or less integrated with the francophone and anglophone communities, where they should find opportunities for self-fulfillment and equality of status” (1969b, 6, 10). While it cannot, perhaps, be denied that the Commission had practical reason on its side when it came to many of the distinctions drawn between the legislated treatment of English and French and that of all other languages in Canada, such inconsistencies in argumentation suggest strongly that prejudice, as well as practicality, was a factor. Eve Haque, in her book Multilingualism within a Bilingual Framework, goes so far as to argue that, by such machinations, the LaurendeauDunton Commission intentionally transformed language and culture into the new discursive terrain on which racial discrimination could be played out, “an acceptable site for the articulation of exclusion when race and ethnicity could no longer comfortably do so” (2012, 238). Certainly, the preceding volumes of the report had made clear that the Commissioners were well aware of the high stakes involved in the interplay of language and education for the formation of identity and for a sense of full participation in Canadian life. And having already argued so eloquently for such a perspective, there was now

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little logic to support the assertion that members of other cultural communities would unproblematically find “self-fulfillment and equality of status” through integration into anglophone or francophone society (1969b, 10). While there were of course no easy answers to the challenging questions faced by the Commission, assertions such as this one – which applied the same rhetoric of equality in status and opportunity to the situation of all language minority groups as it did to official language minority groups – all but denied that there was a challenge, thereby doing little more than simply dismissing those questions.

A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada Within only a few months of establishing the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission, the government of Canada set the wheels in motion for a second, apparently unrelated research study. It could not be denied that Aboriginal peoples in Canada were suffering from poverty far more extensively than any other segment of the population, and census data revealed that this was consistently matched by lower life expectancy and higher rates of infant mortality (First Nations Studies Group 2009, para. 5). So, in 1964 René Tremblay, in his role as minister of citizenship and immigration, approached Harry Hawthorn, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, to request that he carry out a study that would help clarify the most pressing challenges being faced by First Nations in Canada at that time. Over the course of the next two and a half years, Hawthorn, with the help of his associate director Marc Adélard-Tremblay, pored over the documents and files made available by the Indian Affairs Branch, scrutinized the responses to a comprehensive Resources Questionnaire sent out to Indian Agencies across the country, and recruited more than forty scholars to contribute to the collection of data in various provinces and regions, as well as to its subsequent analysis (ibid., 9). A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies, more commonly known as the Hawthorn Report, was published in two volumes, the first of which was tabled in October 1966 and the second in the same month of the following year. In terms of its staging, duration, and funding, not to mention its profile in the Canadian public eye, this inquiry appeared humbler in every way than the Laurendeau-Dunton

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Commission. However, its mandate and the scope of the questions it was intended to address were equally enormous, if not more so. The list of issues addressed by Hawthorn and his colleagues ranged from a comparative analysis of the socio-economic factors impacting the development of bands and lands in different regions of the country, to a discussion of the legal status of Aboriginal peoples in their relationship to various levels of government, to an assessment of the political arguments at the centre of calls for self-determination and local band governance. And once again, running like a golden thread through the full length of the report was the ever-present theme of education. “The prime assumption of the Report has been that it is imperative that Indians be enabled to make meaningful choices between desirable alternatives,” Hawthorn summarized at one point, “and that this should not happen at some time in the future as wisdom grows or the situation improves, but operate now and continue with increasing range. But many of the desirable alternatives potentially open to Indians, and even more that will be open in the future, are open only to those educated for them. Consequently, Indian children, and those adults who have the drive to attend classes, must find schools and proper programs ready to receive them” (Hawthorne 1967, 5). At first glance, many of the arguments made by the Hawthorn Report bear a remarkable resemblance to those put forward by the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission. Both reports agreed in their insistence that the members of a minority group should never be subjected to forced assimilation, “neither in order to receive what they now need nor at any future time” (Hawthorn 1966, vol.1, 6). They likewise agreed that effective schooling was imperative for the advancement of any minority group, in terms not only of cultural identity and social status but also of economic standing. “In an economy as advanced as Canada’s, simple literacy is no longer enough. Rather, the minimum requirement for any person in the labour force is a good, all-round education … Any group which is cut off from attaining these qualifications will share only marginally in the social advantages stemming from industrial progress” (R C B B 1969a, 25–6). A third point of agreement was the assertion that individual equality could only be truly realized within the context of collective cultural freedom. “Individual equality can fully exist only if each community has, throughout the country, the means to progress within its culture and to express that culture,” the reports seemed to echo, calling for “the power of decision of each group and its freedom to

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act, not only in its cultural life but in all aspects of its collective life” (R C B B 1967, xliv, xlv). That particular attention should be paid to the rights of Canada’s Charter communities was one further point of accord between the two, yet it is here that the great division between these studies is seen. For while the Commission stood firm in its assertion that this implied attention only to the “two founding races” of Canada, the authors of the Hawthorn Report were equally insistent that Canada’s First Nations should also be considered: “In addition to the normal rights and duties of citizenship, Indians possess certain additional rights as charter members of the Canadian community” (Hawthorne 1966, vol.1, 13). This call for recognition of the place of Aboriginal peoples in Canadian history, their status as Charter members of the nation, and the rights that should come with this was at the heart of the Hawthorn Report. After so many years of being treated as less than full and capable human beings and as less than respected members of society, Hawthorn argued forcefully, the time had come to afford the Aboriginal population of Canada treatment as “citizens plus.” Not only did renewed attention need to be paid to restoring and respecting those “charter rights which derive from history and long respect” (ibid., 396), but also contemporary services needed to be reviewed and reformed to make sure that the justification for “any continuing differential in the services provided for the Indian must be that they are better, not worse, and that they make greater contributions to his well-being than could be made by the services available to other citizens” (ibid., 7). And education was, of course, among the most pressing issues identified by Hawthorn as needing to undergo dramatic transformation from “minus” to “plus”: “Obviously neither the contemporary provincial school nor the schools that operate specially for Indians are at all closely integrated with the values and other aspects of the Indian child’s culture,” he wrote. “With the many barriers of language, age, preoccupation and timidity along with others, the entering child and the busy teacher can embark on no dialogue to explore their differences in outlook. Undoubtedly both suffer” (ibid., 7). Not surprisingly, in light of the egalitarian ethos of the day, attempts to reform Aboriginal education following a governmental review carried out in the 1940s had focused almost exclusively on integrating Aboriginal children into provincial systems, thereby seeking to afford

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them the same opportunities as other Canadian children. This, however, was a project doomed to failure, in Hawthorn’s view, if this was as far as it extended. “Low educational attainments, a high drop out rate, and the occasional antipathy of teachers and White parents … will not be overcome by simply ensuring the physical presence of Indian children in the classrooms of joint schools,” the report stated clearly; “Over and above this, a series of supplementary policies will be required to provide Indians with the capacities and effective opportunities to enable them to attain meaningful social and economic equality” (1966, vol.1, 399, 400). These were to include, among other things, the development of materials on Aboriginal languages and cultures to be added to the curriculum, additional language classes specifically adapted to help Aboriginal students reach levels necessary for engagement in an anglophone or francophone school, revision or replacement of textbooks that included inaccurate or insulting remarks about Indigenous people and cultures, as well as an intentional program of education directed at the broader Canadian public to address the problematic stereotypes and inadequate historical knowledge that led toward discrimination. Retracing this line in the opposite direction, we find the crux of Hawthorn’s argument: the greatest challenges faced by Aboriginal children in the current education system flowed directly from issues of disconnection from language and culture and the barriers that resulted. Without adequate attention given to the restoration of language and cultural considerations in curriculum and schooling, there would be no chance of Aboriginal students ever attaining real educational parity with their non-Aboriginal counterparts, even if they spent every day in the same classroom together. And without educational parity, there would be no chance of Aboriginal communities ever more broadly achieving social, economic, or political parity with other segments of the Canadian population. All these concerns were in reality inextricably intertwined, meaning that the connections between them needed to be recognized and the whole addressed in a systematic way if any real change were to be achieved. And the key to it all was education.

R e s p o n s e s a n d Results The Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1967–70) and A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada

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(1966–67) thus present an interesting case study in contrast when placed side by side. In many ways, as we have seen, the two resonate with similarity. Proceeding from the same social climate and prompted by the same social queries, both were centrally concerned with issues of language and of culture, drawing on the same discourses of equality, citizenship, and identity to shape and strengthen their recommendations. Yet despite these apparent parallels, the arguments made in the end were crucially different at their core, being shaped and informed by conflicting narratives of Canadian history – one subscribing to the doctrine of discovery, viewing European settlers as the protagonists of the story and consequently placing unwavering emphasis on the “two founding races” above all else; the other rooted in a narrative that began much earlier, remembering those who had lived and died on the land for generations before agreements were reached and treaties signed between nations that stood equally tall. To fully grasp the extent of the contrast between these reports, however, it is necessary to first remember that they were precisely that – reports. As such, these documents were not of themselves imbued with any legally binding power but rather were designed to strategically inform the opinions and attitudes of the government officials who would, in turn, go on to draw up and enact the relevant laws. The real contrast, then, is revealed not simply through a comparison of their rhetoric and recommendations but, moreover, through consideration of how each report was received and subsequently acted upon by government bodies. The Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was tabled in a series of six volumes between 8 October 1967 and 14 February 1970, and soon went on to become one of the most significant Royal Commissions in Canadian history, impacting not only federal policy but also provincial legislation across the country, while at the same time reshaping the relationship between the government of Canada and the province of Québec. The response to this report at the federal level was almost immediate, with Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau making the implementation of its recommendations a top priority. In fact, the 1969 Official Languages Act was passed through Parliament before the final volume of the report had even been formally submitted, declaring to all that “the English and French languages are the official languages of Canada for all purposes of the Parliament and Government of Canada, and possess and enjoy equality of status and equal rights and privileges

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as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and government of Canada” (S.C. 1968–69, c. 54, sec. 2). In addition to the guarantees made with regard to the use of both languages in federal courts, in the houses of parliament, and in all published laws and documents – guarantees that reaffirmed but did not fundamentally alter what had previously been laid out in the British North America Act (1867) – the Official Languages Act extended requirements for the provision of government services in French as well as in English wherever warranted by the population (S.C. 1968–69, c. 54, sec. 9–10), laid out the guidelines for establishing Bilingual Districts in provinces across the country (ibid., sec. 12–13) and established a Commissioner of Official Languages to oversee the implementation of the new protocols and ensure “compliance with the spirit and intent of this Act” beyond the simple fulfillment of its obligations (ibid., sec. 19, 25). Responses to the Commission’s report at the provincial level would come more slowly, yet over the course of the decades that followed, language-related changes were to varying degrees implemented in every province. New Brunswick acted first, its swift and definitive reaction taking the shape of a provincial Official Languages Act passed the very same year, in 1969, and each of the other anglophone provinces in their turn also moved to enact new legislation or introduce additional regulations providing more and better opportunities for education in French, whether as a first or second language, within their own individual schooling systems.1 Québec, for its part, took steps to bolster and ensure the ongoing strength and dominance of the French language within provincial borders, passing, within ten years of the release of the Commission’s findings, three key pieces of legislation: the 1969 Loi pour promouvoir la langue française au Québec (Act to Promote the French Language in Québec) (S.Q., c.9), the 1974 Loi sur la langue officielle (Official Language Act) (S.Q., c.6) and the 1977 Charte de la langue française (Charter of the French Language) (R.S.Q., c. C-11). Together, these three documents sought to progressively increase the use of French in all aspects of daily Québécois life, which included enshrining French as the official language of instruction within the newly standardized educational regime and requiring that the vast majority of newly arriving immigrants be integrated into this French language system rather than absorbed into English language schools, as had been common until then (McAndrew 2010, 291). Standing in stark contrast to the above, the release of A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada (1966–67) was met by a very

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different reception. Following its tabling in two volumes, the Hawthorn Report in fact prompted no legislative reaction whatsoever, neither at the federal nor at the provincial level. Instead, after two years of relatively silent reflection on the part of the minister of Indian affairs and northern development (IAND), the government issued its response in the form of a White Paper entitled “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969”: “The Government believes that its policies must lead to the full, free and non-discriminatory participation of the Indian people in Canadian society. Such a goal requires a break with the past. It requires that the Indian people’s role of dependence be replaced by a role of equal status, opportunity and responsibility, a role they can share with all other Canadians” (IAND 1969, 5). Ignoring entirely the specificities of history that formed the basis for treaties and the differential treatment of Aboriginal nations, the government’s response paper easily equated every form of difference with negative discrimination as it proceeded to lay out its plan for what was deemed to be “a new opportunity to expand and develop [Indian] identity within the framework of a Canadian society which offers them the rewards and responsibilities of participation, the benefits of involvement and the pride of belonging” (ibid., 7). As was true of both reports under consideration, this Statement was marked in its writing by the same discursive structures and rhetorical lines characteristic of the day – that is, by a voiced concern for social equality, the cessation of discrimination, the free expression of cultural identity, and the shared rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship. However, despite these observable similarities in the strategies of argumentation, two significant shifts in the perspective from which this discourse was taken up guaranteed that the conclusions reached in the government’s White Paper could not, in the end, line up well with the recommendations of the Hawthorn report. The first was a shift from a focus on the collective to a focus on the individual. Whereas Hawthorn and his colleagues had repeatedly underlined the collective characteristics of Aboriginal life and tradition and emphasized the need to consider this carefully when charting out any future course of action, the government’s policy statement seemed to move in exactly the opposite direction, recommending that the Indian Act (S.C. 1876, c. 18) be repealed, effectively negating the ability of Aboriginal nations to interact with the government directly. Arguing that “Canada has changed greatly since the first Indian Act was passed, [being now] made up of many people with many cultures” (ibid., 8), the White Paper went so far as to

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suggest the very removal of any reference to Aboriginal peoples from the constitution, leaving therein the mention of only the two official linguistic communities, the English and the French. This first strategic shift from concern for the collective to the individual was matched by a second: the shift from a substantive concept of equality to a formal one. Although Hawthorn had warned strongly against the hazards of applying too formal a conception of equality to the situation of Aboriginal peoples in Canada – cautioning that “an unrestrained emphasis on simple formal equality, which is not humanized by necessary supplemental treatment and services, could lead to … disastrous results” (1966, vol.1, 391) – the government policy as presented in 1969 made no provision for the sort of “supplemental treatment and services” called for. Even while acknowledging at one point that “equality before the law and in programs and services does not necessarily result in equality in social and economic conditions” (I A N D 1969, 10), the White Paper insisted repeatedly that “services should be available on an equitable basis [and] ought not to flow from separate agencies established to serve particular groups, especially not to groups that are identified ethnically” (ibid., 9). Together, these two shifts in perception created a situation in which the recommendations of the Hawthorn Report were not so much dismissed as strategically misinterpreted and, thereby, largely negated. Rather than affirming the special status of Aboriginal groups as Charter members of the Canadian community, their status was to be dissolved entirely and their place in the historical record all but erased. Rather than developing additional services to help close the social and economic gap created by years of neglect and maltreatment, existing obligations demanded by treaty agreements were to be phased out and brought to an end. Rather than developing local governmental structures that, in conjunction with the Indian Affairs Branch, could give greater voice to Aboriginal groups at the level of policy discussion, the Branch was to instead be shut down within five years, leaving no voice but the individual vote. The most noticeable divergence of all, however, between the Hawthorn Report and the government response to it had once more to do with the question of education. For although Hawthorn’s report had insisted loudly, repeatedly, and consistently that increased educational opportunities, attentive to the linguistic and cultural realities of Aboriginal peoples, must be absolutely central to any desired action or reform, the “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian

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Policy” had next to nothing to say about education and schooling in the newly proposed regime. A comment in its opening pages read, “The Government could press on with the policy of fostering further education, could press forward in the directions of recent years, and eventually many of the problems would be solved. But the progress would be too slow … We can no longer perpetuate the separation of Canadians. Now is the time to change” (ibid., 6). As a result, no plan was laid out for the education of Aboriginal children beyond their integration into existing provincial schools. The barriers of language, culture, communication, and experience identified by the Hawthorn Report as impediments to understanding, to learning, and consequently to any real development or progress, remained completely unaddressed and entirely ignored. The 1969 “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy” was met by outrage on the part of Aboriginal communities, who descried it as “a thinly disguised program of extermination through assimilation” (Cardinal 1969, 1). The conflict and opposition triggered by its release would not soon be quelled, and the immediate impact was sufficient to block any implementation of the proposed policy. The bottom line, then, remained unchanged; unlike the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission’s report, which had prompted legislative change clear across the nation, there was no legislative action or reform resulting from Hawthorn’s recommendations, no affirmation of the languages or cultural identities of Aboriginal peoples in Canada, no advancement of their place within Canadian society, and no improvement to the range of educational opportunities open to them.

C o n c l u s i on In surveying the history of debates over bilingualism, biculturalism, multilingualism, and multiculturalism that have marked the life of Canada since the very moment of its conception, there are undoubtedly any number of moments, of noteworthy episodes and interactions, that could be viewed as centrally important, having produced longterm repercussions and results. The confluence of events surrounding the commissioning and publication of these two reports, however, easily stands out as being particularly significant. In the preliminary report, which preceded the bulk of their Commission’s research and analysis, Laurendeau and Dunton wrote, “We believe that there is a crisis, in the sense that Canada has come

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to a time when decisions must be taken and developments must occur leading either to its break-up, or to a new set of conditions for its future existence” (R C B B 1965, 2). Likewise, in the introduction to his report, Hawthorn (1966, vol.1, 8) spoke of impending crisis in relation to Aboriginal communities and governance, warning that, with the possible exception of the soon-to-be-disbanded Indian Affairs Branch, no government body “appears to have the knowledge and readiness to assist.” At such a watershed moment, these two reports – collectively undertaking an examination of the full range of languages and cultures in Canada in specific relation to social, economic, and political development – seemed poised to bring both reshaping and renewal to the Canadian social sphere. Yet in the end, the result of these two studies and of the legislative responses that followed was neither a fundamental paradigm shift, nor even progression in a new direction, but rather an essential reaffirmation of that same hierarchical arrangement already in place since the earliest days of Confederation, one which saw the anglophone majority still securely positioned at the top of the social ladder, with various groups of cultural “others” positioned – albeit now more formally – at intervals beneath them (see Thobani 2007, 6). The challenges faced by Canada today, more than 150 years after Confederation, are no less daunting than those confronted in the 1960s. As increasingly unstable political situations around the globe lead immigrants and refugees to seek refuge in Canada in unprecedented numbers, the Commissioner of Official Languages wonders aloud: “How can we help communities that already have solid cultural identity reference points adapt to significant demographic change? How can we help immigrants find their place among us? How can we enable the sense of ‘us’ to expand and grow so that we continue to be a welcoming society?” (Commissioner of Official Languages 2015, 9). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, upon releasing its final report, reflected without mincing words: “Despite positive steps, daunting challenges remain. Canada faces a continuing crisis when it comes to the situation of Indigenous peoples of the country. The well-being gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people in Canada has not narrowed over the last several years … and overall there appear to be high levels of distrust among Indigenous peoples towards government at both the federal and provincial levels” (2015, 205). The ever more diverse nature of Canadian communities continually presents new challenges with regard to discerning the best policies and shape of governance to promote social equality and justice. Yet,

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if real reform is to be attempted, this will first require an honest and critical examination of the basic institutions that structure our society – not least among them public education – and their role in aiding the recreation and perpetuation of relations of inequality within Canadian society. Only then will Canada be in a position to effectively address those intercultural conflicts that have not simply been a part of our history but that continue to play an active role in shaping who we are as a nation, even into the present.

N ote   1 Alberta – School Act (RS A 1970, c. 329); British Columbia ­– School Act (R S B C 1979, c. 375); Manitoba – Public Schools Act (R SM 1987, c. P250); Nova Scotia – Education Act (SNS 1981, c. 65); Ontario – French Language Services Act (RS O 1990, c. F-32); Saskatchewan – Education Act (S S 1983, c.11); Yukon – Education Act (SY 1989–90, c.25); Prince Edward Island – School Act (R SPEI 1993, c. 35).

R efer e nc e s Althusser, Louis. 1971. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays, translated by B. Brewster, 127–76. New York: Monthly Review Press. Bashford, Lucy and Hans Heinzerling. 1987. “Blue Quills Native Education Centre: A Case Study.” In Indian Education in Canada, edited by Jean Barman, Yvonne Hébert, and Don McCaskill, vol. 2: The Challenge, 126–41. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Cardinal, Harold. 1969. The Unjust Society: The Tragedy of Canada’s Indians. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. Clément, Dominique, Will Silver, and Daniel Trottier. 2012. The Evolution of Human Rights in Canada. (Catalogue no. HR4-19/2012E-PDF). Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services Canada. Commissioner of Official Languages. 2009. Two Official Languages, One Common Space: Annual Report 2008–2009. (Catalogue no. SF12009). Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services Canada. – 2015. Immigration and Official Languages: Annual Report 2014–2015. (Catalogue no. SF1E-PDF). Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services Canada. First Nations Studies Group, University of British Columbia. 2009. “Indigenous Foundations – The White Paper, 1969.” http://indigenous​ foundations.arts.ubc.ca/home /government-policy/the-whitepaper-1969.html.

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Haque, Eve. 2012. Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race, and Belonging in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hawthorn, Harry. 1966–67. A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies. 2 vols. (Publication no. QS-0603-020-EE-A-18). Ottawa: Indian Affairs Branch. Henchey, Norman. 1972. “Quebec Education: The Unfinished Revolution.” McGill Journal of Education 7 (002): 95–118. Indian Affairs and Northern Development. 1969. “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969.” (Catalogue no. R322469). Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. Li, Peter S. 1999. Race and Ethnic Relations in Canada. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mackey, Eva. 2002. The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. McAndrew, Marie. 2010. “Immigration and Diversity in Quebec’s Schools: An Assessment.” In Quebec Questions: Quebec Studies for the TwentyFirst Century, edited by Stéphan Gervais, Christopher Kirkey, and Jarrett Rudy, 287–304. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McLachlin, Beverley. 2002. “Racism and the Law: The Canadian Experience.” University of Toronto Journal of Law and Equality 1: 7–24. Pigeon, Mathieu. 2009. “Education in Québec, Before and After the Parent Reform.” McCord Museum Collections and Research. http://www. mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/explore.php?Lang=1&tablename=theme &tableid=11&elementid=107__true&contentlong. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. 1996. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. 5 vols. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (R C B B ). 1965. Preliminary Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. – 1967. Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Volume 1: The Official Languages. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. – 1968. Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Volume 2: Education. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. – 1969a. Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Volume 3: The Work World. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. – 1969b. Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Volume 4: The Cultural Contribution of the Other Ethnic Groups. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer.

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Thobani, Sunera. 2007. Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Toner, Peter M. 1970. “The New Brunswick Schools Question.” CCHA Study Sessions 37: 85–95. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015. Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Ottawa. L e gi s l ati on (Federal) British North America Act, 1867 (30 Victoria, c. 3) Indian Act (S.C. 1876, c. 18) Official Languages Act (S.C. 1968–69, c. 54) L e gi s l ati on (Provi n ci al) Loi pour promouvoir la langue française au Québec (S.Q. 1969, c. 9) Charte de la langue française (R.S.Q. 1977, c. C-11) Education Act (S.N.S. 1981, c. 65) Education Act (S.S. 1983, c. 11) Education Act (S.Y. 1989-90, c. 25) French Language Services Act (R.S.O. 1990, c. F-32) Loi sur la langue officielle (S.Q. 1974, c. 6) Official Languages Act (S.N.B. 1969, c. 14, s. 3) Public Schools Act (R.S.M. 1987, c. P250) School Act (R.S.A. 1970, c. 329) School Act (R.S.B.C. 1979, c. 375) School Act (R.S.P.E.I. 1993, c. 35)

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8 Indigenizing Language Policy in Canada: Redressing Racial Hierarchies in Language and Education Donna Patrick

In t ro du c t i on This chapter addresses what is at stake linguistically and politically in Canada for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis in the context of language policy, revitalization, and maintenance. The context in question is not only one of an officially bilingual country, where French and English language rights, along with official multiculturalism, have become entrenched both legally and institutionally. It is also one in which processes of assimilation, dispossession, and displacement of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples have also been entrenched, through the Indian Act (enacted in 1876, and still in place with subsequent revisions) and more than a century of residential schooling, the effects of which are still being felt even though the last school closed in 1996.1 As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) – set up in 2009 as part of the response to litigation regarding the residential school legacy – came to a close in June 2015, the issues of Indigenous language loss, revitalization, and language policy had never been more prominent. Placing language front and centre of what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission termed “cultural genocide” (TRC 2015a, 2015b) and what Murray Sinclair (B B C 2015), the former chair of the TR C , termed “colonial racism” has brought to light the need for language reconciliation in Canada. A call for official recognition of First Nations languages by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) soon followed, and in 2016, the federal government announced that it

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Figure 8.1  Key moments in the Indigenization of Canada’s Official Languages Act

2016: Government announces a proposed Canadian Indigenous Languages Act, ­targeted for 2018

2009–15: Truth and Reconciliation Commission. T R C report Calls to Action published December 2015

2008: Nunavut enacts Official Languages Act and the Inuit Language Protection Act

2003–05: Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures

1991–96: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

1982: Constitution Act ­recognizes Aboriginal and treaty rights

1969: Official Languages Act; “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy”; ­publication of The Unjust Society by Harold Cardinal

1964: Inuktitut ­language instruction introduced in Québec’s Inuit communities

1963–69: Royal Commission on Bilinguism and Biculturalism

1876: Indian Act (still in place with subsequent revisions)

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Figure 8.2  Nunavut Source: Wikimedia Commons

would be proposing a Canadian Indigenous Languages Act, expected to make its way to parliament in 2018 (CBC 2016, 2017). However, as the Indigenous language scholar Onowa McIvor (CBC 2015b) has noted, and as we will see below, this call has been made many times over many years by First Nations and Inuit leaders. What this means in terms of analysis is that we are faced with contemporary political and moral imperatives that are driving future speculation on Indigenous language policy making – and driving the need for reconciliation regarding Indigenous languages in Canada. To understand the relations between Indigenous languages, on the one hand, and official bilingualism and multiculturalism, on the other, we first need to understand historical settler–Indigenous relations in Canadian

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state-formation and the subsequent hierarchical positioning of language practices. Just as patterns of language use by bilingual and multilingual speakers are tied to larger historical, political, and economic processes, Indigenous language policy making in Canada is tied to similar socio-political processes, which, along with the legal frames in place, both constrain and offer opportunities for Indigenizing language policy and seeking redress. The aim of this chapter, then, is to analyze Indigenous language policy making from an extended temporal perspective, which takes into account the legacy of colonizing and racist federal policy making that entrenched structures of dependency related to citizenship, education, and language; the constitutionalizing of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis rights within the context of official bilingualism and multiculturalism; and the contemporary political sphere as related to ongoing political, economic, and geographic transformations. Taking these developments into account underscores the need for language policy making to be considered as part of a larger discourse on Canada’s colonial legacy. This discourse encompasses Indigenous education, the legal and rights-based claims to Indigenous lands and self-determination, and calls for strengthening the connections between language, peoplehood, and educational structures to address current social and environmental issues, together with the particular challenges that they pose for Indigenous groups. Significantly, the analysis of this complex discourse requires both interdisciplinary breadth and a sharp focus on the issues surrounding language and education, including the historical, sociological, linguistic, and political processes in contemporary language policy making. With this analysis in place, we will turn to a case study of the Canadian Arctic, where we will examine Indigenous language politics and possible outcomes with implications for the broader Indigenous context.

In d ig e n o u s L a n g uages , Poli ti cs, a n d   t h e   E du c at io nal I mperati ve The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2015 report, entitled Calls to Action (TRC 2015a), contains ninety-four recommendations under some twenty separate headings, with “education” and “language and culture” near the top of the list (below only “child welfare”). Although these are treated as distinct areas of “action,” “language” and “education” obviously overlap, particularly as they pertain to

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the protection of Aboriginal language rights and the need for communities to have control over their own schools and educational systems, as well as to manage the “preservation, revitalization, and strengthening” (ibid., 2) of their languages and cultures. Language rights pertain to the teaching of languages, financial support for this, and the need for the federal government to acknowledge that Aboriginal rights, as recognized in the Constitution Act, 1982 include Aboriginal language rights.2 The Constitution Act, 1982 (Canada 1982), which includes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has become a key reference point in the legal recognition of French and English language rights as well as Aboriginal rights. Among other rights, the Charter guarantees the right of members of the two official language groups, English and French, to receive government services and education in their own language. However, it is notable that the rights of Aboriginal peoples are treated quite differently in the Act (see Patrick 2005). While section 35 of the Act “recognizes and affirms” the “existing [A]boriginal and treaty rights of the [A]boriginal peoples of Canada” (Canada 1982), there is no explicit constitutional protection of Aboriginal language education. Furthermore, what actually counts as an “Aboriginal right” has been left to the courts. Some Indigenous language activists, including those involved in the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures (2003­–05), have claimed that Aboriginal language rights are actually included in section 35 and need to be treated as such. This should include the acknowledgment by federal and provincial governments of a need for greater funding, arguably on a par with that allocated for French and English minority language instruction (Patrick 2007b). The pathway to federal recognition of Indigenous language rights has been a long and arduous one. The nineteenth-century British North America Act (1867) and Indian Act (1876) had a profound influence on Indigenous–settler relations of that era and continue to shape these relations to this day. While the British North America Act entrenched linguistic duality, confirming that all federal laws would be published in both French and English and that individuals had a right to use either language in legal proceedings, it also assigned responsibility to the federal government for all “Indians and lands reserved for Indians”; the Indian Act, building on this constitutional authority, enacted the government’s vision of “an aggressive colonizing project of assimilation” (Milloy 2008, 1). The ideological

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underpinnings of this project are based on the colonial notions of “civilizing” Indigenous peoples through education and enfranchisement into colonial society. As documented in the reports of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (R C A P 1991–96; see Canada 1996) and the T RC (see TR C 2015a, 2015b), the 130 or so federally mandated, churchrun residential schools had a substantial personal, collective, and intergenerational impact on Indigenous peoples.3 With the closing of most of these schools in the 1960s and 1970s came a new era of collective Indigenous mobilization, which, among other goals, aimed to transform an entrenched racial hierarchization of language and education policies. Two pivotal federal initiatives served as catalysts to Indigenous action on language and education: the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (R CBB 1963–69); and the (failed) “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969,” commonly known as the White Paper (Canada 1969). As explained in the preceding chapter, the RCBB was set up with the mandate to promote equality between French and English in the federal public sphere. It was also to take “into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that should be taken to safeguard that contribution” (RCBB 1967, 173, quoted in Haque and Patrick 2015, 30). The responses of Indigenous participants at the preliminary and public hearings of the inquiry were recorded, although as discussed in Haque and Patrick (2015, 29–32), they were far from adequately addressed. These responses included a voicing of the view that “equality of opportunity … in Canadian life without loss of identity” (RCBB 1967, quoted in Haque and Patrick 2015, 31) needed to be founded on the formal recognition of the status and rights of the First Peoples of Canada, together with formal measures to protect distinct Indigenous languages and cultures. This view emerged from a wide range of Indigenous submissions from across the country; however, it turned out to be at odds with the Commission’s own conclusions, according to which “opinion is not unanimous” regarding Indigenous language maintenance and the “problems” of Indigenous peoples demanded “special attention” (ibid.). The Commission also dismissed Indigenous claims for formal recognition at the inquiry, using a rationale that drew on colonial characterizations of Indigenous languages as pre-modern and precarious. All these responses to Indigenous participants can be seen as grounded in the same ideological

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assumptions that had characterized generations of assimilationist policies regarding Indigenous peoples; in this case, the assumption was that the assimilation of the First Nations into French or English communities was a necessary precondition for modernization and addressing social and economic inequality. In removing Indigenous languages from the “founding peoples” discourse, the Commission concluded, “The Canadian Indian problem is so complex that an inquiry into the existing situation of this large and important group should be handled by a special Royal Commission” (Varjassy 1964, 5–6, quoted in Haque and Patrick 2015, 32). It would take some thirty-odd years for this suggestion to be heeded through the RCAP . As the R C B B came to a close in 1969, not only did the Liberal government of the day enact official bilingualism, but it also delivered the White Paper on Indian policy – a proposal that met with considerable Indigenous resistance and that was never implemented. Drawing on liberal ideologies of equality and equal citizenship, the White Paper sought to erase the distinct status of Indigenous peoples in Canada by extinguishing treaty rights and even eliminating the federal government’s responsibility for “Indians,” which would be achieved through the elimination of the Department of Indian Affairs and repealing of the Indian Act. As with previous “Indian” policies, the paper continued the pursuit of highly assimilationist goals. In doing so, it sparked further outrage from Indigenous leaders at the time by completely disregarding input from Indigenous peoples themselves.4 The failed policy of the White Paper was the catalyst for Harold Cardinal’s book, The Unjust Society (1969), a stinging criticism of the policy that led the government to retreat from it. The failure was also the catalyst for “Citizens Plus” (1970), known as the Red Paper, which was produced by the Indian Association of Alberta (I AA) and which Cardinal, as leader of the IAA at the time, also helped to write. This document spurred mobilization around land rights5 and the demand for Indigenous control of education. In 1972, the National Indian Brotherhood (NIB, which later became the Assembly of First Nations) published “Indian Control of Indian Education.” This policy document promoted Indigenous languages and culture as a means to foster school success and to reinforce Indigenous identities. In other words, Indigenous language teaching and learning were seen as a means to bridge the socio-economic gap between settlers and Indigenous peoples. According to this document, early proficiency in Indigenous languages would prepare Indigenous

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children for schooling in an official language: “It is generally accepted that pre-school and primary school classes should be taught in the language of the community. Transition to English or French as a second language should be introduced only after the child has a strong grasp of his own language … While governments are reluctant to invest in any but the two official languages, funds given for studies in native languages and for the development of teaching tools and instructional materials will have both short and long-term benefits” (N IB 1972, 15). Submitted to the minister of Indian affairs and northern development, this document highlighted the importance of local Indigenous control over education to address social inequality. Higher learning outcomes could be attained through instruction in Indigenous languages and through the instilling of Indigenous cultural values in Indigenous students. To achieve this goal, appeals were made – as they had been during the R C B B hearings and would be in similar contexts in later years – for greater funding, akin to that available for French and English language instruction (see Haque and Patrick 2015, 35). The R CB B was pivotal in the development of language and education policy in Canada, leading to the Official Languages Act (1969) and the policy of multiculturalism (1971), later enshrined in the Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988). As for Indigenous languages, however, it was not until 2003 that consultations were finally initiated, leading to the 2005 report of the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures. Echoing previous calls for the recognition and protection of Indigenous languages (in the R C B B and policy documents that followed), this report underscored the importance of Indigenous languages in creating grounded personal and community identities, as well as in transmitting the philosophies, values, and spiritual and cultural beliefs – together with the socio-legal orders and economic practices reflected in these – that are arguably central to both personal and community health and sustainability. In addition to these appeals, the report called attention to relevant United Nations conventions, as well as to the rights enshrined in Canadian law and the devastating legacy of residential schooling. These all contributed to the report’s argument for the necessity of providing resources to revitalize, maintain, and restore Indigenous linguistic and cultural knowledge in ways controlled and managed by Indigenous groups themselves, as confirmed in the TRC Calls to Action (TRC 2015a) and

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as previously discussed with respect to Indigenous education in general by Johnston and Longboat (1986). What the above overview suggests is that we need to analyze Indigenous language policy and struggles within larger systems and trajectories of power and racial hierarchization in Canada. Ideologies of racial and linguistic inferiority, “primitiveness,” and the need for assimilation into dominant language groups at the expense of Indigenous language use and support have created and maintained the language hierarchies that we experience today. As we have seen, these ideas and processes have been consistently challenged and continue to be. This is especially evident at local and regional levels, where Indigenous language work – including teaching, recording, transmitting, translating, publishing, and broadcasting – has been prioritized. In the next section, we will turn to the Arctic, where varieties of Inuktitut have remained in use and where regional solutions to language recognition, protection, and development have been adopted to address language hierarchy and institutional challenges.

I n u it L a n g uag e P o l icy and Poli ti cs French language education has existed since the early 1960s in the Inuit communities in northern Québec, a region previously referred to as Nouveau-Québec (New Québec). The Inuit part of this area is now, since the signing of the 1975 land claim agreement, generally referred to as Nunavik (as opposed to Nunavut, the land claim region to the north of Nunavik). In 1963, as the RCBB was getting underway, the Direction Générale du Nouveau-Québec (D G N Q ) was planning to usher in French language education for Inuit communities in Québec. The Inuit whose children were to be the recipients of these new classes resisted this idea, and in a meeting with the D G N Q in 1964, an Inuk took the floor and “asked on behalf of the community if the proposed new provincial school would teach his children in Inuktitut” (Diveky 1992, 2, quoted in Patrick and Shearwood 1999, 256). The provincial officials, according to the teacher writing about this event, “took … a full two or three minutes to formulate their answer: yes, the provincial schools would provide instruction in Inuktitut for the children” (ibid.). The first teacher training course for Inuit followed in 1967, with Québec assuming full jurisdiction over education in Nunavik in 1969 through the establishment of the Commission Scolaire du Nouveau-Québec (ibid.).

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This chapter in the history of Indigenous language education is not that well known or, at least, is rarely cited. As it happens, the development of Inuit teacher training and curricula, and the subsequent introduction of Inuktitut-medium instruction in the first three years of school, occurred in the same era as the emergence of Québec’s French immersion programs in English language schools (the latter beginning in 1965 in Saint-Lambert, a Montreal suburb, with Frenchmedium elementary school classes). Cree and Inuit teacher training was further advanced through the establishment of Cree and Inuit school boards, which grew out of the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement (1975), the first modern land claim agreement in Canada. In the case of the Inuit-controlled Kativik School Board, this included teacher certification from McGill University (Cram 1985). The legacy of Inuktitut-medium instruction through the first three years of schooling has continued to this day and has become a model followed in Nunavut and in other Indigenous contexts. While such initiatives were groundbreaking in their day, the issue of educational outcomes has nevertheless remained a challenging one. As the Montreal newspaper La Presse reported in 2012,6 only 17.8 per cent of Nunavik students graduated from high school in that year – far below the 72.3 per cent rate for the rest of Québec (Breton 2012a). The current model, virtually unchanged since the 1970s, may be due for some revision, as suggested by recent developments in Nunavut, a largely Inuit territory founded in 1999 following the signing of the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement (NLCA) in 1993. The developments in Nunavut include the enshrinement of Inuktitut as a medium of instruction in schools and as an official state language, the protection of the language, and efforts to create a standard written form for it (see Cloutier 2013; Patrick et al. 2018). Changes in Nunavut language education policy have arguably been a response to the 2006 report by Thomas Berger, which he prepared as part of the negotiations for the NCL A Implementation Contract. This report addressed failures in the land claim’s implementation, emphasizing the need for more Inuit in the territory’s civil service and for greater efforts to maintain and use Inuktitut in Nunavut. One of its key recommendations was to increase Inuktitut-medium education beyond grades 2 or 3 (see Berger 2006). Nunavut has responded to this recommendation by calling for increased Inuktitut education from kindergarten to grade 12. This has been part of a language legislation package that Nunavut

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introduced in 2008, which comprises the Official Languages Act and the Inuit Language Protection Act. The former statute recognizes the Inuit language (or “Inuktut,” a coined term that encompasses the ten or so Inuit language varieties spoken across the Canadian Arctic), English, and French as official languages, and guarantees their use in the legislature, courts, and public services. The latter statute provides for the protection of the Inuit language in order to implement Inuit language rights and protection under the law, including the right to work in the Inuit language in government offices, as well as the right to services and education in the Inuit language (Cloutier 2013). While not as strong as Québec’s Bill 101, enacted to protect French, Nunavut’s language legislation reflects the seizing of a political opportunity and space to address the issue of language use in public places, the workplace, and education. The result is a particular rights-based approach to language protection that is shaping Indigenous language education, with a rationale to address educational outcomes. Drawing on this language legislation, a 2012 policy document, the “Uqausivut Plan,” has offered a comprehensive plan to coordinate various government language programs and services. As this document points out, “[T]he Inuit Language Protection Act [2008] recognizes every parent’s right to have his or her child receive instruction in Inuktut. This right came into force on July 1st, 2009 for kindergarten to grade 3 in most communities, and will be gradually phased in to all other grades by July 2019” (Nunavut 2012, 19; see also Cloutier 2013). Linked to these initiatives are two others: a consultative process for standardizing the script used for writing Inuktut (see PalluqCloutier 2013, 2014) and the development of a proposal for a Canadian Arctic university (CBC 2015a). As regards the first initiative, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (I T K ), the national organization of Inuit in Canada, has been involved in community consultations to establish a standard, “unified” script or common writing system for Inuktut.7 This standard – which would use roman script to create a new writing system that would replace the nine different systems currently in use throughout the Arctic – is seen as crucial for sharing texts across Inuit-speaking regions and thus for increasing the availability of written resources, which would benefit Inuktitut language teaching and learning. The second initiative, the proposal for creating an Arctic university, is still in the feasibility inquiry stage, which has included preparation of a “high-level” report “by northern educators,

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government and land-claim organizations” (Denette 2015). While this report recommends that the university be located in Iqaluit, have mandatory courses in Inuit language and traditional knowledge, and hire Elders on a par with professors, among other Inuit-specific features, there has been little movement on this proposal. Such initiatives reflect the continued Inuitization of education and other Western-based, dominant institutional processes. Paradoxically, these processes are now being driven by Inuit themselves through consultation and consensus building, as is the case for the process of standardization (Patrick et al. 2017). Standardization is a particularly fraught endeavour, given the subtle tensions between Western and Inuit histories, ideologies, and practices that it reflects. Interestingly, the source of these tensions is the proposal to move away from a syllabic writing system introduced in the 1880s and still used in the eastern Arctic. Though seen by many as quintessentially “Inuit,” this system was originally created by English missionaries for Cree and then adopted and expanded for Inuktitut by an English missionary, Edmund Peck. The system, which has many variants across the Arctic, consists of symbols representing syllables made up of consonants and vowels, hence the common use of the name “syllabics” for these scripts. Many Inuit in the eastern Arctic still have a strong attachment to syllabics, which appears to have many sources. These include the scripts’ religious associations, aesthetic qualities, and distinctively Inuit nature – given their near-exclusive use by Inuit – and thus strong association with Inuit identity. Many individuals’ attachment to syllabics likely also stems from a life-long investment in the development of expertise in them that would be necessary in such fields as translation. The move to a standard, Roman-based orthography thus represents an ongoing challenge for many Inuit. At the same time, many Inuit see this move as a necessary one, especially for those seeking to advance linguistic, cultural, and institutional goals through the production across the Arctic of texts using a single script. Admittedly, the achievement of these goals would ultimately require harmonization not only of scripts but also of lexical and other linguistic differences. Pursuing a similarly consultative, incremental approach to these differences in Inuit language varieties would pose additional, and perhaps even greater, challenges, making this a more distant goal. Improving educational outcomes, and doing so in part by working to maintain, revitalize, support, and develop Indigenous languages through rights-based and language planning approaches, is an

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ongoing effort for Inuit and other Indigenous groups in Canada. Education is seen as crucial for advancing the goals of self-determination, greater institutional and bureaucratic control, and more informed regional, national, and global participation in areas of economic and environmental transformation. It is also crucial for political, creative, and artistic expression, as well as for fostering social engagement and participation in governance and institutional structures. For Inuit, there are certain specific historical, social, and political conditions that have shaped the direction of language politics in the region. These relate to colonial histories and to the land claims, jurisdictions, and political governance structures now in place. The phenomenon of global warming poses still further challenges, especially in the Arctic, where increased resources will be needed to address economic, social, health, and infrastructure concerns, including those arising from changes in travel routes, as well as in patterns of hunting, fishing, and other forms of food procurement. With increasing marine traffic, greater resource extraction, and the migration of more nonInuit to the region, the stakes for Inuit will also increase. This situation of flux might be part of an explanation not only of the current Inuit focus on the ability to transmit and control traditional knowledge, language, and culture but also of the measures that they are taking to increase their control over the region. The political strategies used by Inuit to secure rights and to implement policies and practices, while not easily transferable to other Indigenous contexts, do represent what is possible within current political and legal frames in Canada.

C o n c l u s ion This chapter has sought to spell out what is at stake linguistically and politically for Indigenous languages in Canada. The historical analysis that it has offered reveals the racial hierarchy embedded in Canadian language structures and policies, as well as the need for redress in the form of structural change in the political and legal domains that responds seriously to demands for Indigenous self-determination. While the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including the Final Report (TRC 2015b) and the Calls to Action (TRC 2015a), provide a road map for federal government action; what is also in order is a focus on Indigenous language policy, together with the resources necessary to support this focus (TRC 2015b). Crucially,

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a focus on the structural level does not undermine or discount the dynamic, multi-faceted work on Indigenous languages carried out through small-scale, local activities or the broader institutional developments that we have seen in the Arctic case presented here. These top-down and bottom-up processes interact and can, together, effect change in supporting grassroots work, which can be seen to serve the broader goals of redress, decolonization, and increased Indigenous self-determination. All these processes are operating within the Canadian context – that is, the context of a state that needs to bring Indigenous languages into the national conversation to critically examine its past and to imagine new relationships.

N otes

  1

  2   3

  4

This chapter is an updated version of a paper published in Plurilinguisme et pluriculturalisme: Des modèles officiels dans le monde, edited by Gillian Lane-Mercier, Denise Merkle, and Jane Koustas. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2016. I thank the editors, reviewers, and Dr Benjamin Shaer for their excellent comments and editorial suggestions. During the period when residential schools operated, Indigenous children were taken away from their parents to live in these schools, which were often far from their homes. In the schools, most children were not allowed to speak their own language. And, children were often physically and ­sexually abused; many died and were buried in unmarked graves and are still unaccounted for. For those who survived and for Canada as a whole, addressing intergenerational impacts will depend to at least some extent on future policy initiatives, such as addressing the “calls to action” in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TR C ) final report (see endnote 3). The same claim was made by the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures (2005), as discussed in Patrick (2007, 49). Starting in the 1840s, Indian residential schools were run by churches in Canada. By the 1870s, Indian residential schools came under Canadian jurisdiction, although they were still church-run. The history and the impacts of the schools have been well documented in Milloy (1999), Miller (1996), and Chrisjohn and Young (1997). The lack of consultation with Indigenous peoples in policy-making continued through the efforts to establish a Heritage Language Institute (1987) and heritage language legislation (1989), which were in turn both marred by a failure to consult with Indigenous groups (Patrick 2007, 42).

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  5 This includes the shift in legal recognition of Aboriginal title to traditional lands in the 1973 Supreme Court of Canada decision Calder v. British Columbia.   6 Breton 2012a. An English translation of this article appeared in the Nunatsiaq News (Breton 2012b).  7 An I T K task force, Atausiq Inuktut Titirausiq, hosted a language summit called Unification of the Inuit Writing Language System in Iqaluit on 25–26 August 2015. Consultations on the issue continued for over a year across the four regions of Inuit Nunangat (see Rogers 2015).

R efer enc e s Barman, Jean. 1986. “Separate and Unequal: Indian and White Girls in All Hallows School, 1884–1920.” In Indian Education in Canada: The Legacy, edited by Jean Barman, Yvonne Hebert, and Don McCaskill, vol. 1, 110–31. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Berger, Thomas. 2006. “Conciliator’s Final Report: Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Implementation Planning Contract Negotiations for the Second Planning Period.” Accessed 14 January 2018. http://www.­ aadncaandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100030982/1100100030985. B B C (British Broadcasting Corporation World Service). 2015. “Reconciliation: Healing the Nation.” Accessed 25 November 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03855mm. Breton, Pascale. 2012a. “La tragédie inuite: le Nunavik décroche.” La Presse, 26 February. http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/national/ 201202/25/01-4499811-la-tragedie-inuite-le-nunavik-decroche.php. – 2012b. “The Inuit Tragedy: Nunavik Drops Out.” Nunatsiaq News, 2 March. http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674the_inuit_ tragedy_nunavik_ drops_out/ Canada, Government of. 1969a. Official Languages Act. http://laws-lois. justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/O-3.01/. ­– 1969b. “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969.” Accessed 28 May 2018. http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100 100010189/1100100010191. – 1982. Constitution Act, 1982. http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/ page-15.html#h-38. – 1988. Canadian Multiculturalism Act. http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/ acts/C-18.7/. – 1996. People to People, Nation to Nation: Highlights from the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (R C A P). http://www. aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100014597/1100100014637.

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C B C (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). 2015a. “Talks Continue on Nunavut University, Plans Expected in Spring.” CBC News, 12 March. Accessed 30 November 2015. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/ talks-continue-on- http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100014597/ 1100100014637 nunavut-university-plans-expected-in-spring-1.2992074?cmp=rss. – 2015b. “Aboriginal Languages in Canada Can and Should Be Made Official, Expert Says.” CBC News, 11 July. Accessed 4 July 2017. http:// www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/aboriginal-languages-in-canadacan-and-should-be-made-official-expert-says-1.3147759. – 2016. “Justin Trudeau’s Proposed Indigenous Languages Act Will Need Teeth to Succeed.” CBC News, 16 December. http://www.cbc.ca/news/ canada/north/betty-harnum-indigenous-languages-act-1.3897121. – 2017. “‘A Core Part of Our Identity’: Indigenous Language Law Targeted for 2018.” CBC News, 19 June. http://www.cbc.ca/news/­ canada/north/indigenous-language-inuktut-natan-obed-1.4168017. Cardinal, Harold. 1969. The Unjust Society. Seattle: Washington University Press. Castellano, Marlene B., Linda Archibald, and Mike Degagné. 2008. From Truth to Reconciliation: Transforming the Legacy of Residential Schools. Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Chrisjohn, Roland D., and Sherri L. Young. 1997. The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the Indian Residential School Experience in Canada. Penticton: Theytus Books. Cloutier, Stéphane. 2013. “Uqausivut: Our Language Implementing Madein-Nunavut Language Legislation.” In Proceedings from the XVII Foundation of Endangered Languages Conference, edited by Mary Jane Norris, Donna Patrick, and Nicholas Ostler, 12–15. Ottawa: Carleton University. Cram, Jack. 1985. “Northern Teachers for Northern Schools: An Inuit Teacher-Training Program.” McGill Journal of Education 20 (2): 113–31. Denette, Nathan. 2015. “Nunavut Announces Funds for a Feasibility Study for Arctic University.” Globe and Mail, 2 June. Accessed 29 December 2017. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ nunavut-announces-funds-for-a-feasibility-study-for-arctic-university/ article24754561/. Diveky, G. 1992. “The Thirty-Year Turnaround: A Teacher’s View of Changing Educational and Language Policies in the NWT.” In Proceedings of the Berkeley Conference on Language and Educational

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Policy in the North, edited by Nelson Graburn and Roy Iutzi-Mitchell, 87–101. Berkeley: University of California. Haque, Eve. 2012. Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race, and Belonging in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Haque, Eve, and Donna Patrick. 2015. “Indigenous Languages and the Racial Hierarchisation of Language Policy in Canada.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 36 (1): 27–41. Indian Chiefs of Alberta. 2011 [1970]. “Citizens Plus.” Aboriginal Policy Studies. 1 (2): 188–281. Accessed 28 May 2018. https://journals.library. ualberta.ca/aps/index.php/aps/article/view/11690/8926. Johnston, Eric, and Diane Longboat. 1986. “Sovereignty, Jurisdiction and Guiding Principles in Aboriginal Education in Canada.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 6 (1): 173–9. Miller, James R. 1996. Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Milloy, John. 2008. “Indian Act Colonialism: A Century of Dishonour, 1869–1969.” Research paper for the National Centre for First Nations Governance. Accessed 28 May 2018. http://fngovernance.org/ncfng_ research/milloy.pdf. – 1999. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. National Indian Brotherhood/Assembly of First Nations. 1972. “Indian Control of Indian Education.” Policy paper presented to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Ottawa: Assembly of First Nations. Accessed 28 May 2018. http://www.oneca.com/ IndianControlofIndianEducation.pdf. Nunavut, Government of. 2012. “Uqausivut Plan.” Accessed 11 June 2018. www.ch.gov.nu.ca/en/Uqausivut.pdf. Palluq-Cloutier, Jeela. 2013. “Standardization of the Inuit Language in Canada.” Proceedings from the XVII Foundation for Endangered Languages Conference, edited by Mary Jane Norris, 88–90. Bath, UK : Foundation for Endangered Languages. – 2014. “The Standardization of Inuktut in the Education System in Nunavut.” M A thesis, University of Prince Edward Island. Patrick, Donna. 1999. “Women and Work in Arctic Quebec. Inuktitut Language Programmes and Inuit Education.” Zeitschrift für KanadaStudien: Arbeit und Arbeitswelt 35 (1): 163–74.

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– 2005. “Language Rights in Indigenous Communities: The Case of the Inuit of Arctic Québec.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 9 (3): 369–89. – 2007a. “Language Endangerment, Language Rights, and Indigeneity.” In Bilingualism: A Social Approach, edited by Monica Heller, 111–34. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. – 2007b. “Indigenous Language Endangerment and the Unfinished Business of Nation-States.” In Discourses of Endangerment: Interest and Ideology in the Defense of Languages, edited by Monica Heller and Alexandre Duchêne, 35–56. London: Continuum. Patrick, Donna, and Perry Shearwood. 1999. “The Roots of Inuktitut Bilingual Education.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 19: 249–62. Patrick, Donna, Kumiko Murasugi, and Jeela Palluq-Cloutier. 2018. “Standardization of Inuit Languages in Canada.” In Standardizing Minority Languages: Competing Ideologies of Authority and Authenticity in the Global Periphery, edited by Pia Lane, James Costa, and Haley De Korne, 135–53. New York/London: Taylor & Francis. Rogers, Sarah. 2015. “I TK Gears Up for Iqaluit Language Summit.” Nunatsiaq News, 12 August. http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/ article/65674itk_gears_up_for_iqaluit_ language_summit/. Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. 1965. A Preliminary Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures. 2005. Towards a New Beginning: A Foundational Report for a Strategy to Revitalize First Nation, Inuit and Métis Languages and Cultures. Report to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Ottawa: Department of Canadian Heritage. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015a. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action. Accessed 14 January 2018. http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/ Findings/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf. – 2015b. Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Accessed 28 May 2018. http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Honouring_the_Truth_Reconciling_for_the_Future_ July_23_2015.pdf. Varjassy, Ilona M. 1964a. The Canadian Eskimos. Library and Archives Canada. RG 33, Series 80, vol. 117, file 408E.

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Decolonization and Official Language Policy: The African Example

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9 The Promotion of Languages in Nigeria: An Example of Problematic Official Multilingualism in Africa Michael Akinpelu

In t ro du cti on From a linguistic point of view, language diversity is a norm in the world, and Africa is not an exception. It is, in fact, one of the most multilingual continents, accounting for 30 per cent of all languages – that is 2,144 out of 7,099 living languages (Simons and Fennig 2018), without counting the inherited colonial languages such as English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. These languages are distributed unevenly in the various African states, grouped into five regions: North Africa, Southern Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, and West Africa. Managing this linguistic plurality is, without doubt, a complex and delicate task. And while many African nations maintained the status quo by simply choosing to perpetuate the colonial language policy already in place (one that promotes colonial language), some dared to embark on official multilingualism projects (those that promote the use of Indigenous languages) in an effort to foster national unity and sustainable development, though with few or no results. This chapter examines the management of the multiplicity of languages in sub-Saharan Africa in general, using Nigeria as a case study. It seeks to identify barriers to successful language planning projects initiated since independence, over five decades ago. As a solution, it draws on an example of a multilingualism management model that has succeeded in another multilingual setting: India.

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Figure 9.1  Key moments in Nigeria’s official language policies

1996: Promotion of French to the status of second official language.

1999: 1999 constitution: Restoration of democratic rule to Nigeria

1998: 1981: Revision of National Policy Provision for teaching of on Education to reflect pro- French as a compulsory visions of 1979 constitution, subject at the primary and junior secondary levincluding the learning of els made during the revione of the national sion of the National languages. Policy on Education.

1979: Promotion of the three major local ­languages (Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo) to national languages. Provision in the constitution for them to be used for business of the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly.

1977: Production of first national curriculum (National Policy on Education). Adoption of mother-tongue medium policy and ­multilingual policy.

1960: Nigeria’s ­independence from British rule.

1954: Amendment of the 1947 constitution to reflect English as the only official language at the national level.

1947: Provision made for English as the official ­language of the south and Hausa the official language of the north in 1947 ­constitution under British rule.



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Figure 9.2  Major Nigerian languages Source: Wikimedia Commons

L an g uag e P o l ic ie s in Sub-S aharan Afri ca A c c o r d in g to H e ine and Halaoui In an attempt to account for the various language policies as practised in Africa, linguists have come up with different typologies. Two of them are examined in this study. Bernd Heine (1992, 23–7) claims that language policies in most African states generally fall within two categories: endoglossic policies or exoglossic policies. Endoglossic policies are those that favour the use of local languages as the primary means of communication at the national level, while exoglossic policies favour the use of foreign languages as the primary means of

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communication. Endoglossic policies are said to be active if properly practised (as is the case in Tanzania, Sudan, and Guinea) and inactive when they are not (as in the case of Botswana, Burundi, and Rwanda). In states where the endoglossic active policy is practised, the overall goal is to promote cultural independence from Western cultural and ideological control and to restore a traditional structure of social organization and government based on traditional values through the use of local languages in all spheres of national life (administration; primary and secondary education), while reserving foreign languages only for higher education and international relations. In short, an active endoglossic policy “is associated with a political philosophy promoting maximum participation of the people in the governing process” (ibid., 24). However, exoglossic policy is a common practice in the vast majority of African states. Usually, at least one foreign language (English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese) is retained as the official language of administration or education, except in cases where part of primary education is offered in the national or regional languages. For example, Bambara is used for early education in Mali; Swahili in Kenya and Uganda; Luba, Kikongo, Lingala, and Swahili in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani, Kanuri, Efik, Edo, Ijo, Tiv, and Urhobo in Nigeria. Like Bernd Heine, Nazam Halaoui (2011, 101–26) also identifies two types of language policies in sub-Saharan Africa, namely national language policies and sectoral language policies. In general, national language policies are those that govern official national activities. In formerly colonized African countries, it is obviously the colonial language that plays this role. When the colonial language continues to hold exclusively all the functions that it held during the colonial era, appearing in all spheres of national life including administration, justice, education, etc., it is referred to as a politique linguistique de confirmation (language policy of endorsement). A policy of endorsement is built on “a catch-up concept of development, in which the young African country takes the former colonial power as a model … and thereby adopts as a strategy the language of that power as an official language and a language of development”1 (ibid., 103). In  this perspective, African languages are subject to a politique d’expectative ou de non-intervention (policy of expectancy or noninterventionism), in which the African state decides not to take immediate action in favour of Indigenous languages. Language policies of

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non-interventionism are fundamentally based on “the adoption of the colonial language as the official language and, on either the alleged impossibility of using African languages due to their multiplicity, or the outright refusal to consider using these languages in education, they … are a strategy of waiting, or expectancy”2 (ibid., 108). Examples include Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Cameroon, and Cape Verde. Conversely, in a situation whereby a colonial language is chosen as an official language, but its scope of use is reduced to accommodate local languages that are believed to be preferred means for basic education, particularly for the first three or four years in primary education and adult literacy, Halaoui speaks of a politique linguistique de modification (language policy of adaptation). According to the author, “Such a policy is generally built on the concept of endogenous development, in which the African nation believes it has to develop on its own, that the colonial language would not be appropriate as a language of instruction to learners who have no knowledge of it and that a national language (mother tongue or language of the community) should assume this function to enable better communication of knowledge provided in the classroom or in literacy centres”3 (ibid., 105). Where a policy of adaptation is practised, it usually leads to a politique linguistique de contribution (policy of contribution), in which case the local language is perceived as a complement to the colonial language. Language policies of contribution aim therefore at the efficient use of African languages to contribute to the overall development of the nation. Examples of countries that practise this policy include Burkina Faso, Niger, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Ghana. Unlike the national language policies that govern political life at the national level, politiques linguistiques sectorielles (sectoral language policies) are geared toward a specific area of language use, such as administration, education, etc. Figure 9.3 summarizes the national language policies in sub-Saharan Africa.

Br ie f O v e rv ie w o f t he S oci oli ngui sti c S it uat io n o f Ni geri a Nigeria is an English-speaking West African country surrounded by French-speaking countries: Niger and Chad in the north, Benin in the west, and Cameroon in the east. With a population of about

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Michael Akinpelu National language policies

Language policy in relation to the colonial language

Language policy of endorsement

Language policy of adaptation

Language policy in relation to the use of African languages

Language policy of expectancy / non-intervention

Language policy of contribution

Figure 9.3  Typology of language policies in sub-Saharan Africa Source: Adapted from Halaoui 2011.

191 million in 2017 (The World Factbook 2018), Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and ranks seventh in the world. It is also considered the most multilingual country in Africa because of its varied ethno-linguistic groups. As in other African nations, there are basically two categories of languages in Nigeria: endogenous and exogenous languages. The endogenous languages are 6464 in number and are unevenly distributed in the thirty-six states and the federal capital, which make up the federation, as shown in table 9.1. It goes without saying that the status of these endogenous languages varies according to their functions in the community where they are used, the number of speakers, and the degree of usage. Currently, three languages (Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo) have the status of national languages, mainly because of the considerable number of their speakers. Together, they represent more than half of Nigeria’s population (Adegbija 2004, 181–4). The Hausa linguistic group is the largest, with 29 per cent of the total population, while the Yoruba and Igbo linguistic groups represent 21 per cent and 18 per cent of the population respectively (Falola and Heaton 2008, 4; see also Simpson and Oyetade 2008, 173–6; Simire 2003, 231–43). English, French, and Arabic are the main exogenous languages.5 English and French are the official languages, according to the National Policy on Education, while Arabic is mainly used in the north.

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Table 9.1  States and languages in Nigeria State

Number of languages

State

Number of languages

Abia

1

Kebbi

16

Adamawa

58

Kogi

8

Anambra

3

Kwara

7

Akwa Ibom

20

Lagos

2

Bauchi

60

Nasarawa

29

Bayelsa

10

Niger

38

Benue

14

Ogun

1

Borno

28

Ondo

10

Cross River

50

Osun

1

Delta

11

Oyo

1

Ebonyi

5

Plateau

48

Edo

17

Rivers

23

Ekiti

1

Sokoto

2

Enugu

1

Taraba

73

Gombe

21

Yobe

9

Imo

1

Zamfara

1

Jigawa

4

Kaduna

57

Federal Capital 9 Territory

Kano

4

Total

Katsina

2

646

Source: Adapted from Yusuf 2013.

L a n g uag e P o l ic ies i n Ni geri a Language intervention activities date back to the colonial period, when Sir Arthur Richards, a British officer, decided to resolve the problem of disunity in Nigeria. In the 1947 constitution, Richards made English the official language of the south and Hausa that of the north. This provision was amended in the 1954 constitution to reflect a rather functional and hierarchical use of language at the national and regional levels. Thus, English became the exclusive official language at the national level, while at the regional level, the constitution

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provided for the use of English in the south and Hausa in the north. This was due to the fact that Hausa unified most of the ethno-linguistic groups in the north, whereas in the south, there was no common language for regional administration. After the country’s accession to independence in 1960, constitutions established by Nigerians themselves simply perpetuated the language provisions already in place, strengthening the use of English in the public and administrative sectors (Adegbija 2004, 209–10). Two major language planning projects have taken place in Nigeria since independence. The first one pertained to the Nigerian languages and had its source in the production of the first national curriculum called the National Policy on Education (NPE) by Nigerians in 1977. It was during this project that stakeholders realized the need to promote local languages, having taken cognizance of the deep pluralistic nature of the Nigerian society and the benefits associated with initial education in the mother tongue. “At this point of our development as a nation, it is unacceptable to make English the only language of business of our National Assembly and to proceed even further to enshrine it permanently in our Constitution … the Constitution has therefore been amended to ensure that Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba shall be additional languages of business to the National Assembly and shall be so when appropriate arrangements can be made for their use” (New Nigerian, 22 September 1979, 13, quoted in Adegbija 2004, 213). This led to the adoption of the mother-tongue medium policy and the multilingual policy. Two years later, at the amendment of the constitution in 1979, the three major Nigerian idioms were promoted to national languages and backed up with a decree. Today, two official documents – the constitution and the N P E – contain provisions that highlight the participation of local languages in public life. The NP E contains the following provision concerning the Nigerian languages: “Government appreciates the importance of language as a means of promoting social interaction and national cohesion, and of preserving cultures. Thus, every child shall learn the language of the immediate environment. Furthermore, in the interest of national unity, it is expedient that every child shall be required to learn one of the three Nigerian languages: Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba” (National Policy on Education, s.1, 10a). In the constitution, only Articles 55 and 97 refer to language usage in Nigeria, and this concerns specific contexts, such as the National Assembly and the State Houses of Assembly:

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55. The business of the National Assembly shall be conducted in English, and in Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba when adequate arrangements have been made therefore. 97. The business of a House of Assembly shall be conducted in English, but the House may in addition to English conduct the business of the House in one or more other languages spoken in the State as the House may by resolution approve. In spite of the strong ambition for linguistic independence and desire to promote local languages that led to the adoption of the three socalled national languages, it is evident from the two official documents that no concrete provisions were actually made for these languages to eventually gain the same status as English, which continues to be held as the most important language for official functions and education. The second major language planning project in Nigeria is related to the promotion of French as the second official language, initiated by late General Sani Abacha in 1996, due to the proximity of Frenchspeaking countries and the need to promote close relations with them. The language would ultimately find its place in the third edition of the N P E , two years later: “For smooth interaction with our neighbours, it is desirable for every Nigerian to speak French. Accordingly, French shall be the second official language in Nigeria and it shall be compulsory in primary and junior secondary schools, but Non-Vocational Elective at the Senior Secondary school” (ibid., s. 1, 10b). An initial analysis of the language provisions as contained in the two official documents leads us to some important observations: •

•

•

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It appears that the government recognizes the importance of language for the development of the country. The mother-tongue medium policy shows the importance the government attributes to the mother tongue in the initial formal training of the child, hence the use of the mother tongue or language of the immediate community (L I C)6 as the language of instruction in preschool and the first three years in primary school. The English language has a central place in the country’s linguistic landscape; it is the language of instruction (L O I ) from

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•

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the fourth grade to university. It is the language of formal education, administration, and secondary and higher education. The three major languages are promoted to the status of national languages; their function is to ensure the unity and cohesion of the country and to promote national culture and integration. Consequently, each child is required to learn one of these languages during his/her formal training. In addition, they are to be used for activities in the National Assembly and the State Houses of Assembly. The French language now enjoys second official language status and has therefore become a compulsory subject in primary and junior secondary schools.

It could be concluded, based on the observations above, that the NPE and the constitution intended to produce trilinguals, who are able to speak, in addition to their mother tongue, one of the three major languages (if different from the mother tongue) and English. Furthermore, with the adoption of French as a second official language since 1998, the country is moving toward quadrilingualism. It is also clear that Nigeria practises a language policy of adaptation and contribution, since the colonial language (English) remains the primary official language, but the country relies on native languages (in most cases the mother tongue) for a smooth transition from home to the classroom, particularly in the early years.

I mp l e m e n tat io n o f L a nguage Planni ng P ro j e c ts The language issue is both highly sensitive and problematic in Nigeria. The uneven distribution of languages across the nation constitutes a major challenge. While some states (e.g. Abia, Osun, Zamfara) are essentially monolingual in one of the major national languages, others (e.g. Taraba, Bauchi, Cross River) are profoundly multilingual, housing several minority languages. This continues to generate conflictual tensions between the majority and the minority ethno-linguistic groups and hinder policies at the national level. On the political level, Nigeria has experienced a lot of instability since independence, with twenty-eight years of dictatorship by military regimes characterized by the mismanagement of public funds and a lack of continuity in public policy implementation. More importantly,

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it appears that the common struggles by nationalist movements aimed at repressing the effects of colonization and gaining back the governance of the nation eventually amounted to ethnic tensions and divisions. This contributed to the attempted breakaway of the south-eastern region which resulted in the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War (1967–70). As Falola and Heaton (2008, 137) note, “The most intractable divisions between nationalist movements were regional, however. The nationalist movements that had emerged as pan-Nigerian efforts to promote the Indigenization of the government in the 1930s devolved into regionally based political parties with memberships that were divided largely along ethnic lines by the early 1950s. The independence thus achieved in 1960 was a fragile one, unified under a federal constitution in which politically conscious ethnic groups vied for control of the central government through ethnically based political parties.” Consequently, while the initial education in the mother tongue policy (the first three years) has been favourably received by the population, the policy on the dissemination and spread of the three major Nigerian languages (Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba) as national languages has so far yielded poor results due to several factors. One of them relates to ethnocentrism. Because Nigerians are generally “as loyal to their mother tongues as they are contemptuous of other languages” (Akinnaso 1991, 45), minority linguistic groups, as well as their parliamentary members, strongly opposed the project on the assumption that promoting a non-native Nigerian language in their region was a form of assimilation and linguistic/cultural imperialism. This is well captured in Ouédraogo’s words, who asserts that “[t]he development of majority languages or lingua franca is perceived by the speakers of minority languages as another form of linguistic and cultural imperialism. For this reason, they will never be in favour of a language policy seeking to promote the development and importance of the major languages in the areas of education and politics, preferring the status quo” (Ouédraogo 2001, 32).7 In addition, as part of the plan to implement the policy, the three national languages were introduced as compulsory subjects at the secondary level. However, studies have shown that the Nigerian education system is facing several problems, including a serious lack of qualified teachers, teaching materials, and financial resources necessary for the success of the project (Egwu 2009, 18–36, 52-8; see also Kpolovie and Obilor 2013, 239–43). In a recent study carried out on

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1,551 respondents comprising students and teachers in Ebonyi State (in south-east Nigeria), Chidi-Ehiem (2015, 106–10) found that the principal challenges affecting the teaching of major languages in secondary school include, over and above the lack of well-trained Nigerian language teachers and of materials, lack of innovation on the part of the teachers and of interest in learning these languages on the part of the pupils themselves. This attitude toward the major local languages owes primarily to the fact that they do not generally offer socio-economic advantages; they are simply not as important for obtaining good employment. Worse still, they are often perceived to be inherently inapt for science and higher learning (Simpson and Oyetade 2008, 192). Finally, the rivalry among the majority language groups themselves would sabotage the government’s ultimate plan to promote one of them into an official language, since each linguistic group strongly advocated for the choice of its language: “Based on the assumption that the ultimate goal of the government is to see which of the three languages would emerge as the ‘national’ or ‘official’ language, reactions to the federal provisions, as revealed in the mass media, the recent C R C [Constitution Review Committee] debates, and recent research, have focused on speculations or predictions as to which of the languages would win out … However, further investigation into the pattern of reactions to the ‘national’ or ‘official’ language question reveals both ethnocentrism and a north-south dichotomy. Each ethnolinguistic group usually supports its own language as the best candidate” (Akinnaso 1991, 47). In the face of such ethnocentric attitudes, the government has simply chosen to abandon the project. Today, although in theory the status of the three national languages is still legally recognized, in practice they remain regional vehicular languages, each limited to its native region, where it is dominant. There is, therefore, no single endogenous language spoken by the majority of the population; national unity is being safeguarded by English and Nigerian Pidgin English, two languages considered to be neutral and not associated with a particular endogenous language. It is worth noting that Nigerian Pidgin English, sometimes referred to as broken English or brokin, originated from first contacts between British and locals who could not speak English. A mixing of local languages with phonetically and grammatically simplified English, it has a written form, although this is not standardized. Today, Nigerian

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Pidgin English is used all over the country as a lingua franca among many Nigerians from different ethnolinguistic backgrounds and in areas such as sport, music, publicity, and political propaganda. It is also used by those with a Western education for informal communication and interaction (see Akinpelu 2016, 24, 40–1). Despite its increased influence, Nigerian Pidgin has yet to receive an official recognition because it is considered a “corrupt form of language … [that] poses a threat to standard (Nigerian) English which is taught in schools and used in formal settings” (Akinnaso 1991, 36). Therefore, English remains the only language that is highly valued in formal domains. To some Nigerians, the role of English is so vital that the country’s federalism owes its existence to it, holding that it “unites [the nation] in [its] diversity and guarantees [its] continued existence” (Ogunsiji 2001, 156–7). In informal domains, however, a study by Ajibade et al. (2012) shows that, mainly because of its accessibility, neutrality, and ease of use for communication, Nigeria Pidgin is gaining ground. This led them to conclude that it “has the potentials [sic] to become a wider language of unity … than the major Indigenous languages” (ibid., 295). As for the language policy in favour of the French language, its introduction into the national curriculum (constituted in the National Policy on Education) in 1998 and, most importantly, the decision to make it a compulsory subject in Nigerian schools marked the beginning of the implementation process and the creation of a national language training program. However, two decades later, the language has yet to carry out any official functions (administrative and public), and its implementation in the education sector is faced with several problems, the most important being, once again, the lack of qualified teachers, lack of appropriate teaching materials, and chronic underfunding. A study by Olaniyi and Ajibade (2012) on the three textbooks (Nouvel Horizon, Trans Afrique, and On y va!) recommended for teaching French at the junior secondary school level revealed that these textbooks are not adapted to the learners’ socio-cultural realities because they focus more on grammatical rules rather than on communicative competence, which is essential in the acquisition of communication skills (ibid., 110–25). Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2010 by the former technical expert of the Nigeria French Language Project showed a significant shortage of qualified teachers for French across the nation, with a teacher-student ratio of 1:260 in junior secondary school and 1:140 in senior secondary school (see Causse and Odousoro 2013, 17).

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On the other hand, the underfunding recorded in the education sector since independence in 1960 is a big obstacle to the successful implementation of the language policy. A study by Kpolovie and Obilor (2013) revealed that, over a period of fifty-four years (1960– 2013), only an average of 5.72 per cent of the nation’s total budget was allocated to education, often with much variation – ranging from 0.53 per cent to 17.59 per cent – which is far from the 26 per cent recommended by U N E S C O . It goes without saying that the problem of underfunding gave rise to a multitude of other problems, including the lack of teaching materials and sufficient infrastructure to meet the education needs of the population, which is essentially young: according to The World Factbook (2018), children under fifteen years old constituted over 43 per cent of the country’s total population in 2017. That said, the failure of the French project can be largely attributed to factors surrounding the planning activities themselves. Our study has revealed that no preparations (research or survey) were made prior to the official declaration by General Sani Abacha to make French the second official language of Nigeria in December 1996. The decision was taken on the grounds of assumptions and personal ideologies. This attitude is common in sub-Saharan Africa and is criticized by many linguists. According to Ayo Bamgbose (1991, 110–21), language policies on the continent are generally characterized by many problems. They are often defective, formulated with lack of precision, and declarations are arbitrary without prior surveys of the population or implementation intention. Sometimes, there is an absence of policy formulation altogether. Yet, the success of language planning requires the observation of a certain procedure, including the study of the linguistic context in which the policy is to be implemented, the formulation of the policy, and an implementation strategy based on realistic objectives (Halaoui 2011, 157–61). Drawing on the work of Lo Bianco, Paulin G. Djité (2008, 7) argues that a good language policy must meet three criteria. First, it must be based on evidence from research and be defendable on the ground of this evidence. Second, it must be realistic with regard to the resources available. And third, it must be just and democratic, taking into account the interest of the nation. To achieve this, “[a]ssumptions, no matter how close they may be to the truth, must be rejected, especially when they are not supported by evidence, and failing to acquaint oneself with the sociolinguistic reality or not taking it into account

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will not make it go away” (ibid.). This is clearly not the case with regard to the language policy in favour of French in Nigeria. In fact, failure to observe these criteria has left serious gaps in the management of the project. For, if the criteria had been respected, the Abacha government would have acquainted itself with the sociolinguistic and socio-economic realities of the country and taken decisions accordingly. For example, it probably would not have embarked on an unrealistic and unachievable national Francization project involving all Nigerians, given the size of the territory and the huge costs associated with such a project. In their current state, these two language policies cannot yield the anticipated results. Rather than maintaining the status quo, Nigeria could learn from other multilingual states that have been relatively successful in using their linguistic plurality to their own advantage.

T he In d ia n M o d e l : A n E x ample to Emulate? Examples of language management in Asian countries are noteworthy, and African countries could draw inspiration from them. Interestingly, both continents are multilingual, but Asia is different in that the number of Indigenous languages with official status exceeds European languages, and this has had a positive impact on the development process of the continent (Brock-Utme 2012, 489). More specifically, Nigeria could learn from India, with which it shares some similarities. Like Nigeria, India is a former British colony that gained independence thirteen years earlier (in 1947) and has a varied linguistic landscape made up of over 1,600 Indigenous languages (Jayasundara 2014). In addition, as in Nigeria, no Indian idiom is the mother tongue to all inhabitants of the country. Although Hindi is the most popular native language, it is dominant in the north, while Telugu and Tamil are the most used languages in the south. Nonetheless, unlike in Nigeria where the promotion of local languages has proven to be a daunting task, the Indian government seems to have taken important steps in this direction to facilitate the participation of a large majority of its population in the development of the country. Today, India ranks third among the developing countries, after China and Brazil. In practice, Hindi and English have strictly been the official languages of the Union since 1965, following the Official Languages Act 1963 (see Government of India 2017). All administrative activities at the federal level are carried out in these two languages, but provisions

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(such as interpretation in other languages) are made to help meet the needs of individuals who do not speak either. At the state level, however, each of the twenty-nine autonomous states that make up the Union8 has the right to choose its own official languages from the twenty-two scheduled Indian languages listed in the constitution or any other local languages, mostly non-scheduled languages with over 10,000 speakers. These languages are used in the parliament, in schools, for administrative activities, in the media, etc. Generally, languages with one million speakers are protected and those with over 10,000 speakers are taught in primary school (Leclerc 2017). In Nigeria, since English has hegemonic control over virtually all the political and administrative systems of the country, and given that the three so-called national languages (Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba) are essentially regionally based, it seems reasonable and practical to keep English as the official language at the federal level for now. Additionally, French should be reserved for official use at the federal level where it is needed for diplomatic and international relations. The short-term change, however, concerns the choice of official languages at the state level. Rather than imposing English as the only official language on all thirty-six states, the federal government could enact a law granting state governments the autonomy to develop their own language policy based on their linguistic needs. The policy needs to be relevant and effective enough to increase citizenry participation and contribution to economic growth. This includes the choice of at least one majority local language which would be co-official with English in each state. And since most of these languages already have a written code and are already being taught at school, introducing them formally into the administrative system should not be much of a challenge. As in the Indian case, these languages should be recognized and be given a constitutional backing. Not only would this help protect and promote Indigenous languages, but it would also reduce the feelings of minority groups being dominated by a majority language non-native to their region. Above all, it would foster the participation of the masses in national development.

C o n c l u s ion This study has shown that the failure of language planning activities in Nigeria is fundamentally due to two factors: tensions among ethnolinguistic groups and vague and inappropriate language policies

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formulated without proper knowledge and documentation of the sociolinguistic and political realities of the country. Language planning and promotion in highly heterogeneous linguistic contexts is certainly not an easy task, and to succeed, it requires much effort and determination on the part of policy-makers and authorities. This becomes more important in light of the race for economic self-­ sufficiency and sustainable development upon which most African countries have currently embarked. Consequently, they cannot afford to be content with the current linguistic situation, wherein a large majority of the population who are unable to communicate in the languages inherited from colonization continues to be excluded from the process. As Chumbow (2009, 24) has rightly noted, “The medium of education in most of Africa is still largely via exoglossic or foreign language of colonial heritage such as English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, etc., with the consequence that only an estimated 20 to 40 per cent of the African population is educated in these languages. The fact that the sum total of the knowledge, technology, skills, and techniques relevant to and required for national development are confined to and transmitted in a foreign language used by a relatively small fraction of the population means that the majority (60 to 80 per cent) who do not speak the official language is literally marginalized and excluded from the development equation.” This linguistic situation represents a huge barrier to the development of Africa. One way to address the issue would be to promote the widely used languages to take advantage of all the potential and human resources. In Nigeria, this measure requires state autonomy in language policy matters, drawing on the linguistic model of India. This approach does not seek to replace languages inherited from colonization with native languages but rather argues for complementarity from a sustainable national development perspective.

N otes   1 “La conception du développement de rattrapage, dans laquelle le jeune État africain se donne pour modèle l’ancienne puissance de tutelle … et adopte de ce fait comme stratégie la langue de cette puissance comme langue officielle et langue de développement.”   2 “L’adoption de la langue coloniale comme langue officielle et, [sur] soit l’impossibilité présumée d’utiliser les langues africaines en raison de leur multiplicité, soit le refus pur et simple d’envisager l’utilisation de ces

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langues dans l’enseignement, elles … se donnent comme stratégie l’attente, l’expectative.”   3 “Une telle politique prend, en général, appui sur la conception du développement endogène, dans laquelle l’État africain estime qu’il doit se développer par ses propres moyens, que la langue coloniale ne saurait convenir comme langue d’enseignement à des apprenants qui n’en ont aucune connaissance et qu’une langue nationale (maternelle ou communautaire) doit assumer cette fonction afin de permettre une meilleure communication de la connaissance dispensée dans la salle de classe ou dans les centres d’alphabétisation.”   4 Yusuf (2013) and Simons and Fennig (2018) only list 527 languages for Nigeria.   5 German, Portuguese, and Russian are also exogenous languages taught in some Nigerian universities.  6 A L I C is a language spoken by a larger community and generally considered a second language for those whose mother tongue is a minority language.   7 “Le développement des langues majoritaires ou langues véhiculaires est perçu par les locuteurs des langues minoritaires comme une autre forme d’impérialisme linguistique et culturel. Pour cette raison, ils ne seront jamais favorables à une politique linguistique visant à promouvoir le ­développement et l’importance des langues majoritaires dans les secteurs de l’éducation et de la politique, préférant plutôt le statu quo.”   8 The Republic of India is also made up of seven territories directly ­administered by the central government.

R efer enc e s Adegbija, Efurosibina. 2004. “Language Policy and Planning in Nigeria.” Current Issues in Language Planning 5 (3): 181–246. Ajibade, Yetunde A., Beatrice B. Adeyemi, and Emmanuel O. Awopetu. 2012. “Unity in Diversity: The Nigerian Youth, Nigerian Pidgin English and the Nigerian Language Policy.” Journal of Educational and Social Research 2 (3): 289–95. Akinnaso, F. Niyi. 1991. “Toward the Development of a Multilingual Language Policy in Nigeria.” Applied Linguistics 12 (1): 21–61. Akinpelu, Michael. 2016. “Le français dans un espace non francophone et plurilingue: le cas du Nigéria.” PhD diss., McGill University. Bamgbose, Ayo. 1991. Language and the Nation: The Language Question in Sub-Saharan Africa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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Bamgbose, Ayo. 2011. “African Languages Today: The Challenge of and Prospects for Empowerment under Globalization.” In Selected Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, edited by Eyamba G. Bokamba, Ryan K. Shosted, and Bezza Tesfaw Ayalew, 1–14. Somerville, M A: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Brock-Utme, Brigit. 2012. “Language Policy and Science: Could Some African Countries Learn from Some Asian Countries?” International Review of Education 58: 481–503. Causse, Geneviève, and Irene Udousoro. 2013. Report of the Final Evaluation Mission of the FSP 2006-89 Project: Support for the Development of the Teaching of French in the Nigerian Educational System. Abuja: Nigerian French Language Project. Chidi-Ehiem, Ugochi I. 2015. “Conditions Restraining the Teaching of Major Languages in Secondary School in Ebonyi State, Nigeria.” Journal of Education and Practice 6 (33): 106–10. Chumbow, Beban S. 2009. “Linguistic Diversity, Pluralism and National Development in Africa.” Africa Development 34 (2): 21–45. Djité, Paulin G. 2008. The Sociolinguistics of Development in Africa. Clevedon/Buffalo/Toronto: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Egwu, Sam O. 2009. Roadmap for the Nigerian Education Sector. Federal Ministry of Education, Nigeria. Falola, Toyin, and Matthew M. Heaton. 2008. A History of Nigeria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Federal Republic of Nigeria. 1999. Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. – 2004. National Policy on Education, 4th ed., Nigerian Educational Research Development Council. Government of India. 2017. The Official Languages Act, 1963. Department of Official Language. Last modified 9 March. http://­ rajbhasha.nic.in/en/official-languages-act-1963. Halaoui, Nazam. 2011. Politique linguistique: faits et théorie. Paris: Écriture. Heine, Bernd. 1992. “Language Policies in Africa.” In Language and Society in Africa: The Theory and Practice of Sociolinguistics, edited by Robert K. Herbert, 23–45. Cape Town: Witwatersrand University Press. Jayasundara, Niruba S. 2014. “The Development of Language Education Policy: An Indian Perspective; A View from Tamil Nadu.” International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications 4 (11): 1–4. Accessed 10 January 2018. http://www.ijsrp.org/research-paper-1114/ijsrpp3530.pdf.

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Kpolovie, Peter J., and Isaac E. Obilor. 2013. “Adequacy-Inadequacy: Education Funding in Nigeria.” Universal Journal of Education and General Studies 2 (8): 239–54. Leclerc, Jacques. 2017. “Union indienne.” Aménagement linguistique dans le monde. Last modified 2 December. http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/ asie/inde-1Union.htm. Ogunsiji, Ayo. 2001. “Utilitarian Dimensions of Language in Nigeria.” In Language Attitude and Language Conflict in West Africa, edited by Hebert Igboanusi, 152–64. Ibadan, Nigeria: Enicrownfit. Olaniyi, Adepeju F., and Yetunde A. Ajibade. 2012. “Adequacy and Suitability of Recommended French Language Textbooks for Developing Communicative Proficiency in Nigerian Junior Secondary School Students.” The African Symposium 12 (1): 110–25. Ouédraogo, Rakissouiligri M. 2001. Planification et politiques linguistiques dans certains pays sélectionnés d’Afrique de l’Ouest. Addis Ababa: Institut International pour le Renforcement des Capacités en Afrique, U N ES CO. Simire, Gregory O. 2003. “Developing and Promoting Multilingualism in Public Life and Society in Nigeria.” Language, Culture and Curriculum 6 (2): 231–43. Simons, Gary F., and Charles D. Fennig, eds. 2018. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 21st ed. Dallas, Texas: S I L International. http://www.­ ethnologue.com. Simpson, Andrew, and B. Akintunde Oyetade. 2008. “Nigeria: Ethnolinguistic Competition in the Giant of Africa.” In Language and National Identity in Africa, edited by Andrew Simpson, 172–98. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. World Factbook, The. 2018. “Africa: Nigeria.” Central Intelligence Agency, United States of America. Last modified 3 January. https://www.cia.gov/ library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ni.html. Yusuf, Adekunle. 2013. “Help, Nigerian Languages Are Disappearing!” The Nation Newspaper, 13 November.

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10 Denying Linguistic and Cultural Pluralism in Algeria: An Official Model of Diversity Management Wajih Guehria

In t ro du cti on To reclaim its culture, “lost” as a result of the French occupation between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Algeria, independent as of 1962, privileged Arab and Islamic identities at the expense of others that had been part of its thousand-year-old history. This fear of openness toward the Other, the result of over a century of French occupation, can be explained in two ways. First, domination by an outside country that imposed its administration, language, and culture uniformly across the nation resulted in the neutralization of constitutive differences in Algeria. Second, the experience of this domination, and the will never to experience it again, justified the push to create a unified country that, as a unanimous block, offered a stronger front against future invasions. In the name of national unity, the homogenization of the population was upheld in law and reinforced by an ideological discourse in which “Francization” was interpreted as “French partisanship” (Hizb Fronsa1), and the amazighophones2 were suspected of complicity with France. This rejection is inscribed in the new Algerian constitution (Constitution de la République Algérienne Démocratique et Populaire 2016, Art. 63 and Art. 87) according to which bi-nationals (especially Franco-Algerians) are not allowed to hold high-ranking state positions: “Article 63. High-ranking state positions and public office are open only to those holding solely Algerian nationality. The law

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2017: Defeat of bill in favour of teaching Amazighity

2016: New constitution promotes Amazighity

1995: Creation of the High Commission for Amazighity

1991: Generalization of Arabic in public sector

1982: First Islamic identitary claims

Figure 10.1  Key moments in the management of Algeria’s linguistic diversity

1962: Algerian independence

1830: French colonization

1515–1830: Ottoman rule

7th–16th c.: Arabs and Islam

1974: Generalization of Arabic in ­primary schools



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establishes the high-ranking state positions and public offices covered by the above.”3 According to this article of law, dual linguistic, cultural, national, and geographical identities are a potential threat to the homogenization established in 1962. The text institutionalizes a form of recruitment that reinforces the linguistic and cultural isolation favoured by a state discourse that supports, in appearance, an arabophone elite oriented toward Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan – I say “in appearance” because the elite nonetheless send their children to the US or northern Europe to complete their higher education. As well, marginalizing the French elite in Algeria may give the impression that Arabic is valued, but evidence does not support this (K. TalebIbrahimi 1997, 2004), as demonstrated by the lack of political will to translate large corpora into Arabic or translate scientific and technical texts into that language. Hence, Algeria’s position with respect to the rejection of French is ambiguous because, rather than being absolute, it alternates between rejection and adoption.

T h e L in g u is t ic S it uati on i n Algeri a: A B r ie f O v ervi ew The attempt to reduce linguistic and cultural diversity in Algeria is not new; for centuries Amazigh, which is made up of many variants (Kabyle, Chaoui, Mzabi, and Targui), rendering cross comprehension difficult, coexisted with many languages, including Latin. Arabic, introduced in the twelfth century, was based on a substructure of Amazigh and these two languages existed side by side with Turkish in the sixteenth century, as well as with European languages such as  Spanish, Italian, and especially French from 1830 to 1962 (Grandguillaume 2010; Benrabah 1999; Morsly 1988), which is still spoken and/or understood by more than half the population.4 In addition to imposing French, the colonial administration made major changes to the Algerian sociolinguistic and socio-cultural landscape, especially by closing Koranic schools to limit access to written Arabic and encouraging the teaching of “dialects” (K. Taleb-Ibrahimi 2004). Since simply naming these languages can lead to conflict (TabouretKeller 1997), we will reject the term “dialect” and use instead the generic term Arabic or Algerian Arabic, which refers to the language used by the vast majority of Algerians, though it is not officially recognized. What we call here “official Arabic” is the language taught in schools and used in an official context, identified as “the national

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language” in legal documents. Those who use solely this language are referred to as arabophonists as opposed to francophonists, the terms being stigmatic for the populations to which they refer (Guehria 2009), hence my use of the historically more neutral substitutes arabophone and francophone. Classical Arabic evokes the linguistic purity of the Koran, a linguistic ideal unattainable by definition, characterized by its syntax and vocabulary, and, ultimately, it is confused with official Arabic in the public consciousness. Amazigh is recognized as an official language, but it does not benefit from the same linguistic representations. Recognition of the Amazigh language is often seen in the mediatizing of Kabyle, an idiom from Kabylie, a region associated with Amazigh claims. Taught since 1995, this language attracts limited interest. French, on the other hand, perceived as a foreign language, is officially cut out despite the central role it plays in the daily life of Algerians who continue to use it, even if it has tended to disappear among certain segments of the population. Minimizing French creates a barrier to the development of scientific research and training, notably in certain prestigious fields such as medicine or veterinary science available only in French5 – which has a negative effect on Algerians, on the nation itself, and on not only its cultural but also its socioeconomic development. In the absence of recent official statistics,6 it is not possible to put forward numbers or percentages7 pertaining to languages and those who use them. This lack of information results in a vague portrait of the sociolinguistic situation, the complexity and extent of which can neither be fully understood, nor the needs adequately measured. On the other hand, it does sustain the confusion which adds to the denial of linguistic and cultural plurality in Algeria.

Re p re s e n tat io n s o f t h e A lgeri an Li ngui sti c S it uat io n a m o n g Algeri ans From this context arise conflicting identities (Zenati 2004) in Algerians’ metalinguistic discourse as demonstrated by the survey we conducted between 2009 and 2013 through semi-directed individual, and group interviews aimed to check and compare respondents’ discourse in the presence of the interviewer against that which they use with their peers (Guerhia forthcoming). The ten male and female students under study were twenty-two years old on average and lived in the north of the country. The majority claimed Arab identity, but two prioritized

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Amazigh identity, resulting in a discourse marked by an intense diglossia with official Arabic. The study revealed, on the one hand, respondents’ rejection of their own language and culture combined with their guilt about these feelings and, on the other hand, their rejection of French, the language of the “enemy.” However, they also recognized its role as the language of seduction and professional success, particularly when opposed, in their discourse, to imposed official Arabic, closely linked to Islam. English, foreign to the nation’s culture, is valued by certain arabophones to counter the rise of French, which is sometimes banned in public (notably by Articles 20, 21, and 22 of Loi no. 91-05 du 16 janvier 1991 [Law 91-05, adopted 16 January 1991]), though sometimes celebrated, such as in the president’s political speech delivered in Beirut in 2002. These linguistic variations in the highest political arena prevent Algerians from clearly and solidly positioning themselves linguistically. Seen in this light, and as the following excerpt illustrates, the fact that Algeria is still not a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie is a contradiction: “Today we must leave behind the comfortable nostalgia that expresses itself by looking inward and, free of complexes, open up to the culture of the Other in order to better face the challenge of modernity and development by ourselves and for ourselves. The use of the French language is the link that guarantees our unity”8 (Bouteflika 2002). This discourse, which upholds French, is aimed first at the francophone Algerian elite who experienced Arabization as trauma, since they were progressively replaced by an arabophone elite. This transition reignites the historical division in Algeria between the modern francophone and the nostalgic arabophone reminiscing about a glorious past. But the diglossic conflict characteristic of plurilingual and pluricultural spaces is intensified in Algeria because of a disconcerting historical void and erratic linguistic policies that leave no room for any foreign or native languages or cultures other than official Arabic. Legal texts demonstrate positions that are totally inadequate given the sociolinguistic reality, especially regarding the role of French, which is relegated to the status of a “langue fonctionnelle [functional language]” (République Algérienne Démocratique et Populaire 1976, n.p.), even though it is taught extensively, while official Arabic was taught only ten hours per week until 1974. In order to fill the gap, Algeria had to recruit Egyptians and Syrians to teach Arabic. The Loi no. 91-05 du 16 janvier 1991, which brought the generalized use of

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Arabic to the public sector, created problems for executives in this area who, having been educated only in French, had Arabic tools imposed on them. As Article 39 stipulates, “It is forbidden for organizations and businesses to import information technology … that does not use Arabic characters” 9 (République Algérienne Démocratique et Populaire 1991, Art. 39). The Tripoli Congress (1962), the Charte d’Alger (Charter of Algiers) (1964), the new 1976 Charter and succeeding ones in 1986, 1996, and the Loi no. 91-05 du 16 janvier 1991 focused on the promotion of official Arabic and English and weakened the position of French without, however, enhancing that of official Arabic in spite of efforts such as the creation of an Académie de la langue arabe (Algerian Academy of the Arabic Language) in 1986 (Loi no. 86-10 du 19 août 1986 [Law 86-10, adopted 19 August 1986]) and a Haut conseil de la langue arabe (High Council of Arabic Language) in 1998. This fluctuating relationship between languages can be seen in the teaching of foreign languages (particularly French), which are considered from a purely functional perspective and closely linked to the Algerian context. Paradoxically, French remains symbolically linked to a Franco-French ideal with high value (Guehria 2009). In my estimation, this paradox can be explained by the contradiction national leaders find themselves in. Their explicit political choice must be for the people only rather than for the elites and for themselves. Therefore, it lacks political credibility, since the people do not lack powers of observation and have not forgotten the history that has shaped them; French has not lost its prestige. As well, the cultural and linguistic past cannot be erased with the stroke of a pen. Algeria remains, de facto, multicultural and plurilingual. Algerians, for the most part, must resolve a diglossic conflict and cannot do so by favouring the one language that politicians wish to impose. The survey shows that in all cases Algerians, especially the youngest, are aware of the erratic national language policy and are not fooled.

Cre at in g a H is to r ic a l V acuum to I mpos e H is to r ic a l L e gi ti macy The dominant media and political discourse in the country openly deny the existence of multilingualism and multiculturalism, despite the fact that both are historically an integral part of Algerian identity. Instead, we find a new “resistance” (Garbin and Millinton 2012)

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against Western imperialism embodied by the French language. The latter symbolizes France and by extension the West in the comments of respondents (Guehria, forthcoming), as the following excerpts from the survey confirm. According to the respondents, an American song sung in English is actually qualified as “French” – a confusion not noted in the opposite direction (i.e. French is not confused with English). Respondent #1: Oui / oui même iâoud mkhalat musique RnB ou je sais pas on dit français ([speaking of American songs] Yes / yes even if it’s a mixture of RnB and I dunno, we say French).10 Respondent #2: Parce que pour nous le français c’est le symbole de l’Occident parce que pour lui le français c’est c’est c’est c’est l’Amérique c’est tout c’est (Because for us French is the symbol of the West because for it French it’s it’s it’s it’s America that’s all it’s). This confusion can be instrumentalized for political reasons in an attempt to reject the Other – the French – together with the Other’s language and all that it represents. Indeed, some rhetoric favours an escalation in nationalist feeling – such as explicit references to French colonialism, and the discrimination to which Algerians in general and Muslims in particular living in France are subjected – with the result that certain Algerians endorse a homogenizing ideology. However, this attitude puts them at odds with the intercultural dialogue that existed in Algeria from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, notably in the cities of Tlemcen and Bejaia, and that had a considerable impact on the development of scientific and cultural activities in the central Maghreb and the Mediterranean (Sari 2011). Today, inward-looking and outward-looking cultural openness, associated with contemporary globalization around the world, is presented as negative for Algerians, who are supposedly enclosed in a single culture, religion, and language. That position is supported by the Algerian revolution and its choice of heroes. Institutionalized compartmentalization maintained by senior staff put in place by the Front de Libération Nationale (F L N ) has defined the political line since independence and has limited Algerians to a West versus East dichotomy represented in daily life by the binary opposition between arabophones and francophones, without either

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group benefiting substantially. As Hadj-Nacer notes in an interview with Fayçal Métaoui (2011, n.p.) in the daily newspaper Al Watan: “to prevent the Francophone elite from reproducing itself on a large scale, we put in place a system that discriminated against French culture while not, however, fostering Arab culture,”11 since the postcolonial government was unable to find a way of establishing itself other than by neutralizing the country’s best minds. The resulting cultural void has allowed the political elite to pursue its legitimization by redefining Algerian identity “starting from scratch” which, as to be expected, can be seen in the development of school programs. A country is a circumscribed space that, from a temporal perspective, includes a distant past as well as its projected shared future through societal projects. In Algeria, common projects have been struggling to take shape since 1962, for the millennia-old history of the different groups of people who constitute Algerians today is absent from school curriculum history courses. Instead, history is taught in a highly structured way by presenting dates to students who are unable to construct historical and identitary reference points. The resulting void can neither nourish representations, nor inspire action and ensure group cohesion. In his analysis of history textbooks, Ait Saadi (2007) notes three myths essential to the history of the War of Independence: the past is erased, Algerians are presented as though they were one homogeneous people, and the revolution as though it were led by peasants and the poor (Harbi 1998). Another aspect of the rewriting of history is the omission, in the treatment of a given event, of one of its aspects or actors, something not specific to Algeria.12 In this case, even the relationship of certain historical figures to the revolution turns out to be problematic, as demonstrated by the case of Mohamed Boudiaf,13 a revolutionary who was not a member of post-independence political circles. Unknown to the general public before becoming the country’s leader in January 1992, he was not included in the 9th Fundamental Year14 history textbook until after his murder, which would remain unsolved, five months after assuming his presidential functions. All attention is focused on Sunni Islam, which is incompatible with the plural history of religious beliefs in Algeria.15 Were Algerians to know this, they would be able to construct a comprehensive cultural heritage, giving them the means to assess their place in relation to other religious, scientific, metaphysical, and philosophical systems. As Hadj-Nacer says,

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It is difficult to teach Algerians that we were all Rustamids,16 because that would mean that we were all Ibadites17 … If we could tell our children that they were Ibadites and then Shiites18 who became Malikis,19 we could tie things together and complete the puzzle. But we never give Algerians the parts of the ­puzzle they need to develop a personality they’ll be proud of and that will let them move forward.20 (Hadj-Nacer, interview with Métaoui 2011; see also Hadj-Nacer 2011; Massen 2015) Other Maghreb countries do not display the same aversion toward their own history, although the link to the past tends to be transformed into a commercial asset. For example, in a 2011 speech, the current president of Tunisia, Béji Caïd, alluded to Numidia – a people and a civilization based essentially in the centre of the Maghreb. For their part, Moroccans identify with King Abdelmoumen, the builder of institutions above and beyond the constitution of the Almohad dynasty; several Moroccan hotels bear this name. These historically based linguistic reflexes do not exist in official Algerian political discourse addressed to the people. Of course, there is the exception of Saint Augustine, born in 354 in Thagaste, now called Souk-Ahras and located in northeast Algeria, whose opinions have made him a controversial figure in contemporary Algeria. He was rehabilitated in a presidential speech that was, however, not given in Algeria, but in Italy: “Augustine dealt with questions of law like a Roman lawyer, and questions of exegesis like an Alexandrian doctor. He argued like an Athenian philosopher, and told a story like a Carthaginian bourgeois”21 (speech by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Rimini on 23 August 1999, quoted in Kubler 2001). It is not surprising, in light of this speech, that the olive tree that symbolizes the presence of Augustine in the region of Souk-Ahras is poorly maintained, the Roman ruins are all but abandoned, and the priceless ceramic formerly found in certain hotels has been replaced by earthenware bathroom tiles.

L a n g uag e P oli cy The government set up in Algeria after the 1962 War of Independence considered it necessary to secure its legitimacy by denying the historical background from which the country arose.22 Its history was to start with the revolution against France during the second half of the

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twentieth century (1954–62). Erasing the past, which is in part attributable to the legacy of colonialism and in part serves a contemporary policy of supporting the dominant classes, creates a nation of people deprived of memory and who exist only in their opposition to one other: against Amazighity when Arabity is claimed, against Arabity when Amazighity is claimed, against francophones when asserting a belonging to the arabophone group, against arabophones when asserting a belonging to the francophone group, against Shiite if one is a member of Sunni Islam, against Sunnis if one is a member of Shiite Islam – all positions illustrated by the comments recorded in my research. The following comments were made by an Algerian woman who asserted her Amazigh identity during the group interview, then later denied it. According to her, her father does not accept speaking Arabic at home, under threat of corporal punishment: Respondent #3: mon père n’admet pas qu’on parle arabe / je me souviens / quand j’étais petite il nous a dit à la maison c’est le français / le kabyle / celui qui parle en arabe / taf taf / non il était très sévère (my father does not admit that we speak Arabic / I remember / when I was young he told us to use French at home / Kabyle / someone who speaks Arabic / taf taf / no he was very strict). The onomatopoeia “taf taf” and the respondent’s hand gesture give us insight into the type of punishment reserved for those who dared speak Algerian Arabic. Here she refers to Kabyle as one of the languages spoken at home, but she contradicts herself during an individual interview: Respondent #3: (3) non moi j(e) t’ai dit que mon père impo(ssible) (3) /// je parle avec ma mère arabe dialectal ((3) no, me I told you that my father impo-(ssible) (3) /// I speak a dialect of Arabic with my mother). The quieter voice (3) and long pause (///) reveal her difficulty in formulating what she wants to say, and the malaise reveals that this respondent is fully aware that she is contradicting herself. Using the same hesitating tone, she tells us, on the one hand, that her mother is Arab:

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Respondent #3: ouais: non elle est pas kabyle ma mère // (3) elle est algéroise (3) donc c’est pour ça que: // qu’on parle arabe algérois (yeah: no, my mother is not a Kabyle // (3) she is from Algiers (3) that’s why: // we speak Algiers Arabic). And, on the other hand, she says that she does not master Kabyle: Respondent #3: (3) j(e) le pratique pas super bien (3) // je vais jamais parler à mes parents en kabyle j(e) parle avec ma grand mère parc(e) qu’elle vit avec nous elle vivait avec nous et elle elle est kabyle elle parl(e) qu’en kabyle elle comprend pas les autres langues donc automatiquement on parlait avec elle en kabyle mais j(e) vais jamais parler avec mes frères ou ma mère en kabyle // bon / j(e) vais / j(e) vais employer un mot comme ça ((3) I don’t speak it very well (3) // I’ll never speak Kabyle to my parents I speak Kabyle with my grandmother because she lives with us she lived with us and she she is Kabyle she only speaks Kabyle she doesn’t understand other languages so we automatically spoke with her in Kabyle but I’ll never speak Kabyle with my brothers or my mother // well / I’ll / I’ll use a word here and there). To sum up, respondent #3 first stated that she spoke Kabyle and rejected Algerian Arabic, leading us to believe that the family tradition was not to speak it, but it later appears that her command of Kabyle is very limited; her attachment to the Amazigh language expressed during the group interview was simply a means to ally herself with another respondent who unhesitatingly asserted her Amazigh identity. We understood that the respondent finds neither Kabyle nor Algerian Arabic rewarding, which helps us grasp her attitude toward men who do not speak French: Respondent #3: on n’est jamais sorties avec des garçons qui ne parlent pas bien français (we never go out with boys who do not speak good French). It is now clear that, for her, French is the valued (and rewarding) language in several aspects of life.23 As alluded to above, the leaders of independent Algeria chose to create a new identity by imposing imaginary cultural and linguistic

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roots through the tryptic – “classical Arabic,”24 “Islam,” and “Algerian revolution” – that in no way corresponds to real history. Each of these elements justifies the presence of the two others and stands in opposition to the French past, constantly reignited in pejorative official discourse about holders of dual citizenship, which is in turn reproduced in the respondents’ everyday speech: Respondent #4: ikhafou manhom khatar sur deux pays (we are afraid of them because they are between two countries). This discourse about the enemy within, manipulated by “foreign hands,” is often designed to undermine the opposition, as expressed below in this comment about the Kabyle population: Respondent #4: les Kabyles itabâou yesar fronsa (Kabyles follow what France does). The discourse on the detrimental role of French in Algeria is closely linked to public personalities who speak the language, such as the current minister of national education Nouria Benghabrit, whose working language is French: Respondent #5: fardinha man barra (she’s been forced on us from outside). Benghabrit’s call to her French counterpart for a French-Algerian partnership in education25 in early 2016 reactivated the idea of “the language of the enemy / the enemy language” imposed by highly ranked Algerians. In televised debates, it is not uncommon to associate the country and its language in clearly pejorative terms – al moustaâmar al racham wa louratihi (the debauched colonizer and his language), al taâadi al farnsi (French aggression). This establishes a close link between the French-speaking Minister Nouria Benghabrit and her supposed submission to France through a suspected pervasiveness of the French language that evokes, in the Algerian collective unconscious, France as an evil colonial power (Guehria 2009). Despite this political offensive orchestrated with all the means at its disposal, the political establishment has not managed to fully convince Algerians, who are aware of certain contradictions and realities.

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T h e A l g e r ia n Vi ewpoi nt The inquiry shows that Algerians react to official discourse either derisively or pragmatically. Seventy per cent of respondents refuse to give in to identity homogenization and try instead to adopt the greatest possible number of languages and cultures, especially when the latter facilitates access to employment (Guehria 2013a), as demonstrated by the following excerpt from my research: Respondent #3: Le français waHdou ne sert à rien / l’arabe wa­Hdou ne sert à rien il faut plusieurs langues ou ya rabi (French by itself is useless / Arabic by itself is useless you need several ­languages and even then you aren’t sure you’ll succeed). In rare cases, the fluctuations and ambiguities of official discourse have resulted in “physical” or “symbolic” violence that has been used and manipulated by critics of the regime. With no clear reference points, the “new man” imagined by the revolutionaries of the postwar years is thrown into an identity vacuum and experiences linguistic and cultural insecurity that hinders self-fulfilment. He cannot speak the imposed language – official Arabic – felt to be “over-elaborate,” “unnatural,” and “inappropriate for talking about certain subjects like sexuality.” Yet he cannot speak the language of the people – Algerian Arabic – seen by those who use it as “vulgar,” “violent,” and “inappropriate,” especially in the country’s interior (Guehria 2010). As for French, it is “prestigious and discriminating” for those who master it, due to its social value. At the same time, it can lead to exclusion, notably on the professional level. Algerian members of Parliament who speak French, as well as ministers who, given their generation, were usually educated in that language, are labelled as Hizb Fronsa (French partisans). But, at the same time, the respondents believe that politicians should be addressed in French to make sure they will listen: Respondent #1: Si un cadre ne parle qu’en arabe au Président il ne sera pas pris au sérieux (If an executive speaks to the president in Arabic only, he will not be taken seriously). This attitude reinforces the hypothesis that I first formulated in 2004 (see Guehria 2009, forthcoming), according to which the symbolic

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relation of speakers to their languages depends on what they are referring to when they speak – the “space / time reference of the speaker’s utterance” (see Guehria 2009). As mentioned, Algeria’s current language policy is based on the will to impose the view that the country’s history began in the mid-­ twentieth century, in the aftermath of colonialism. Since the revolution, successive political regimes have attempted to legislate a new Algerian identity, defined by a false single unity that ignores the cultural and economic diversity that characterized the country before colonization. The policy aims to convince the population; it is not applied to those who design, adopt, and implement official legislation, both in their professional activities and their private lives, as shown by the educational opportunities afforded their children. The population is not always fooled by these manoeuvres, as demonstrated by a number of reactions regarding the ambiguity and inadequacy of official texts. For example, at the highest level of decision-making, Ahmed TalebIbrahimi, Minister of National Education in 1965 and proponent of Arabization, relates in his memoir (2008, 39) that, following the implementation of Arabic in the first year of primary school, he logically sought to extend the measure to the second year. This met with resistance from his own “clan” who, by contesting the general application of Arabic, revealed, within the highest echelons of the executive, the disagreement about language policy. This “in between” attitude has created a situation of intense diglossia that has enabled neither arabophones nor francophones to comfortably occupy the place that is theirs. While the country has chosen Arabization, its political elite and their progeniture continue to be educated in French, at least according to Algerians: Respondent #2: wladhom yaqrou lbara fal kharaj wach wach âandhom fi wlèd échaâb (their children are educated abroad in foreign countries they are laughing at the children of the people). At the beginning of the 1980s, the limited choices along with the contradictions they generated, especially on the linguistic, educational, and professional fronts, were noticeable. In 1982, large-scale unrest caused by growing frustration led to a strike organized by Arabist students protesting their slim career prospects in comparison to those of francophones, who monopolized the lucrative jobs thanks to French notwithstanding the regime’s propaganda and authoritarian measures

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in favour of Arabization (Kepel 2000, 71). The socio-professional demands were quickly picked up by Islamic movements that transformed them into identity claims, with the result that the holy war against French in Algeria, “vue comme le vecteur par excellence des pires turpitudes de l’Occident [seen as the vector par excellence of the West’s worst turpitudes]” (ibid., 176), began to resemble a jihad. One of the historical leaders of the Islamic Salvation Front (I S F ) devoted himself to the intellectual and ideological banning of the French language along with the country it represents (Kébir 1998). Algeria’s thousand-year pluralism was once again denied and dismissed, hemmed in by a reductive binary opposition of Orient against Occident that silenced Indigenous languages and cultures. These events and positions challenged the elites, suspected of wanting to monopolize French as an instrument of domination. Over the decade, the claims became more structured and substantial, culminating in the creation of the I SF in 1989, followed by its dissolution in 199226 (its executive had openly supported the 1982 student uprising). Yet, Algerians remain convinced that the elites have appropriated French to consolidate their economic and social superiority, as shown by several excerpts from my research. When we pretended to legitimize Arabic in the official Algerian context, respondents reacted this way: Respondent #2: Jamais smaât un homme politique yahdar arabe pure mlawal lalaxar / yahdru kul en français / wala yahdru remix [rire] (I have never heard a politician speak Arabic from start to finish / they all speak in French or they use a combination [laughter]). Some respondents went so far as to attribute a cryptic function to French: Respondent #5: À mon avis / ana ngul bah ki yahdru ma yfhamch châb (In my opinion / I say it’s so that when they talk no one understands them). This last remark supports Myers-Scotton’s (1993) analysis, whose notion of “behind closed doors” stigmatizes the actions of the elite who, it bears repeating, impose Arabic as the language of instruction for the people while preserving their own status by continuing to school their children in French and, more recently, sending them to

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Anglo-Saxon universities inaccessible to the average Algerian (see U N ESC O 2018). In spite of the disastrous consequences for all society, the policy of negating multilingualism and multiculturalism continued into the 1990s. For example, the eleventh issue of the Journal Officiel de la République algérienne démocratique et populaire (JO ) was Arabicized, and “the preceding issue includes an announcement to subscribers informing them that henceforth the J O will appear in ‘an Arablanguage edition only’”27 (Babadji 1990, 191). The French version has nevertheless been maintained to this day (see JO n.d.). Officially, the latter is translated from the Arabic, however, according to Babadji (1990, 198), this “is not the case, and all those who use the JO know it: when an interpretation is needed, the French text is referenced, including by lawyers educated in Arabic.”28 Indeed, according to our respondents: Respondent #1: S’il y avait pas encore de francisants pour l’explication des textes officiels ça serait un grand problème / chouf pour expliquer le texte taâ l’augmentation alla ma yroHou lasbitar parce que kèn encore des bons francisants (If there were no longer French speakers to explain official texts, this would be a big problem / look, they had to go to the hospital where there are still people who speak good French to explain the text about the increase). Here is another example showing, simultaneously, that Algerians remain attached to French and government officials exempt themselves from their own legislation, confirming the perception that it is simply propaganda for the people. Article 125, Loi no. 89-13 du 7 septembre 1989 (Law 89-13, adopted 7 September 1989; see JO n.d.) prohibits the use of a foreign language during electoral campaigns. This did not stop the distribution of brochures in French bearing the note “translated from Arabic” to avoid sanctions, during election campaigns throughout the 1990s (Babadji 1990, 191–8). The current president of the Republic charmed a large number of Algerians thanks to, among other factors, his mastery of spoken French. Recourse to French, despite the fact it was officially banned, cast him in a positive light with respect to the other candidates during the 1999 elections, as evidenced by this excerpt from our survey:

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Respondent #6: Hbinèh khatar il est ouvert français arabe / il maîtrise le français mieux que les français et l’arabe aussi il parle le vrai arabe (We liked him because he is open to French and Arabic / he speaks French better than the French and Arabic too he speaks real Arabic). The recourse to French in the original indicates both an openness to the world and the valorization of Arabic languages. That said, despite informal measures such as these, few legislative changes were made.

R e c o g n iz in g t h e C ontradi cti ons a n d   H y p o c r isy o f O f fi ci al Pos i ti ons Algerian law alludes to the French language, without explicitly naming it, through the euphemism la langue étrangère (the foreign language), with the definite article identifying the reference – just as in official Arabic, one says bi al loughati al ajnabiya (en la langue étrangère [in the foreign language]) as opposed to bi lughatin ajjnabiya (en langue étrangère [in a foreign language]). The article “the” cancels the generic aspect of “foreign,” whose initial vocation was to allude to languages other than French to underscore the fact that Algeria is no longer an ex-colony tagging along behind. But the expression produces the reverse effect by transforming the opposition between Arabic and French into an opposition between national and foreign. Throughout the 1990s, this once again created silence with respect to the Algerian languages, in particular the Amazigh languages, since they do not fit into either of these two categories: they have neither “national language” nor “foreign language” status, which means the homogeneity of the territory is safeguarded. Questioned in 2013, the respondents find the rejection of the local languages to be more or less natural (see, among others, the first excerpt from respondent #3 above) and continue to refer to French, as does respondent #7 when evoking the legal system: Respondent #7: Droit tèâna jéi man âand Napoléon même les assurances les lois téHom kima taâ fronsa je sais je travaille dans une assurance (Our legal system comes from Napoleon even insurance laws resemble French laws I know I work in an insurance company).

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This flux and reflux in relation to languages and cultures takes on different forms in everyday life. For example, in compliance with Article 20, Loi no. 91-05 du 16 janvier 1991 (Law 91-05, adopted on 16 January 1991), a number of cities discouraged shopkeepers from putting up signs in languages other than Arabic in their store windows. Although this interpretation of the law fell into disuse after President Bouteflika was elected in 1999, other constraints of Article 20 were upheld – “est considéré comme contrevenant tout commerçant utilisant la langue française sur son véhicule commercial [any merchant who uses French on his commercial vehicle will be in violation]” – with, according to one respondent, the following result: Respondent #8: Âtoni brosi nkhalso fal mahkma âla jal asm la société en français zouz marat aman wala ogâad / ma fhamat Hatchay / ki homa yahdro français Hatchay wana brost (I was given a fine to pay in court because of the name of the company in French twice believe it or not / I don’t understand / when they speak French it’s all right and me a fine). This respondent’s bitterness at the financial penalty29 is understandable given that French is used at the highest state levels and in speeches addressed to the people. The respondent has still not replaced the Latin letters with Arabic letters on his truck, not through love of the French language, since he can hardly speak it and never uses it for daily exchanges, but in defiance of official policies. His point of view is similar to those of respondents to the 2013 follow-up survey, the results of which were published the same year under the title “Les jeunes algériens déconstruisent la symbiose identitaire [Young Algerians Deconstruct the Identitary Symbiosis]” (Guehria 2013a).30 Comparing a critical reading of official texts with the discourses circulating about them leads us to conclude that French is la langue étrangère privilégiée (the privileged foreign language) without ever being explicitly designated in those terms. At the same time, official recognition of an Algerian language is not synonymous with social valorization, due notably to the overly large space reserved for official Arabic. The (belated) recognition of Amazigh, following the creation of the Haut commissariat à l’amazighité (High Commission for Amazighity) by presidential decree no. 95-147 on 27 May 1995, whose primary function is to ensure “[t]he rehabilitation and

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promotion of Amazighity considered to be one of the foundations of national identity [and t]he introduction of the Amazigh language in the education and communication systems”31 (République Algérienne Démocratique et Populaire 1995, Art. 4), as well as measures in favour of the rehabilitation of Amazighity, including the current constitution (2016), has not modified the essentially negative images attached to this language.32

C o n c l u s i on Imposing a language by a nation-state can be necessary to forge a collective identity, insofar as a shared national language creates social cohesion. A national language allows each individual to integrate the Other and builds symbolic identity. As well, language makes us accountable to the past, establishes solidarity with it, and ensures not only that our identity will be steeped in history but also that, for this reason, we are part of a filiation, no matter how far it goes back. That said, imposing one language to the detriment of others spoken on the territory fosters a sense of guilt and humiliation within one part of the population. These feelings reach a paroxysm when individuals are unable to develop a stable identity and linguistic imagination because language policies are unclear and political leaders deny the people their history. These identity “vacuums” have incited Algerians to search for a “glorious past” that excludes local languages, which are deemed to be a perverted form of official Arabic, itself often conflated with Koranic Arabic. It is true that attitudes toward what Algerians call “dialects” are often negative. These languages, which comprise their identities accumulated over centuries, are currently being rehabilitated by Algerian intellectuals and neighbouring Arab countries whose recent uprisings have been aimed, among other things, at affirming plurality. Were this initiative to be implemented, Algeria would stand to gain by teaching diversity, by valorizing it to better master it and, in this way, to transcend the posture of denial which, so far, has enabled neither selfacceptance nor acceptance of the Other, with his or her differences.

N otes

Translated from the French by the editors. All in-text English translations are also by the editors.

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  1 All words, expressions, and excerpts in Arabic are transcribed phonetically. The Arab phonemes ‫خ‬, ‫ر‬, ‫ه‬, ‫ع‬, ‫ح‬, and ‫ غ‬are transcribed, respectively, as H, â, h, r, kh, and gh.   2 The term Amazigh (and amazighophone) is preferable to Berber (and ­berberophone) introduced by the Greeks (Barbaroi), then used by the Romans (Barbarus), the Arabs (Barbar), and finally the French (Berbères) because amazighe, in use since the seventeenth century, conforms more closely to the morphology of language names in French, which are masculine: wolof, arabe, etc. For this reason, the feminine term tamazighte, the original name the communities used for their language, is ruled out because it cannot work in this form in French (Boukous 1995, 18). In ­traditional Western dialectology, “Berber” referred to uneducated people whose language could not be understood. The Berbers refer to themselves as Imazighen, which means “free men.”   3 “Article 63. La nationalité algérienne exclusive est requise pour l’accès aux hautes responsabilités de l’État et aux fonctions politiques. La loi fixe la liste des hautes responsabilités et des fonctions politiques visées ci-dessus.”   4 According to L’aménagement linguistique dans le monde (Language Planning Worldwide) (Leclerc 2017), 21 million Algerians (of a population of 32.2 million), or 67 per cent of the population, have “une connaissance plus ou moins grande du français [a knowledge of French, more or less].” The site does not offer any references with respect to these debatable statistics (see http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/afrique/ algerie.htm).   5 Arabic has been the language of instruction, other than in some scientific fields, since 1992 (Loi no. 91-05 du 16 janvier, Art. 2).  6 L’aménagement linguistique dans le monde (Leclerc 2017) reports on a 1999 survey on the languages Algerian students believe they use. The results were numbers far from our daily reality (see http://axl.cefaqn.­ ulaval.ca/afrique/algerie-ldemo.htm). In our surveys, 98 per cent claim “parler français mieux que les Français [to speak French better than the French].” As well, according to the written questionnaire, 60 per cent of respondents speak French at home. These results contradict the answers obtained in the semi-directed interviews. There is frequently a large gap between the respondents’ answers and their actual experience.   7 For further discussion of this question see Chaker 1989, 5.   8 “Aujourd’hui, nous devons savoir nous départir de la nostalgie chatouilleuse, qui s’exprime en repli sur soi, et nous ouvrir sans complexe à la culture de l’Autre, afin de mieux affronter le défi de la modernité et du

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développement, par nous-mêmes et dans nous-mêmes … L’usage de la langue française est le lieu qui assure notre unité.”   9 “Il est interdit aux organismes et entreprises d’importer les équipements d’informatique … s’ils ne comportent pas des caractères arabes.” 10 A lowered voice, indicated by (3), together with short (/), medium (//), and long (///) pauses are relevant to a discursive analysis of the responses. Parentheses are used to reconstruct a word that the respondent did not fully pronounce, such as “impo-(ssible).” 11 “[P]our éviter que cette élite ne se reproduise à grande échelle, on a mis en place un système qui a défavorisé la culture du français et qui n’a pas favorisé la culture arabe.” 12 France also truncates its history: the presentation of the Algerian War of Independence in textbooks has to wait until the final year of high school. 13 He is not the only Algerian resistance fighter not to have found a place in Algerian history after the country obtained its independence, a result of the democratic deficit that reigned at the time. 14 The 9è Année Fondamentale corresponds to grade 3 in Canada and the United States. 15 History can be used in the case of the central role of the Ibadites when it serves dominant political thinking. During the international conference held on 26 May 2016 in Relizane, the minister of religious affairs and wakfs, Mohamed Aissa, qualified Ibadite and Maliki schools as the “­pillars” of national religious reference. A tour of Islamic brotherhoods constitutes the beginning of a political campaign for senior Algerian politicians, as was the case during the legislative elections of 2017 in order to give the Zawāyā, who are very influential in certain regions of the country, a voice. A zaouia or zawiya is a spiritual and social Muslim institution organized around a brotherhood. 16 The Rustamids (thirteenth century) are an Ibadi dynasty of central Maghreb (Algeria). 17 Ibadism is one of the oldest schools of Islam. 18 Introduced to Algeria during the tenth century by the Fatimid dynasty, Shiite Islam is, along with Sunni, one of the four schools of Islamic law. 19 Maliki is a traditional school of Sunni Islamic law. 20 “Il est difficile d’enseigner à des Algériens qu’ils furent tous Rustumides, car cela signifie que nous avons tous été des ibadites … Si l’on arrive à dire à nos enfants qu’ils ont été ibadites puis chiites, devenus malékites, on peut renouer le fil et compléter le puzzle. On ne donne jamais à l’Algérien les éléments constitutifs de son puzzle pour qu’il élabore une personnalité dont il sera fier, ce qui lui permettra d’avancer.”

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21 “Augustin traitait une question de droit comme un avocat de Rome, une question d’exégèse comme un docteur d’Alexandrie. Il argumentait comme un philosophe d’Athènes. Il racontait une anecdote comme un bourgeois de Carthage.” 22 In contrast to the solidarity of French resistance fighters after the 1945 victory, there was dissension among FLN leaders due to internal rivalries within the party. 23 For a discussion of the fluctuating linguistic representations and their impact on the degree of diglossia, see Guehria, forthcoming. 24 With reference to Koranic Arabic, a language that is not used in spontaneous interactions between Algerians. 25 The partnership consists of twenty-six agreements between Algeria and France made at the third session of the Comité intergouvernemental de haut niveau (High Level Intergovernmental Committee), including a ­partnership with the education sector, among others (see Dernières Infos d’Algérie, 10 April 2016). 26 For an account of how this conflict was “exported” to France, see Begag 2018. 27 “[L]e numéro précédent comporte un avis aux abonnés les informant que le J O ne comporterait dorénant ‘qu’une édition en langue arabe.’” 28 “[Ce] n’est pas le cas, et tous ceux qui utilisent le J O le savent: lorsque l’interprétation est nécessaire, c’est toujours le texte en langue française qui est sollicité, y compris pour les juristes formés en langue arabe.” 29 We can deduce that Article 20 of Loi no. 91-05 du 16 janvier is still in effect for commercial vehicles. It is easier to enforce this law in the country’s interior regions – as opposed to the large coastal cities – where the populations are less bilingual. 30 This is also the tendency of young Algerian rappers who express their rejection of the system in a contested language – French – with which they have no affective relationship (Guehria 2013b). 31 “La réhabilitation et la promotion de l’amazighité en tant que l’un des fondements de l’identité nationale [et l’] introduction de la langue amazighe dans les systèmes de l’enseignement et de la communication.” 32 In December 2017, the National Assembly rejected a bill to promote Amazighity – the so-called Bill 104 bis – which gave rise to a series of demonstrations in the Kabyle region to the east of the capital (see Semmar 2017). According to the government, the bill is inappropriate because it is embedded in Budget Bill 104. In contrast, the Amazigh community in Kabylia has interpreted the rejection as yet another in an endless series of humiliations.

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promotion de la langue amazighe. Journal officiel de la République algérienne démocratique et populaire du 27 mai 1995. Alger: Secrétariat général du Gouvernement. Accessed 25 May 2018. http://www.axl. cefan.ulaval.ca/afrique/algerie_decret-95-147-1995.htm. Semmar, Abdou. 2017. “Manifestations en Kabylie: silence troublant de la classe politique.” Algérie Part, 13 December. https://algeriepart. com/2017/12/13/manifestations-kabylie-silence-troublant-de-classepolitique/. Sari, Hikmet. 2011. La communication interculturelle entre Bejaia et Tlemcen du IIe au XIIIe siècle. Tlemcen capitale de la culture islamique. Tlemcen: Université de Tlemcen. Tabouret-Keller, Andrée, ed. 1997. Le nom des langues I. Les enjeux de la nomination des langues. Louvain: Peete. Taleb-Ibrahimi, Ahmed. 2008. Mémoires d’un Algérien. Volume 2: La ­passion de bâtir (1965–1978). Alger: Casbah Éditions. Taleb-Ibrahimi, Khaoula. 1997. Les Algériens et leur(s) langue(s). Alger: Éditions El Hikma. – 2004. “L’Algérie: coexistence et concurrence des langues.” L’Année du Maghreb. Accessed 8 July 2017. doi: 10.4000/anneemaghreb.305. UNE S C O . 2018. Data for the Sustainable Development Goals. Montreal: UNE S C O Institute for Statistics. Accessed 27 May 2018. http://www.uis. unesco.org/education/pages/international-student-flow-vizFR.aspx?SPS Language=FR. Zenati, Jamel. 2004. “L’Algérie à l’épreuve de ses langues et de ses identités: histoire d’un échec répété.” Mots: Les langages du politique 74. Accessed 11 July 2017. http://mots.revues.org/4993.

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11 Challenging the Borders of Nation: Language and Translational Language Policy in the Plurilingual Romani Context Debbie Folaron My house … is “Europe-in-miniature.” Hedina Tahirović Sijerčić

In t ro du cti on At the time of European Union (E U) enlargement in 2004, Stanislaw Stankiewicz, then president of the International Romani Union (IRU), expressed his belief that, in the midst of the transformative processes of globalization at work in the world, Romani peoples stood out as “a novel concept” insofar as they already knew how to live within other cultures and religions and among other nations “as a transnational nation” (Television for the Environment 2005). Indeed, for many, the accession into the E U of Central and Eastern European countries during this second major period of expansion had brought with it the (surprising?) realization that Romani peoples1 in fact constituted the largest minority group throughout European territory. Living within multiple national borders and speaking many languages, their historical trajectory and linguistic-cultural identity as a people were still relatively unknown beyond the specialized niches and writings of the linguists, sociologists, ethnographers, and anthropologists who had studied them. The dearth of writing on Roma, however, would metamorphose into effusive production during the early decades of the twenty-first century, with publications on education, social policies, political actions, identity politics, and historical

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Migrations from India through Middle East to Anatolia and Balkans

12th–14th c. C E : Romani language evolves in Anatolia and Balkans

Figure 11.1  Key moments in Roma migrations

1000 C E : Departures of Romani peoples from India

15th–16th c. C E : Migrations of Romani peoples into Baltic region, British Isles, and Europe

Deportations and migrations to North and South America and Australia

Romani peoples ­currently reside in countries worldwide

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Source: Cartography by Bill Nelson

Figure 11.2  Roma migration routes out of India

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narratives adding to linguistic and cultural knowledge and augmenting the burgeoning area of Romani studies. More significantly, the production of knowledge on Roma, which for some time had been almost exclusively the domain of non-Roma researchers, began to experience its own decolonization, with Roma citizens, activists, and academics striving to reclaim the diverse narratives and mainstream social discursive practices that had structured and framed the numerous discourses on their peoples for centuries. These narratives are at the heart of the ongoing work-in-progress of Roma writing about Roma today (see Ryder et al. 2015). Within current trends of the prolific descriptive, analytic, and explanatory research on Roma throughout the world, particularly in Europe, there has been precious little discussion on the translation(al) dynamics of Romani peoples and realities (Folaron 2011, 2016; Tahirović-Sijerčić 2014; Toninato 2014).2 This is especially noteworthy given the global history of Roma migration and movement, the evolving history of the Romani language and affiliations to other languages, and the fact that Roma populations have resided within many different politically defined territorial boundaries (e.g. empires, nation-states), as minorities in relation to hegemonic social, political, cultural, and linguistic structuring dynamics. Today’s Roma communities are settled in nearly a quarter of the world’s countries.3 They live as citizens, residents, or migrants within the local territorially bound societies of nation-states. The historical circumstances and conditions that circumscribe their current positions and status in these nation-states are deeply entwined with histories of orality (see Eder-Jordan 2016), the Romani language, non-Romani languages, politics, culture, and social practices. They live, as well, in relation to a fluid, non-territorialized “community” of Romani peoples globally. Positioned as a minority in every country, this plurilingual, ethnic collectivity transacts and negotiates difference linguistically and culturally as a norm, within spheres that are official, non-official, formal, and informal. These practices of handling and managing difference, both internal (interRoma) and external (Roma / non-Roma), could be characterized as “translational practices of double-relationing,” which over a thousandyear period have yielded distinguishable effects. In his assessment of the linguistic landscape twelve years ago, Victor Friedman (2005) noted that the process of developing the Romani language ultimately could be summed up as a de facto rather than de jure one, with consensus emerging through actual usage, textbooks, dictionaries, press,

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media, and literature. This chapter seeks to bring some of these translational effects into relation with their manifest tendencies as de facto and de jure language policies.

E U T e r r ito r ia li zati on The observation made by Stankiewicz on the threshold of EU enlargement merits reflection, for it alludes to a parallel envisioning of the ways that a collectivity of heterogeneous linguistic-cultural identities faces the challenge of managing “unity in diversity.” As an economic, political union of multiple sovereign nation-states whose associated ethnicities and cultures are defined within political state boundaries and geopolitical relations, the E U seeks to establish itself in accordance with principles of representative democracy, striving to implement effective policies for the fair representation of historically relevant languages, dialects, and cultures. The fledgling Union was based on assumptions of how population groups were organized within a modern nation-state system, one that had grown out of the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European nationalisms and notions of nation building and citizenship (based on jus soli and jus sanguinis principles4), emphasizing a connection between geographical territory and a language / culture practised by a nation on its territory. Whether nation preceded nation-state formation or vice versa, the consequence was a nationstate foundation formulated either in civic or ethnic terms. In this model, state-supported institutions, policies, and practices promote such activities as official language recognition and standardization, serving as important missions for consolidating and reinforcing national identity. The earliest legal instruments of the EU define language as the most direct expression of culture and as an integral part of European identity. The Treaty of Maastricht (1992) / Treaty on European Union (TEU ), the Treaty of Rome (1957) / Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (T F E U ), the New Framework Strategy for Multilingualism (2005), and the Treaty of Lisbon (2007/2009) amending the TEU and TFEU, as well as the Charter of Fundamental Rights (2000/2009), serve as the basis of E U law, with articles in the T E U and TFEU specifically calling for respect of the cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe. They stipulate, de jure, that every citizen of the EU has the right to address any E U institution or body in any one of

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the EU official languages and to receive an answer in the same language. They prohibit discrimination on the grounds of language. Subsequent enlargements to the initial E U (1993) took place in 2004, 2007, and 2013. Nation-states applying for accession membership were required to comply with E U standards and the 1993 Copenhagen criteria stipulating respect and protection of minorities. It was at the juncture of the 2004 enlargement that the so-called “Gypsy Problem” fully emerged. Between 10 and 12 million Romani peoples inhabited European territory as minorities and citizens of individual European countries. Yet, sensu stricto, they belied nationalist homogeneity. When considered as a collective group, they were not only very diverse in terms of their multiple dialects and languages, they also extended in “diaspora” beyond the European continent and spanned the globe. While historical linguists had confirmed their roots in India, the communities had no collective historical memory of an Indian homeland, only a European one – yet, no European country claimed them for their own. Researchers who had transcribed and transliterated Romani words, expressions, and tales did so according to their own individual writing systems, for there was no evidence of a single written form of language or a sacred text that united Romani speakers. National historical archives held documented policies of exclusion and expulsion, as well as deliberate assimilationist policies to eradicate Roma identity, but it was unmistakable that a Romani language and culture had survived in multiple forms – albeit on the fringes of societies. Were they an old, traditional, historical minority or a new minority stemming from migration? Even as one of Europe’s oldest and largest minority groups, they proved too complex to define and fit into legal and political categories in any straightforward fashion.

Man ag in g N at io n , M in o r i ty, and Language The act of naming and categorizing a group carries tangible consequences. As fittingly noted by Sergey Sokolovskiy when writing about minority identities in the Russian context, the categorization and legitimization of any given population is subject to the categories produced by academic research, society as a whole, governance structures, and political, legal, and administrative decision-making bodies whose authority maintains power and privilege over social relationships. Terminology is an expression of power. It “locates every society

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in a semantic field, in which comparison positions each of them in a hierarchy of value that language constructs at the same time as it broadcasts it” (Duval quoted in Sokolovskiy 2013, 174). The former U SSR and Russian Federation settings illustrate well how minority rights and legislation hinge on the definitions and perceptions associated with the categories used to fit diverse groups and communities within a political-legal-social structural entity (Protsyk and Harzl 2013). Indeed, individual terms such as “national,” “ethnic,” “cultural,” “ethno-national,” “ethno-territorial,” “Indigenous,” “autochthonous,” “native,” “migrant,” “territorial,” and “non-territorial” all denote different realities and relationships in different geographical and historical contexts. When attached to the label of “minority,” they defy easy or unproblematic comparisons across world regions and localities, so historical contextualization is crucial. Challenges to these concepts and terms exist, as well, within the supranational structure of the E U, where individual national historical traditions, legal and political histories, regimes, and constitutions create slippages in meaning when minority groups are categorized according to different terminologies without adequate “translation.” Although the status of Roma everywhere is always de facto minority in broad terms, its de jure status varies widely. There is considerable heterogeneity in terms of the legal definitions applied to Roma in individual nationstates, with every legal definition (“minority,” “national minority,” “ethnic minority,” etc.) contingent on the historical or recently created categories of each state’s legal system. Each of these categories has implications in terms of entitlement to specific rights. For example, ethnic minority Hungarian Roma, national minority Croatian Roma, and traditional minority Finnish Roma are not equal in legal minority status or socio-historical legacy in the individual nation-states of Hungary, Croatia, and Finland. Language clearly figures within the categorization quagmire. Terms such as “mother tongue” or “native language” are not always representative of one’s ethnic, cultural, or national affiliation, nor always indicative of the language(s) mastered or managed in the multiple realms of daily life. Nor do the labels “bilingual” and “multilingual” reflect equal degrees of linguistic mastery by any one individual or group. Likewise, the values ascribed to “language” and “dialect” and their differentiation are defined not only linguistically but also socially and politically. They acquire meaning when grounded in context. As pointed out by linguists and social and political theorists alike, the

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definition and maintenance of language are ultimately linked to structures of power. Sociolinguistic and extralinguistic factors, ideologies, and politics all contribute to the language dynamics that play out in the arenas of structural power relations. The questions pertaining to what constitutes a language and its classification status, evolution, usage, demographics, and affiliation to a territorial homeland or nation are all leveraged when crafting official language policy. As noted by Thomas Ricento (2006, 16), “how we understand and conceptualize language has important consequences for how we might evaluate linguistic arrangements and the explicit and implicit policies which contribute to – or oppose – such arrangements.” Assumptions of monolingualism, or “stable diglossia,” and cultural homogeneity have typically been yoked to the notions of social and economic equality, progress, modernization, and national unity implicated in the nation-state model (ibid., 14–15). While this impulse of uniformity undergirding the nation-state continues to resonate powerfully, other realities have challenged the model. The sociolinguistic research and discourse on language policy and language planning that developed during the latter half of the twentieth century have increasingly engaged the idea of political models configured differently (Hult and Johnson 2015). For instance, post-colonial and post-­ communist independence movements and transitions to democratic political regimes have led to renewed efforts to reclaim multiple, historically rooted ethnic and linguistic identities. The widespread realization that globalization is affecting the long-term survival of most of the planet’s nearly 7,000 languages has encouraged efforts to support, promote, and revitalize those that are endangered. Decolonization strategies created and implemented by Indigenous, Aboriginal, and other colonized and marginalized peoples endeavour to regain positional authority over the knowledge, representation, education, language, and culture appropriated from them by colonial and imperialist policies and polities (Smith 2012). These and various other factors have inspired the articulation of a new relationship to multilingualism, altering notions of how languages are valorized and managed within national boundaries. As Beban Sammy Chumbow (2012, 325) notes in the context of the African Union’s quest to reconcile linguistic pluralism with national development, “it is now also axiomatic that multilingualism is not an obstacle to development but merely a challenge to policy formulation and implementation in the service of national development. The challenge of nationalism

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throughout history and more especially in the present millennium is to build a strong economically viable pluralistic nation from ethnolinguistic diversity.” The policy instruments produced by the Council of Europe (CoE) and the EU, namely the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (E C R M L ) – both in force since 1998 – prove critical for revalorizing ethno-linguistic groups on European territory, with the E C R ML serving as the most salient instrument for advocacy of minority or ethnic language rights. In its broadest terms, the ECRML aims “to protect and promote the historical regional or minority languages of Europe.” It also specifically addresses the category of “non-territorial” languages, defining them as ones used by nationals of the state but differing from those used by the rest of the state’s population and which, although traditionally used within the state’s territory, cannot be identified with a particular area. In the absence of a unified or standardized language in line with the usual parameters of territory, common history, or culture, the act of terminologically qualifying and locating “Romani” within a category of “minority” in the plurilingual context of the multi-nation-state E U polity presents a major challenge. The E C R M L has allowed activists to promote Romani as a “non-territorial language” of Europe worthy of minority and ethnic language status and rights, building on the results of historical linguistic and sociolinguistic research carried out during the twentieth century once the formerly contested status of Romani as a language was finally resolved (Romani Project n.d.).

R o m a n i H e t e rogenei ty: A H is to ry o f M i grati on Language policy understood as de jure assumes not only its formulation “in law” by a governing or authoritative body; it also implies a language duly recognized, with a minimum threshold of consensus and representation as to what it constitutes in practice. Although the E C R M L provides a protocol of support for the Romani language linguistically recognized as such, the actual linguistic reality is far from homogeneous. The linguistic realities are, furthermore, inextricably linked to cultural expression. Two angles will be considered here: the general sociolinguistic situation at present and the historical trajectory that marked the circumstances leading to this situation.

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For the millions worldwide who self-identify as “Romani” by one ethnonym or another (Roma, Sinti, Manuš, Romanichal, Kalderaš, Lovari, Calé, and so on), there are varying degrees of linguistic competence. For many of them, to “classify” as Romani does not forcibly mean to be fluent in all registers of a Romani language dialect or even conversant in a dialect at all. Those who do speak the language (designated Romani čhib or Romanes5) are at least functionally bilingual, and often multilingual, with only very young children initially monolingual speakers of the language. Because the Romani language is not taught natively in any national education system, and because no single dialect of the language has been attributed official status worldwide, mastery of the language’s formal and informal registers is not at all uniform, with some groups having experienced substantial language loss over time. Viewed from a sociolinguistic perspective, the general landscape can be sketched into categories as follows, with Romani individuals who •

•

•

•

•

use their dialect natively and daily but mostly informally within their neighbourhood or community, and interact with non-Romani peoples in the language(s) of the nation-state where they reside; use primarily the languages of the nation-state with both Romani and non-Romani groups, and only occasionally use Romani words or expressions with their families or communities; speak no Romani at all (after several generations of close contact with other language communities and intermarriage) and default to a shared common language; use a more widespread dialect (e.g. Kalderaš) and adjust their inter-dialect speech in dialogue, as English, Spanish, or Arabic language speakers can do; use a lingua franca (e.g. international English) or another world language (e.g. French, Spanish, German), interspersed with Romani words, to converse between speakers of different Romani dialects.

This sociolinguistic situation is the result of “language contact” phenomena, diverse spatial and temporal migration dispersion, and close proximity to other myriad ethnic and linguistic contexts historically. It is important to underscore that the connections between language, culture, history, and territory that have served as a cornerstone upon which to establish a communal or national identity

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for other population groups within a nation-state paradigm have not materialized in the same way for Romani collective identity. Historically, the existence and movement of Romani dialects have been subject to the broader social and political circumstances and events occurring in specific geographical regions. For example, groups of Romani families who had begun to migrate into Europe from the east (Anatolia) and south (Balkans) between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries experienced continual rounds of persecution and discrimination. Imperial and national policies and legislation in various countries continued these inclinations, principally by way of Romani language bans and anti-Roma (“anti-Gypsy”) laws forbidding settlement. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, some Roma were deported from Europe to colonies in the Americas and Australia. The formal abolition of a 500-year period of Roma serfdom and slavery in the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (today’s Moldova and Romania) in the mid-nineteenth century sparked large-scale migration of one cluster of mutually intelligible dialects known as “Vlax,” specifically Kalderaš, from this region to many areas of Europe and out to the Americas. And, in the early twentieth century, Nazi racial policies during the Holocaust led to the extermination (Porrajmos) of more than half a million Roma, whereby three dialects, including almost the entire Czech Romani dialect, vanished completely. As for all groups of peoples, the identity of Romani peoples is not monolithic and cannot be generalized. However, it acquires an extra dimension given the absence of a historically remembered and shared homeland in common for all. Romani history is replete with diversity of cultural as well as linguistic points of reference, adding additional layers of nuance to what mainstream society often refers to as “Romani culture.” In fact, the profile of Romani peoples is one of multiple registers of Romani-ness, born of their respective experiences and local differences but interrelated by an awareness of a shared Romani way of being and knowing the world. This sense of romanipè(n) or rromanìja – that is to say, “Romani culture, behavior, and values” or “Romani-ness” – in contrast to gadžikanìja or “non-Romani ways” has traditionally served to connect diverse Romani groups (Hancock 2001b, 184). “Linked” as they are, they nonetheless “display subtle but distinctive patterns,” “differing narratives of their history and ethnogenesis (their origins as an ethnic group),” and “variations in practices associated with birth, marriages and death” (Marsh 2013,

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n.p.). For example, Romani Kris (traditional “court” for conflict resolution) is still practised in some Kalderaš Roma communities, but never in others. Marimé code (physical and moral uncleanliness or impurity) is adhered to strictly by some but regarded with much more leniency – if not totally disregarded – by others. Romani peoples practise many faiths as well, as followers of Christian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal and Evangelical Christian, Muslim, Mormon, Jewish, and other religions (Hancock 2001a). Moreover, as residents of different countries, Roma become part of the local, regional, and national histories and narratives that unfold within their respective “majority” societies, however intensive their contact with the latter may be. Globally speaking, experiential cultural reference points, habits, customs, practices, and perceptions differ widely among Roma themselves. The more frequent contact among different Roma groups today due to technologies is in effect writing a new chapter on Roma inter-linguistic and intercultural dialogue. The historical trajectory of the Romani language marked the circumstances leading to the present sociolinguistic situation, but for many centuries its origins were unclear. It was not until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that linguists began to surmise that what was spoken in Romani communities was in fact a real language of many dialects, not simply an artificial or cryptographic manner of speaking. The role of historical linguistics has been critical (Hancock 2017; Matras 2002), with linguists proceeding in such a way as to “reverse engineer” from the dialects as they are spoken in different communities today, extricating their linguistic differences and similarities to trace the path back and connect to their geographical origins. First linked empirically to the Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of the Indo-European language family, Romani was then determined to have likely had its geographical linguistic origins in the northwestern or central area of India between the fifth and eleventh centuries. Although the history of the language is still being written, general linguistic consensus is that it comprises sixty to eighty dialects, which have been orally transmitted among Roma until the present – with the Vlax Romani and Balkan Romani groups of dialects often cited as the most prevalent. Linguistically, Romani has been defined as a “contact” language (Matras 2002) due to its characteristic “hybridity,” a result of having passed through many diverse contact zones over hundreds of years. Its composition as a language can be broadly reflected in three main layers, usefully envisioned6 in the form

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Layer 3: Borrowings into Romani from extensive contact with other languages after migration into Europe (15th c.+)

2 1

Layer 2: Byzantine Greek, Slavic, and Turkish influences on original Indian Romani upon migration to Anatolia and Balkans (12th–14th c.) Layer 1: Core layer of New Indo-Aryan lexical roots interspersed with Persian and Armenian from early migration (10th–11th c.?)

Figure 11.3  Composition of the Romani language

of an inverted pyramid whose tip and base represent, respectively, the oldest core and newest layer of acquisitions. The first layer comprises an initial core layer of approximately 800 pre-European, New Indo-Aryan lexical roots attesting to Romani’s origins in the languages of India, interspersed with Persian and Armenian acquired through early migration. The associated vocabulary and grammatical rules at this level, defined as “thematic” by some scholars, were common to all dialects of Romani peoples before their arrival in Europe. While limited, they are the staple of all dialects and allow Romani to be labelled definitively as a single language by linguists. The second layer is just as crucial and decisive. It is comprised of Byzantine Greek roots, most likely acquired between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries during an extended stay by Romani groups in Anatolia and the Balkans. At this time, a linguistic shift of syntactic ordering to subject-verb-object occurred, thus initiating what is defined by some scholars as “athematic” grammatical restructuring. Romani linguist Ian Hancock argues that the 200 to 300 years spent in ethnolinguistically diverse Byzantine Anatolia, prior to dispersal throughout Europe, likely formed the nucleus of Romani identity, with migrations out of India occurring in small groups rather than one single group event. He also puts forward that Romani may have emerged as a kind of koinè used by mixed Indian groups that had departed from India during the Seljuq conquests over the Ghaznavids (1038) and the

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Armenians (1071) in the eleventh century. A common Romani language (but not a creole) could have then crystallized into an ethnic mother tongue under the influence of Greek during the Byzantine Empire, which ended in 1453 with the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks (Hancock 2006, 69–92). According to linguist Yaron Matras (2002, 6–7), the geographical area of present-day Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, and Kosovo probably constituted the “historical centre of Romani population diffusion,” with some dialects exhibiting a strong Turkish influence, likely a result of contact with the expanding Ottoman Turkish Empire. Taken together, the two layers of this common core of the language facilitate inter-dialectal comprehension among Romani groups today. The third and broadest layer of the Romani language is the one that “constitutes the greatest barrier to inter-intelligibility” (Hancock 1995) as it is not uniform among all the dialects. This layer is a result of Romani coming into extensive contact with diverse languages of different regions from the fifteenth century onward, when Romani groups began entering the European continent. Since then, loan words have been acquired in varying degrees from Balkan, European, and other languages. While the extent to which these loan words permeated the lexical and / or syntactic structures of Romani depended on the length of stay of individual Romani groups in a given region, they hastened mixed language and multiple dialect formations (Proctor 2008). Linguists have devised various classification schemes to organize the dialects into clusters that reflect groupings of similar characteristics and structural developments according to their respective histories. Subsequent Romani migration routes out of Europe and abroad would follow a similar pattern of linguistic retention, contact, and borrowing. As the Romani writer Damian Le Bas (2014, n.p.) has stated simply and eloquently, throughout this trajectory “dialects rise and fall, but the language endures.”

T r a n s l at io n in g Language In the Romani context, it is this historically rooted, internal, plurilinguistic-cultural collective ethnic identity that challenges the concept of language policy from the outset, for it necessarily implies an already implicit de facto practice of “translation policy” from within (see Meylaerts 2011). This “predisposition” problematizes the ways to organize politically around the accepted or conventional notions of

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language and culture in order to identify as a nation, one without claim to a nation-state. The Romani language itself, by virtue of its evolution and non-uniform development (at the third level of the pyramid in figure 11.3), suggests that various translation processes end up being operationalized in transnational Romani communication by default. They range the continuum from minimal linguistic adjustment to full traditional translation, depending on the subject matter and context. For example, while a word like paramič (“story” or “tale”) might require a minimal phonetic or graphic adjustment across dialects, another word like tolmačil (“translate”) might require interdialectal or inter-lingual translation for communication to succeed. The language unification, codification, and standardization endeavours typically associated with language policy, which are essential at certain levels of discourse, effectively operate in parallel to a translationimplicated practice of language policy due to a unique and different set of motives and historical circumstances. The underlying impulse of translation per se assumes an acknowledgement and recognition of difference. It is “interested neither in reifying nor surmounting difference, but [in] making use of it productively and creatively” (Maitland 2017, 26). The historical trajectory of the Romani language sets the backdrop for understanding the reasons why a de facto language policy emerges “in practice.” This type of policy, as David Johnson (2013, 10; emphasis in the original) aptly notes, refers not only to “locally produced policies [arising] without or in spite of de jure policies” but to “local language practices that differ from de jure policies.” The notion of a de facto policy along these lines can admit into its sphere a particular kind of language practice inspired by translational dynamics, one deployed from a constant position of otherness and whose experiential space of being and knowing in the world interfaces in varying degrees with ways of being and knowing in other worlds. As a language of migration and translation, the Romani language embodies the mechanism of its own translational component and the traces of its own translation over time, all of which come to bear in the practical application of exercising the translating process today. Its historical bearings, etymologies, and word usages serve as a constant source of inspiration and curiosity for its speakers, writers, and indeed translators. The role that language plays in language policy in terms of its contribution to a conceptual model of nation and nation building in a broader Romani context, then, would seem to be a dual one that

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manifests both as a uniformizing tendency (codification, standardization) and as a differentiating one (multilingualism, translation) in tension and in dialogue with each other. A conceptualization of language as multilingual practice, with bilingual or multilingual repertoires rather than monolingualism operating as the norm, underpins language praxis. Translation pauses the flow of this multilingual space of “multiple languages simultaneously present” and extends its potentiality by “emphasiz[ing] the process of moving from one language to another” (Yildiz 2012, 217). It instrumentalizes trans-linguistic-cultural communication across dialect and language groups and, in so doing, emerges as a tangible tool of practice for reinforcing social relations and encouraging social inclusion. The deliberation on language codification, standardization, legislation, and policy for Romani did not acquire more widespread mainstream attention until the latter half of the twentieth century, in response to the political and legislative undertakings of the EU as it embarked on its mission to manage diverse social relations in a heterogeneous, pluri-ethnic and plurilingual context.

L i n g u is t ic S u p p o rt a n d S oci al I nclus i on The unique historical character and uneasy fit of Roma(ni) within the pre-existing paradigm of nation-states subsequently contained within the supranational contours of the EU continue to be challenging for purposes of legislation and the overall aim of social inclusion. However, it is clear that the debates that began in the European context during the early 1990s have gradually led to initiatives indicative of a materializing European Roma policy (Mirga 2017; Liégeois 2012). In terms of language, the E C R ML provides some de jure support. As noted by Dieter W. Halwachs et al. (2013a, 34), the E CRM L is “the only legally binding instrument for the protection of Romani as a European minority language.” However, as stated in the commentary by the Committee of Experts monitoring the E C R M L , “the overall picture suggests that the Romani varieties, for one reason or another, [have] not [been] protected either in law or in practice as much as the historical minority languages or the languages of migrants” (Nogueira López et al. 2012, 104). As of 2015, fifteen of the twentyfive countries that had ratified the E C RM L had proceeded to the following step of part 2 to officially recognize and protect Romani as a minority language “traditionally on their territory.” They are Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Montenegro,

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Poland, Serbia, and the Slovak Republic, with the latter committing to part 3 as well.7 An interesting exception thus far is the Republic of Macedonia. With circa 10 per cent of the population declared as Roma and an existing Romani-majority municipality (Šuto Orizari), it officially recognizes Roma as an ethnic community in its constitution, with a right to minority-language instruction and representation in public administration (Roma Education Fund 2012), but it has not yet ratified the E C R ML . In its published commentary, the Committee of Experts also observes that the lack of support for Romani language recognition is more than a purely linguistic matter. The E CRM L , in fact, does allow both for the “formal” recognition of a language’s expression of cultural wealth and for its “practical” recognition (Art. 7), which would entail support for a “structured language policy” for languages such as Romani. It therefore has the potential to both protect and promote. The Committee notes, however, that in addition to its lack of a single territorial homeland, Romani “suffers from prejudice and very low prestige” (Nogueira López et al. 2012, 83). Indeed, even while many Romani individuals around the world today participate fully in mainstream societies, a significant majority is still plagued by subhuman living conditions, extreme poverty, ill-health, unemployment, crime, and illiteracy. Governmental and institutional structures have not yet been able to deal effectively with many of the well-documented social problems and deeply embedded prejudices of the societies in which they live. The social exclusion is a historical continuation of sociocultural circumstances that have systematically led Roma to experience a nearly constant state of stigmatization, marginalization, discrimination, and misrepresentation (both vilified and romanticized). This includes a devaluing of the language. Thus, while official legislation now provides a means for the support and recognition of Romani language and culture, its implementation has been mired by challenges. The inclusion of Romani within the purview and framework of the E C R M L is important in terms of striving for linguistic justice, but there is still resistance socially when it comes to providing an adequate political fit for the millions of Roma living as citizens within Europe.

F ro m H is to r ic a l S o c ioli ngui sti c Reali ty to   P o l it ic a l Advocacy The converging political, social, and linguistic initiatives and strategies with regard to Romani populations at large have been multiplying at

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international, regional, national, and local levels – all at various rates of speed and with fluctuating degrees of success. The stated objective of public policy making in Europe has been to achieve “Roma integration.” Principal actors in this domain include institutional and organizational macro-structures such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the Council of Europe, various agencies of the United Nations, the Open Society Institute, and the EU. The European intergovernmental Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues, created in 1994, addresses the historic discrimination and persecution as well as the current proliferation of anti-Roma racial and ethnic hatred. Targeted initiatives to combat “anti-Gypsyism” have been of particular focus since the EU enlargements of 2004, 2007, and 2013, in response to the challenges confronted by post-Communism transitions to democracy, the 2008 economic and financial crisis, and the escalation of anti-Roma rhetoric and violence fuelled by extremist and populist movements. However, the tepid political will of individual nationstates often translates into abdication of full responsibility for inclusion of Roma in the sectors of employment, public health, housing, and education, with social integration thwarted by the ongoing antiRoma hostility. As observed by Andrzej Mirga (2017, 119) in his discussion on Roma political gains and social losses, the “EU antidiscrimination frameworks and binding decisions have not helped lessen routine scapegoating of Roma minorities in a number of member states – a dangerous trend that has been on the rise.” Advocating for Roma rights on the bases of E U accession criteria, universal human rights, and social justice is conducted both through official and institutional channels and at the community grassroots level. Prior to the creation of the E U, the combined efforts of Roma and non-Roma linguists and activists had been laying the groundwork for development of the Romani language and dealing with language issues. EU expansion bore witness to a convergence of some of these research and activism activities, leading to parallel and intersecting enterprises with regard to de jure and de facto language policies, with the latter oriented within the more inclusive perimeters of both local language practices and locally produced policies as put forth by Johnson (2013, 10). The de facto activities-cum-policies advocate with didactic force, functioning as educational tools in settings of learning and instruction but also in places of worship, in the media, on the internet, and other spaces of the public domain – for Roma

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and non-Roma alike. They echo, as well, the nature of language activities historically undertaken by fledgling ethnolinguistic national movements in Central and Eastern Europe, namely codification, compilations of standard grammars and dictionaries, publication in codified languages, creation of textbooks, and so on (Kamusella 2009). Some illustrations of language, language policy, and non-territorial “nation building” in the Romani context follow. Among the more formalized European-Roma structures is the creation of the European Roma and Travellers Forum (E R T F ), which entered into a partnership agreement with the CoE in December 2004. Its support of a Charter on the Rights of the Roma was adopted at the Plenary Assembly in 2009 (European Roma and Travellers Forum 2010). The Charter, whose final version is available online in English, French, and Romani, defines Roma as a “European national minority and citizens of the countries they live in” and states that “their participation process needs to draw on common roots and common perspectives beyond citizenship, group affiliation, or country of residence.” The Charter has twenty-seven Articles. Some of the most relevant ones for our discussion are selected and paraphrased below: •

•

•

•

•

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Article 1 reiterates a common historical Indo-Greek origin, the common language of Romanes,8 and the common cultural heritage of Romanipe; Article 2 asserts a shared national identity as Roma, independent of citizenship, state and / or group and / or religious affiliation; Article 3 confirms the right of Roma to self-determined designation, identity, and community, with the right to freely practise his / her religion, culture and tradition, noting that “Romanipe is based on unity through diversity”; Article 4 declares equality of Roma to every other people in the world, and acknowledges that Roma live in every State of Europe and are therefore a national minority in Europe without their own State or claim for a State; Article 13 states that the language, Romanes, should be equated with all other European languages, and that States and international institutions should ensure its protection as a living European language, with support for educational institutions and native-language classes at schools; Article 14 demands that States ensure that Roma are able to establish their own media in their mother tongue and that

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mainstream media provide Roma with the opportunity to report in their own language without discrimination; Article 15 demands that States ensure that Roma history and origins be included in school curricula. (ibid., 3–4)

ERTF’s earlier 2005 policy paper (Council of Europe 2005) highlights other points in addition to the ones included in the Charter on the Rights of the Roma (2009). They take into account specific sociolinguistic realities when dealing with language policy, Romani language planning, and education. For example, the paper identifies the lack of an internationally recognized standard dialect, proposes bilingual education as a viable choice, recommends imparting knowledge of dialects in addition to mastery of one’s own, advises international networking and collaboration for the production of texts and teaching materials in Romani, and supports literacy and strategies to acquaint learners with different forms of written Romani. Moreover, as indicated in a joint report issued by the ECRML Committee of Experts and the ERTF, use of the term “Romani” is encouraged to refer to its status as a single language of numerous dialects used by different groups, with the note that “while a standard dialect is not needed for the time being, mutual comprehension and linguistic pluralism are essential,” with “codification” preferred over “standardization” when considering development of a written form (Vuolasranta 2008). The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC),9 which states it has consultative status both with the CoE and the UN Economic and Social Council, was created in 1996 and has headquarters in Budapest. Defining itself as “a Roma-led international public interest law organization [NGO] working to combat anti-Romani racism and human rights abuse of Roma through strategic litigation, research, policy development, advocacy and human rights education” (ERRC 2018), its approach to the protection of Roma in Europe is based on the defence of fundamental human rights (see O’Nions 2007). This entails dealing with immediate issues of urgency that endanger Roma safety and welfare, including dwellings in contaminated camps, forced evictions, illegal confiscation of passports, police brutality, termination of water or electricity supplies, and lack of access to social services. Linguistic rights, however, are likewise monitored, specifically with regard to the right of Roma children to an education. The ERRC’s recommendations gravitate toward prioritizing practical realities that stem from a complex sociolinguistic situation. For example, in its 2017

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report on the enlargement component of the E U Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020 (European Commission 2017), the ERRC endorses recommendations made by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI, a human rights body of the CoE) for Albania, Kosovo, Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey. Recognizing that many Roma children in Kosovo attending the Serbian-curriculum school system are unable to express themselves in Serbian or Albanian, and those in Albania do not speak Albanian, it recommends children receive assistance for improving their knowledge of the state’s languages before enrolling in primary school (ERRC 2017). These observations echo parallel linguistic situations for Roma children in current EU member countries as well. Within the CoE, efforts to encourage integration of both Romani language instruction and knowledge about Romani language, culture, and history into nation-state educational curricula have led to the development (2007–08) of a Romani language component within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CE F R) (CoE 2014). In addition to suggesting a common basis for developing syllabi and curricula, the Curriculum Framework for Romani (CF R) aims to strengthen the growth of Romani and support its right as a “mother tongue” within a setting of linguistic pluralism. Translation is also specifically mentioned, presented as a means by which to promote the materials for wide dissemination and use in teaching and learning, with guidelines subsequently provided for translators interested in translating into any one of the national / official languages or Romani dialects. In spite of the C F R , however, a recent report produced by the Commissioner for Human Rights and published by the CoE (Commissioner 2012) indicates the need for more progress. The section designated “Romani language, history and culture in education, including suppression of anti-Roma stereotypes in the school curriculum” states that most CoE member states do not provide Romani language education in schools (citing as exceptions Romania and occasionally Serbia), although there are instances of institutions teaching the language as an elective (e.g. the Republic of Macedonia).10 The report also refers to efforts made from within the Slovak Republic to standardize a Romani dialect and promote its use in a pilot program for schools (see also Rácová and Samko 2017). Finally, it stresses that teachers in European schools generally have little or no knowledge of Roma history, culture, and traditions, thus hampering the overall objective of promoting intercultural understanding socially.

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It is clear that, for the transnational Roma community, the support provided through such official supranational instruments as the EC R ML and other CoE, E U, and international initiatives continues to be necessary. Their mandates and provisions provide legal support mechanisms that can enable possibilities for the language to expand and develop when there is nation-state political will. Among others, for example, Sweden recognizes Romani as one of its five official minority languages (Finnish, Sami, Romani, Yiddish, and Meänkieli). On the government website, the section “How Sweden Is Governed” has been translated into Romani and presumably would account not only for the descendants of early Roma migration to Sweden in the 1500s but also the newer Roma migrants who fled with Bosnian and other post-Yugoslav groups during the wars and ethnic cleansing of the 1990s. Regular Romani-language radio programming (Radio Romano) is also offered on the internet-based, national, publicly funded Radio Sweden (Sveriges Radio).

Chal l e n g in g t h e B o r d e rs of Nati on i n the S t ru g g l e f o r R o m ani Ri ghts Subsequent to the 2005–15 “Decade of Roma Inclusion” (E R R C 2005), the E U continues to reiterate its priority of protecting minorities and linguistic diversity and has launched the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020 (European Commission 2017). However, although the bulk of official language policy legislation and jurisdiction relative to Romani has emanated from European territory, this is not to say that initiatives have not been actively promoted elsewhere internationally. For instance, in 1977, at the behest of W.R. Rishi, the government of India filed a motion with the UNE SC O Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, which stated in its official resolution that “the Romani people had historic, cultural and linguistic ties of Indian origin” (Matras 2015, 253). In 2015, the Executive Board of U N ESC O officially proclaimed 5 November as the World Day of Romani Language (UNESCO 2015). In the Americas, both Colombia and Brazil have officially recognized Romani as a minority ethnic group. Overall, however, more collaboration on initiatives between European Roma and Roma outside Europe has been deemed necessary. In 2016 the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (U N O H C H R ) Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsák,

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included a report on the situation of Roma in the Americas as part of the Global Study on the human rights situation of Roma worldwide (U N OHC H R 2015). In it, she recommends paying more attention to the specific challenges faced by Roma living outside Europe, urging that governments in the region make concerted efforts to acknowledge and raise awareness of the existence of Roma and their rights as distinct minorities within their respective countries, as well as to recognize 8 April as International Roma Day (U N O H CH R 2016). In the absence of stable institutional and state support, Roma have been actively pursuing their own “nation-building” initiatives since the mid-twentieth century, even though these efforts have generally not been perceived by the public at large (see Marushiakova and Popov 2005; Garo 2009). Many actions taken to unify the diverse Roma groups were initiated by an intellectual and activist “elite” using the symbols and strategies of more conventional modern nation building. The first World Romani Congress was summoned in 1971 in the UK, with Romani delegates from multiple countries convening and subsequently organizing five special commissions to focus on education, culture, language, social problems, and war crimes reparations. At this time, 8 April was declared Roma Nation Day, and an anthem (Djelem Djelem) and flag were adopted (Kenrick 2004, 189). Foundations were also laid for the first International Romani Union (IR U ), whose membership consists of local and nation-wide (rather than national) Romani organizations and individuals (KlímováAlexander 2005, 18). At the second World Romani Congress (1978) India was declared as the “mother country.” In 1979 the IRU obtained consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council as an NGO. At the fourth World Romani Congress (1990) in Serock, Poland, members adopted linguist Marcel Courthiade’s unification model of dialectal variation and the Vlax dialect for the standardization of Romani; they also announced the project of a multi-volume encyclopedia (Matras 2002, 252; Kamusella 2009, 332). At the 1991 meeting in Ostia (Rome), Italy, the concept of Roma as a “trans[border]national minority” was proposed (Rövid 2011, 13; see also Marushiakova and Popov 2016; McGarry 2010). At the fifth World Romani Congress (2000) in Prague, the “Declaration of Nation” document put forth a Romani proposal to claim non-territorial nation status (Goodwin 2004). Worthy of note is the observation by Marushiakova and Popov (2005, 8) that, for cross-linguistic communication at these events, interpreters translated “between the

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different Gypsy communities who [spoke] different languages or dialects of Romanes.” Decades later, as noted by Liégeois (2012, chap. 1), formal interpretation services into Romani are now provided at “events [on language] organized by the Council of Europe,” at meetings of the “Committee of Experts on Roma and Travellers (in French, English, Romani),” and “in other international organisations.” Romani language development has been occurring in diverse ways in other settings as well, with the particular feature that translation and terminology activities underpin all these language initiatives. In the Balkans, the deep historical roots and vitality of the language have led to the implementation of standardization policies in the region (Serbia, Macedonia), with the aid of such works as Romani linguist Rajko Đurić’s Gramatika e Rromane Čhibaki (2005) and Standardizacija romskog jezika (2012). Bilingual and multilingual grammars and dictionaries have flourished for educational and documentation purposes, and now they exist for various Romani dialects and Albanian, Bulgarian, Czech, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Spanish, Bosnian, among others. The Kalderaš dialect (Lee 2005, 2011), due to its widespread coverage and extensive documentation, has been considered for development as a foundation for a standard, literary Romani language. These types of initiatives frequently require linguists and lexicographers to coin neologisms and make use of codification linguistic operations such as incoining,11 phrasing, native retrieval, and foreign adoption (Hancock 2010, 123–4) to expand the Romani lexicon. Since the start of the twenty-first century technology has been playing a critical role as well, with the internet and social media facilitating connections between communities and networks all around the world. These connections are enabled by the fact that languages can be technically encoded according to a standard protocol, which eliminates the need for special coding and programs for communicating and exchanging information across languages and platforms. The widespread availability of software and the Web in multiple languages and scripts, enhanced by machine translation platforms like Google Translate, have been essential for Roma users of all languages in their efforts to communicate with one another across geographical borders. At the same time, as with other languages, the presence of global English has had an impact on the Romani language, with some sounds (e.g. č) now being regularly transcribed with the English-language

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phonetic system (e.g. ch). Specialized linguistic platforms are also used by lexicographers and terminologists in the field. The lexical database platform RomLex12 covers many Romani dialects, with search functionalities able to retrieve database translations into English and other European languages. Finally, the proliferating content produced by Romani individuals and organizations in various languages and nations globally reflects the dynamic nature of Roma multilingualism and translation. To cite just a few examples, both the new IR U website13 and online Roma Times14 publish content in Romani, Macedonian, and English. The Rom Archive, Digital Archive of the Roma15 publishes in German, English, and Romani translation. The Internet is, in the words of the late Romani activist Valery Novoselsky (2007, 143), advantageous “in the building of Roma virtual communities and in the formation of a new Romani transnational identity.” This transnational identity, as recently observed by Halwachs et al. (2013a, 19; 2013b, 13), embodies an internationally evolving, “harmonizing” Romani language: Romani has entered the stage of development from a vernacular to a standard language. This development in no case follows the traditional standardization pattern – i.e. the imposition of a codified variety by law through education – but has to be described as harmonization, by trial and error in actual communication processes using all linguistic resources at hand. Therefore, translations and standardization products with primarily symbolic functions as well as communicative experience, repertoire resources, etc. of all speakers involved contribute to this harmonization process which is slowly resulting in something like an international Romani or Inter Romani. The higher the numbers of Romani speakers participating in the process, the more this Inter Romani will spread and contribute to overcome the communication obstacles between speakers of different Romani varieties.

C o n c l u s i on This chapter has sought to reflect on some of the specificities of language and language policy in the Romani context. The historical trajectory of the Romani language itself, a language of migration and in close contact with other languages, has given way to a sociolinguistic reality of multilingual repertoires by Romani speakers, which

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by default assumes the need for inter-dialect, inter-language, and inter-dialect-language translation for communication over national borders. This reality would seem to emerge from a historically rooted translational practice of double-relationing across and within territorial boundaries, as citizens of nation-states and as actors within a global Roma “community.” As Lionel Wee (2011, 42–7) observes, language is a “constructional” social practice, one grounded in a material world of speakers managing linguistic repertoires in a wide variety of situations (see also Kramsch 2009), which for minority speakers is rendered more complex due to the particular socio-dynamics born of contact situations, hybridity, and stigmatization by others. Jan Blommaert (2015, 5) signals this reality when noting that “social interaction articulates socio-historically configured ‘positions’ from whence people speak,” with speakers using “linguistic-communicative resources not because of their ‘linguistic’ features but of the sociohistorical load they carry within a given social field.” This “sociohistorical load” significantly impacts the status of the Romani language, despite the major role of the EU and other institutions in providing support for minority, nonterritorial languages by means of various legal instruments and social inclusion initiatives. The de jure and de facto language policies that have emerged are characterized not only by the more conventional strategies of language codification and standardization but also by multilingual translation-enabled processes – all of which contribute to revitalizing language and continuing the pursuit of Roma rights as a nation from within its collective repertoire of heterogeneous linguistic-cultural identities. Comprehensively, these policies challenge the traditional notions of borders and states. In the Romani context, the act of balancing practical homogeneity with realistic heterogeneity through a differential lens in the quest for “unity through diversity” will undoubtedly be forged and strengthened by modern, creative, and technologized adaptations of romanipe, in continuity with its thousand-year-old past, for centuries yet to come.

N otes   1 Today, international English discourse tends to use the umbrella term “Romani” to cover all groups, as well as the term “Roma and Sinti.” Notwithstanding its non-acceptance by some groups, “Roma” is increasingly used.

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  2 See the recent article by Canadian Romani scholar, writer, translator, and activist Ronald Lee, “Writing and Translating Romani” (2017).   3 Today, Roma live in Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, Iran, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Canada, United States of America, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile.  4 Jus soli and jus sanguinis confer nationality on the basis of one’s birthplace and of one’s parental nationality, respectively.   5 Because the Romani language is not codified and standardized internationally, different orthographies and transliterations are commonly encountered in the literature. The script and graphical differences are not indicative of differences in dialect.   6 Hancock notes a very effective teaching metaphor he uses in his Romani linguistics course – that of an onion: “An onion grows bigger layer by layer, with the deepest layers being the earliest. If we examine the vocabulary of the Romani language, the very first layer, at the heart of the onion, is Indian. The next layers include one after the other words from such ­languages as Phalura, Persian, Kurdish, Armenian, Greek, and so on, all acquired along the way, reflecting the geographical route taken by the Romanies’ ancestors as they came westwards out of India” (2017, 161).  7 The E C R M L has graduating levels of commitment. Part 1 contains general provisions. Part 2 lays out eight basic areas of objectives. In part 3 the state designates the languages it seeks to protect. At this level of commitment, thirty-five concrete steps must be taken in the eight fields (education, judicial authorities, administrative authorities and public services, media, cultural activities and facilities, economic and social life, and transfrontier exchanges). Part 4 deals with application and monitoring, while part 5 treats signing and ratification (EuroParl 2017b, 17–18).   8 Romanes is a familiar way that Roma refer to the language, which is also referred to as Romani. The term Romani increasingly has social, political, and academic currency. Its usage implies the whole language and is inclusive of all the dialects. Since no one dialect is officially standardized, Romani language actually denotes the sixty to eighty dialects spoken and used.

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  9 See the European Roma Rights Centre (ERR C ) website at http://www.errc. org/. 10 Although this report focuses on states seeking recent EU accession, it is important to note that many locations in and outside the EU offer classes on the Romani language. In terms of attempts to integrate Romani within a national curriculum, the most salient example is in Romania (see EuroParl 2017b and Sarau 2009). 11 “Incoining … involves combining already existing morphemes in the language in innovative combinations either having no exterior model, or else being calques on another language … Phrasing involves replacing a single, athematic (non-native) item where it has become lost with a descriptive phrase employing native vocabulary … Native retrieval … consists of reviving obsolete words from the historical native stock to augment the contemporary lexicon … Foreign adoption means simply the acquisition of new lexical items from any athematic source” (Hancock 2010, 124). 12 RomLex was created by the Romani Project, a partnership between the University of Manchester (http://romani.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/ atmanchester/projects/romlex.shtml) and the University of Graz (http:// romani.uni-graz.at/romlex/). 13 See http://iromaniunion.org/, 2018. 14 See Roma Times (Roma News Portal), 2017, Skopje, http://www.­ romatimes.news/index.php/en-us/. 15 See Rom Archive, Digital Archive of the Roma (blog), 2017, https://blog. romarchive.eu/.

R efer enc e s Amnesty International. 2015. “The Stunted Education of Romani Children in Europe.” 8 April. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/ 2015/04/the-stunted-education-of-romani-children-in-europe/. Blommaert, Jan. 2015. “Pierre Bourdieu: Perspectives on Language in Society.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, edited by Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, 1–16. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Centre d’information sur les institutions européenes (C IIE). 2017. Member States of the European Union and Council of Europe. Strasbourg: CI I E. http://en.strasbourg-europe.eu/member-states,44987, en.html. Chumbow, Beban Sammy. 2009. “Linguistic Diversity, Pluralism and National Development in Africa.” In Africa Development 34 (2): 21–45. – 2012. “The Challenge of Linguistic Diversity and Pluralism: The Tier Stratification Model of Language Planning in a Multilingual Setting.” In Social Sciences and Cultural Studies – Issues of Language, Public

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Opinion, Education and Welfare, edited by Asuncion Lopez-Varela. doi: 10.5772/52167. CoE (Council of Europe). 2005. “Policy Paper on the Romani Language.” 14 November 2005. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. http://romani. humanities.manchester.ac.uk/virtuallibrary/librarydb/web/files/pdfs/326/ VL-136.pdf and https://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/ERTF_ foreword_EN.doc. – 2008. A Curriculum Framework for Romani. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. https://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/source/rom_cufrromani 2008_en.pdf. – 2014. “Romani – Documents and Tools.” In Education and Languages: Language Policy. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Strasbourg: Council of Europe. http://www.coe. int/t/dg4/linguistic/Romani_doc_EN.asp. – 2017a. Details of Treaty No. 148: European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. http://www.coe. int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/148. – 2017b. Monitoring the Implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. http://www.coe.int/en/web/minorities/monitoring. – 2017c. Text of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. http://www.coe.int/en/web/ european-charter-regional-or-minority-languages/text-of-the-charter (unofficial Romani translation: https://rm.coe.int/16806d35e9). Commissioner for Human Rights. 2012. Human Rights of Roma and Travellers in Europe. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. https://www.coe. int/t/commissioner/source/prems/prems79611_GBR_CouvHuman RightsOfRoma_WEB.pdf. Dokumentations und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma (Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma). 2017. Sinti & Roma. http://www.sintiundroma.de/en/sinti-roma.html. Đurić, Rajko. 2005. Gramatika e Rromane Čhibaki. Nakhadipe pe ­rromani čhib. Belgrade: OTKPOBEњe . – 2012. Standardizacija romskog jezika. Sarajevo: Udruženje Kali Sara Romski Informativni Centar. Eder-Jordan, Beate. 2016. “Oral and Written Šukar Laviben of the Roma: The Beginning of a Romani Literary Historiography.” Trans. Maria Witting. In Or Words to That Effect: Orality and the Writing of Literary History, edited by Daniel F. Chamberlain and J. Edward Chamberlin, 194–205. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.

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A f t e rword

Diversity Must Remain Diverse Gillian Lane-Mercier

Formulating concluding remarks to a book whose stated objective is to apprehend, within multiple disciplinary and methodological frameworks and with respect to multiple contexts spanning four continents, the myriad questions, issues, and paradoxes raised by linguistic and cultural diversity management in today’s globalized world could be deemed, like policy making, a paradoxical exercise in its own right. Indeed, the volume’s rich interdisciplinarity and geopolitical representation appear to argue against conclusions that might undermine this richness by introducing an advocacy perspective we have sought to avoid or by attempting to tease out of the ten case studies presented best practices, clear policy recommendations, next steps, and an action plan for the short, medium, or long term. As posited by François Grin and illustrated in each successive chapter, not only does the very notion of diversity by definition eschew reduction and synthesis, invariably associated with assimilative and homogenizing ideologies, but also linguistic and cultural diversity in our global era are characterized by an ever-increasing complexity. This is due, on the one hand, to the multi-faceted historical, socioeconomic, ethno-linguistic, demographic, and political processes informing them and, on the other hand, to the differential components they comprise, some of which have been exacerbated by globalization, post-­colonialism, rights-based activism, and immigration flows, among other factors. As Grin further posits, “policies of official multiculturalism and multilingualism are more necessary, but also more complex than ever. Much work remains to be done to improve our understanding of this complexity” thereby anticipating, at once, the real complexities of the specific policies analyzed in this volume and the

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difficulty in answering, from a comparative perspective, what we identified in the Introduction as one of the key questions the contributors sought to reflect on: “What language policies, or ‘legal rules’ can be developed or, if they already exist, chosen to maximize linguistic and, by extension, cultural diversity on the national and international levels?” It could well be that readers should simply be invited to re-read the conclusions to each chapter so as not to lose sight of the crucial links between context-specific processes and the context-specific language policies they underpin, no matter how informed by global developments. For one of the book’s most salient strengths, we believe, is that by improving our understanding of these links together with the global-local dynamics in which they partake, the authors have done exactly what Grin called for. In this light, perhaps the first “conclusion” to the book is that there are no universal “legal rules” or best practices, as recent research on diversity and equity suggests and as the example of Romani brings squarely into focus. Perhaps action plans, be they essentially top-down (e.g. Nigeria, Algeria, Wales, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Canada) or bottom-up (e.g. protection of Inuktitut, Francoprovençal, Romani), should not, indeed cannot, be generalized. In other words, perhaps the most constructive way to deal with paradoxical disconnects between de jure and de facto policies is to recalibrate the power relations between institutionalized official language legislation and grassroots initiatives or “on the ground” attitudes, perceptions, and language use by leveraging the latter to foster, as Grin also notes, dynamic, hence sustainable public policies for diversity management. It is, after all, on the micro and meso levels where the ethos of diversity plays itself out on a daily basis and where “toleration” of boundaries can be gauged. Even macro-level entities such as the United Nations and the European Union have their own political, ideological, economic, and historical roots that belie, according to some, the Eurocentrism (read: colonialism) of their charters and universal declarations (see George 2017, 50–53). While several authors, including Akinpelu, Conrick, Folaron, and Guehria, point to other models of official multilingualism or to supranational language rights legislation as potential solutions to local policy shortcomings or failures,1 and while all the contributors acknowledge the impact of global-local interactions on the local per se, each one stresses the importance of realigning, from within a local, bottom-up perspective, conflicting de

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jure and de facto linguistic policies, practices, and traditions that may have little or no resonance in other geopolitical spheres. This last point is clearly borne out by the case studies on the revitalization of Irish and Welsh, for example: despite territorial proximity and similar histories of British colonization and despite, too, similarities in official language and educational policies, the preservation and use of Irish and Welsh are facing different challenges and different types of local and international success that beg the question of the extent to which these may be met – or accounted for – by a common set of policy recommendations. Whether a given language policy is designed to achieve “unity in diversity” (UNESCO, Luxembourg), foster diversity in unity (Canada, Italy), counter diversity in the name of unity (Algeria), or counter unity in the name of diversity (Kazkhstan, Nigeria), the authors do not let us forget that diversity is diverse, owing to the complexity of its various components, dissimilar geopolitical contexts, transnational phenomena of border crossings, translation, and dispersal, as well as the increase in subjective diversity due to globalization (Grin). Nor do they let us forget that the concept of linguistic and cultural diversity itself, together with the democratic values and principles it presupposes – inclusion, social cohesion, shared identity, participatory citizenship, self-determination, equality, social justice – are equally subject to varying interpretations, as are the selection and implementation of official multilingualism policies ostensibly designed to uphold them. For example, it is telling that the principle of social (or national) cohesion can be mobilized in defence of multilingualism legislation that protects some communities while voluntarily marginalizing, disadvantaging, or excluding others (Shadd, Garcia) or that, by revalorizing the language(s) of the ethnic majority or majorities, leads to (re)newed forms of diglossia and monolingualism (Baer and Sagyndykova, Akinpelu). As is well known, the same principle has also been largely mobilized to reject multilingualism and multiculturalism (Guehria), as evidenced by historical nation-building ideologies predicated on the ideal of one nation, one people, one language, and, more recently, the “melting pot.” As the book demonstrates, then, diversity as a concept is subject to wide variations in what Grin refers to as symbolic and material meaning across political regimes, ethno-linguistic divides, migratory patterns, socio-economic imbalances, and evolving, historically informed circumstances. This entails the constant (re)negotiation of boundaries

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if diversity is to remain diverse in a world dominated by (neoliberal) threatening languages, language loss, acculturation, delocalizing forces, and celebrations of borderlessness symptomatic of the “destruction of diversity” (Grin). In this respect, initiatives to standardize Indigenous or minority languages so as to enhance their status and facilitate their transmission, for example, are particularly paradoxical; aimed at ensuring not only cultural and linguistic diversity, but the very survival of endangered languages, standardization is also associated with hegemonic practices and ultimate loss of diversity. Which Romani dialect should be privileged (Folaron)? Which Inuit script (Patrick) or phonetic transcription of Francoprovençal as spoken in Apulia (Di Biase) should be adopted? To what extent would official recognition and standardization of Nigerian Pidgin English relieve severe ethnolinguistic tensions, safeguard national unity, counteract English and French dominance, yet potentially jeopardize the long-term survival of any number of Nigeria’s 646 endogenous languages (Akinpelu)? To what extent would not resorting to standardization or codification also result, ultimately, in loss of linguistic and cultural diversity? Thus, while it seems unwise to generalize legal rules, best practices, and next steps, a rapidly unfolding consensus among the contributors suggests a possible second “conclusion” to the book: unsustainable language policies invariably limit, constrain, short-circuit, manipulate, instrumentalize, or simply refuse to acknowledge the differential complexity and “depth” of the components of cultural and linguistic diversity, which Grin considers crucial to sustainable diversity management in a globalized world. It follows that, by serving as indicators of barriers to sustainability, the shortcomings of the official multilingualism policies examined offer a powerful lens through which to envision, inductively or a contrario, the future articulation of policy recommendations for corrective measures in the context of each case study. The point to be made here is that, in the initial instance, these barriers must also be construed as context-specific, to wit: the Canadian government’s perpetuation of settler colonialism via covertly assimilative language policies; top-down policies that generate identitary insecurity among linguistic and ethnic communities in Kazakhstan and Algeria; specific forms of exclusion that consolidate the power of Luxembourg’s multilingual political elite by reinforcing monoculturalism; de jure policies lacking guidelines for the implementation of mandatory English–Welsh translations of public

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documents; insufficient de jure provisions to support local initiatives aimed at enhancing the use of Francoprovençal; the absence of opportunities to use Irish outside the classroom or the courtroom; chronic lack of infrastructural support to teach Nigeria’s two official languages and three national languages; and continuing national and transnational discrimination of Romani despite de jure support provided by supranational entities such as the Council of Europe and the European Union. However, as underscored in the Introduction, many of these barriers overlap and combine to provide the overarching themes of the volume, most notably with respect to issues of policy implementation. Put differently, by outlining what a sustainable official multilingual policy might look like in a given geopolitical context, the case studies allow for the articulation not so much of best practices or clear-cut answers to the question of what is to be done from an overall perspective but rather of guidelines or possible action points regarding certain types of policy deficiencies, or “worst practices,” be they symbolic (e.g. lack of political will) or material (e.g. lack of infrastructural support). In this respect, unsustainable policy features are worth their weight in gold, insofar as they imply general principles of sustainable official multilingual policies, as opposed to proven recommendations that should remain a moot point if only to resist homogenization: one size will not fit all. Despite their initial contextual dependency, principles and guidelines on how action plans could be designed and implemented to rectify specific types of policy failure thus appear to be readily transferable to other contexts. Indeed, although some authors (Shadd, Akinpelu, Garcia, Guehria) are more pessimistic than others regarding the implementation of sustainable linguistic and cultural diversity management policies in their respective countries, one is struck by what several see as encouraging successes. These include the recognition of the Inuit language as one of three official languages, with French and English, in the Inuit territory of Nunavut (Patrick), which attests to the fact that official policies can be Indigenized; the recognition of Irish as an official language of the E U, thereby enhancing visibility and opening up employment perspectives (Conrick); the strong political will to see Welsh thrive in all aspects of civic daily life (Llewellyn); and the gradual convergence of de jure and de facto policies to recognize transnational Romani language rights and social integration of Roma (Folaron). These successes further include the identification of

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contemporary trends, tools, and research strategies that can be leveraged to consolidate diversity management sustainability, such as recourse to large-scale surveys to measure levels of “toleration” toward otherness within a given population (Grin); the use of information technologies to facilitate linguistic standardization (Di Biase), interdialectal communication (Folaron), and translation between the minority and majority official languages (Llewellyn); or the compilation of ethnographic data derived, for example, from semi-directed interviews to better determine patterns of and attitudes toward language use in day-to-day life (Baer and Sagyndykova, Guehria). The case studies can therefore be considered representative and relevant, pointing at once to negative and positive outcomes of contemporary language policy design and implementation that, when taken together, have the potential to shape the future of official multilingualism across a broad spectrum of polities and contexts. As we have seen, positive outcomes are more often than not a consequence of bottom-up, micro-level initiatives that are better equipped to take stock of the true complexity and depth of diversity, whereas negative outcomes highlight the extent to which governments and international bodies are unable to manage complex linguistic diversity on an effective and sustained basis, even when the political will is there, as a result of a combination of historical, social, political, demographic, and economic factors. Although one should not conclude that all governmental and supranational language policies are automatically doomed to failure, more attention needs to be paid to the paradoxical disconnects between explicit (de jure) and implicit (de facto) policies, between the components and levels of diversity, as well as between simple and dynamic sustainability as defined by Grin and foregrounded in each chapter. These disconnects, along with the paradoxes they expose, open up an extremely rich and promising field for further research, thus confirming the book’s overall objective. It is fitting, then, to end on a paradoxical note that echoes a remark made in the Introduction; namely, the official language policies presented in this volume are not so much imperfect as inherently paradoxical. They do and do not, albeit in different ways and for different reasons, contribute to the safeguarding and sustaining of cultural and linguistic diversity. Some readers may find it disheartening to read a book that undoubtedly raises more questions than it can answer and whose most compelling overarching theme is paradox. We would submit, however, that acknowledging the relevance of paradox and

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continuing to ask questions – especially this other key question raised in the Introduction: are contemporary language and cultural management models in fact contributing to cultural diversity? – are the most fruitful “next steps” from a conceptual, political, and practical point of view. The practical or analytical relevance of paradox, with its political implications, has been made abundantly clear by the case studies. From a conceptual standpoint, however, it is helpful to recall the definition of paradox, which refers to a “situation or statement that seems impossible or difficult to understand because it contains two opposite facts or characteristics” (Cambridge Dictionary), a “situation, act, etc. that seems to have contradictory qualities” (Collins Dictionary), an “opinion that conflicts with common belief” (ibid.), a “statement or proposition which, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems logically inacceptable or self-contradictory” (Oxford Dictionary). It is not difficult to make the conceptual leaps required to metaphorically align these definitions with actual de jure and de facto language policy incompatibilities. Nor is it difficult to situate paradox at the core of an ethos of diversity grounded in otherness, as well as in the necessity of recognizing and maintaining the boundaries between the mutually distinct components that comprise cultural and linguistic diversity in order to negotiate them in a sustainable way. In other words, while there may well be no best practices and no overreaching action plan applicable to several, let alone all, contexts of official multilingualism, the ethos of diversity, the concepts of complex and deep diversity, along with the ethical, political, and ideological imperative of upholding boundaries so as to ensure diversity remains diverse, all have practical policy repercussions, for they articulate ways to think about the underlying assumptions that should guide policy making. To the extent these assumptions may be generalized, they can serve both as a framework and a springboard to reflect further on the second objective of the “Main lines of an action plan for the implementation of the U N E S C O Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity,” cited in our Introduction and reproduced here in the hope that it has acquired additional conceptual, political, and practical significance: to “[a]dvanc[e] in the definition of principles, standards and practices, on both the national and the international levels, as well as of awareness-raising modalities and patterns of

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cooperation, that are most conducive to the safeguarding and promotion of cultural diversity” (UNE SC O 2002, point 2, 6). To this, we shall add the nineteenth objective, insofar as it gives currency to the attention paid by all contributors to bottom-up, grassroots initiatives and to the potential dangers of exclusionary, top-down diversity management policies: to “[i]nvolv[e] all sectors of civil society closely in framing public policies aimed at safeguarding and promoting cultural diversity” (UNE SC O 2002, point 19, 7). Which is to say, it would indeed be rash to underestimate or curtail the creative possibilities of conceptual, political, and practical paradoxes for sustainable official multilingual policies. As Grin has shown, whereas diversity has always existed, paradox as an objective and a subjective, “on the ground” defining feature of globalization and the processes it regulates, including policy making, is new. Paradox is vital to sustainable diversity management policies in a global world and, as such, lends itself to further investigation from a multidisciplinary language planning and policy perspective.

N otes   1 Interestingly, a delegation of members of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s Language Committee, which is currently involved in the creation of a standard written form of Inuktitut, travelled to Wales in December 2016 to learn how Welsh is promoted and how it has been saved from extinction (C B C 2016).

R efer enc e s C B C (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). 2016. “How to Save a Dwindling Language: Inuit Fly to Wales and Back.” 20 December. Accessed 13 January 2018. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/ welsh-inuktitut-save-language-inuit-canada-wales-1.3904064. Cambridge Dictionary. “Paradox.” Accessed 4 January 2018. https://­ dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/paradox. Collins Dictionary. “Paradox.” Accessed 4 January 2018. https://­ dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/paradox. George, Rachel Yacaaʔal. 2017. “Inclusion Is Just the Canadian Word for Assimilation: Self-Determination and the Reconciliation Paradigm in Canada.” In Surviving Canada: Indigenous Peoples Celebrate 150 Years of Betrayal, edited by Kiera L. Ladner and Myra J. Tait, 49–62. Winnipeg: ARP Books.

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Oxford Dictionary. “Paradox.” Accessed 4 January 2018. https://en.oxford dictionaries.com/definition/paradox. UNE S C O . 2002. Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity: A Vision. A Conceptual Platform. A Pool of Ideas for Implementation. A New Paradigm. Cultural Diversity Series No. 1. 2018. phttp://unesdoc. unesco.org/images/0012/001271/127162e.pdf.

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Contributors

M i c h a e l A k i n p e l u has taught at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan since 2016. His research interests include language policies and their impact on sustainable development in multilingual environments, teaching of French as foreign or second language in multilingual non-francophone settings, language-in-education policies evaluation, and compared Francophonie. His recent publications include “L’implantation du français comme deuxième langue officielle au Nigéria” (2016) and “Politique linguistique et développement durable au Nigéria” (in press). BRIAN JAMES BAER is professor of Russian and translation studies at Kent State University, where he teaches translation-related courses at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels. He has published widely on the topic of translation and sexuality. He is the author of the monographs Other Russias: Homosexuality and the Crisis of Post-Soviet Identity (2009) and Translation and the Making of Modern Russian Literature (2016), as well as the editor of several collected volumes, including Beyond the Ivory Tower: Re-thinking Translation Pedagogy with Geoffrey Koby (2003), Contexts, Subtexts, Pretexts: Literary Translation in Eastern Europe and Russia (2011), Researching Translation and Interpreting with Claudia Angelelli (2015), Translation in Russian Contexts with Susanna Witt (2018), and Queering Translation, Translating the Queer with Klaus Kaindl (2018). He is founding editor of the journal Translation and Interpreting Studies and co-editor of the Bloomsbury book series Literatures, Cultures, Translation. He is currently completing a monograph on queer theory and translation studies for the book series Advances in Translation Studies, edited by Michael Cronin and Moira Inghilleri.

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Ma ev e C onr i c k is professor and former principal of the College of Arts and Humanities at University College Dublin. She has published extensively in books and journals in the areas of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics, with particular reference to language issues in Canada, France, and Ireland. Among her book publications are the co-edited volumes Landscapes and Landmarks of Canada: Real, Imagined, (Re)viewed (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017) and Multiculturalism and Integration: Canadian and Irish Experiences (University of Ottawa Press, 2010). Her journal publications include articles in the British Journal of Canadian Studies, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, and Québec Studies. She is a former president of the Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland and a recipient of the Prix du Québec. She is currently a trustee of the Ireland-Canada University Foundation and a member of the Board of the National Library of Ireland, appointed by the Government of Ireland, and was previously appointed by a UK House of Commons Committee as a specialist advisor on language policy. In 2017, she was the first Irish academic to receive the Governor General’s International Award for Canadian Studies. A D R I A N A D I B I A S E is currently affiliated with the University of Foggia (Italy), where she teaches foreign language courses and is an English-language subject expert for the department. She holds a PhD in translation studies from Kent State University and wrote her dissertation on multilingualism and the translation of dialect in English and Italian fiction. She has presented at both national and international conferences and has published peer-reviewed articles, including “Portrait of a Translator: William Weaver and the Dissemination of Italian Literature in Postwar US” and “Translation as an Instance for Protecting Multilingualism: The Case of Erri De Luca’s Il giorno prima della felicità in English.” Her primary research interests include corpus linguistics applied to translation, cultural studies, and Italian language, culture, and literature. In addition to her work at the University of Foggia, she has taught foreign language courses, intercultural communication, and computer-assisted translation at the graduate and undergraduate levels at Kent State University and the University of Akron (Ohio). She has also worked for seven years in the language industry as a freelance translator and interpreter. DEB B IE F O L A R ON is associate professor of translation studies at Concordia University in Montreal. Her current research focuses on

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translation in the contexts of technologies and contemporary digital society, multilingualism, minority translation, Romani, oral history, and social justice. She is co-general editor of the international academic journal Translation Spaces: A Multidisciplinary, Multimedia, and Multilingual Journal of Translation. Her multilingual website Translation Romani was launched in 2011 and presents Romani and translation as two worlds of knowledge in relation to one another and to other world languages and cultures. She is core member of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University and member of the Montreal-based N G O Romanipe. N ú r ia Ga rc i a holds a PhD in political science from Sciences Po Paris in France. She is currently a research fellow at the Institute for Social Sciences at the University of Augsburg in Germany where she participates in the European research project Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe (MIME). Her research interests are in the fields of comparative politics and public policy analysis, and her research focuses on the politics and policies of language in relation with citizenship, state-building, and nationhood in Europe. Since 2016 she has been vice-chair of the research committee RC50 “The politics of language” of the International Political Science Association. Her recent publications include “Pourquoi les Français parlent-ils mal anglais? Les limites de l’action publique dans le domaine du gouvernement des langues,” Politique et Sociétés (2017); “Linguistic Justice for Which Demos? The Democratic Legitimacy of Language Regime Choices,” European and Regional Studies (2016); and “Tensions between Cultural and Utilitarian Dimensions of Language: A Comparative Analysis of ‘Multilingual’ Education Policies in France and Germany,” Current Issues in Language Planning (2015). F R A N Ç O I S G R I N is professor of economics at the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting of the University of Geneva, where he also teaches courses in the management of multilingualism and language policy evaluation. He has held teaching and research appointments at the University of Montréal and the University of Washington (Seattle) and has served as deputy director of the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg, Germany, and of the Education Research Unit of the Geneva Department of Education. He is coauthor of The Economics of the Multilingual Workplace (Routledge 2010) and has published widely on language economics and language policy, both in edited volumes and in journals such as the International

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Political Science Review, Kyklos, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Language Policy, Journal of Sociolinguistics, etc. He advises national and regional authorities on questions of language policy selection and design and has steered several large-scale research projects for national and international agencies. He is the coordinator of the MIME project (Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe, 2014–18) financed by the European Commission in Framework Programme 7 and, as of 2018, is the editor-in-chief of Language Problems and Language Planning. W aj i h G u e h r i a is senior lecturer (H A D – Habilité à Diriger des Recherches) at the University of Souk-Ahras, Algeria. He obtained his PhD in linguistics in 2009. He taught French linguistics from 2006 to 2011 at Paris Nanterre University where he is still a member of the MoDyCo laboratory. His research focuses on the structure of the French language, the teaching of French, and situations of linguistic and cultural contact in France and Algeria. As part of the Multicultural Paris French team, he has conducted and analyzed numerous sociolinguistic surveys. He has presented papers on the Parisian “suburbs” at university conferences and has given interviews as well as published several articles on the subject. His interest in Algeria has led him to develop new models of diglossic schemes in line with the complexity of the spaces and the language policies adopted. His work has been published in scientific journals and volumes including Langue Française (France), Insaniyat (Algeria), Expressions maghrebines (United States), De l’université à l’entreprise: les métiers de l’interculturel (France), and Regards croisés sur la banlieue (United Kingdom). J A N E K O U S T A S is a professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Brock University, Ontario, where she also directed Canadian Studies. She served as the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at University College Dublin and was associate dean, Faculty of Humanities, at Brock University. Her research interests include English-Canadian literature in translation, translation theory and practice, translation history in Canada, Québec theatre, and theatre translation. She is the co-editor of Landscapes and Landmarks of Canada: Real, Imagined, (Re)viewed with Maeve Conrick, Munroe Eagles, and Caitriona NiChasaide; Plurilinguisme

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et pluriculturalisme: Des modèles officiels dans le monde with Gillian Lane-Mercier and Denise Merkle; Canadian Studies: Past, Present, Praxis with Christl Verduyn; Translating from the Margins / Traduire depuis les marges with Denise Merkle et al.; Robert Lepage: Théâtre sans frontières: Essays on the Dramatic Universe of Robert Lepage with Joe Donohoe; and Vision / Division: l’oeuvre de Nancy Huston with Marta Dvorak. She published Les belles étrangères: Canadians in Paris (2008) and Robert Lepage on the Toronto Stage: Language, Identity, Nation (2016). In 2017, she was awarded the James A. Flaherty Visiting Professorship to pursue a comparative study of Québec and Irish theatre. G I L L I A N L A N E - M E R C I E R is a professor in the Département de langue et littérature françaises at McGill University. Her research interests include literary theory, discourse analysis, translation studies, the sociology of translation, the history of literary translation in Canada, English-language writing in Québec, the literary representation and translation of minority languages, and Canada’s official language and cultural policies. She has published widely on her areas of expertise in European and North American journals, as well as in a number of edited volumes. Her most recent work on Canadian cultural policy and linguistic diversity has appeared in Engaging with Diversity: Multidisciplinary Reflections on Plurality from Québec (Peter Lang 2018), Traduire la diversité / Translating Diversity (Waxmann, forthcoming), The Fictions of Translation (John Benjamins Publishing 2018), Collaborative Translation (Bloomsbury 2017), Companion to Translation Studies (Wiley-Blackwell 2014), Recherches sociographiques (2014), and Meta (2014). She has edited or co-edited thematic issues of Québec Studies, TTR , TransCulturAl, and Meta, as well as a collected volume on official language policies entitled Plurilinguisme et pluriculturalisme: Des modèles officiels dans le monde (Presses de l’Université de Montréal 2016). ANASTASIA LLEWELLYN completed her thesis, entitled “Saviour of the Language? The Role and Impact of the Welsh Bible,” to obtain a master’s in translation studies from Concordia University, where she has also lectured at the undergraduate level. She was president of the Graduate Student Association in Translation, as well as a member of the organizing committee of the Odyssée de la Traductologie / Voyages in Translation graduate student conference. In 2017, her involvement

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earned her the Québec Lieutenant Governor’s Youth Medal. In 2018, she was selected by the Canadian Association for Translation Studies to give the Judith Woodsworth Lecture at the association’s annual conference. As an anglophone born and raised in Québec, she is particularly interested in minority language policy, as well as the link between language, culture, and identity. She intends to pursue doctoral work on the subject. D E N I S E M E R K L E is professor of translation at the Université de Moncton and former president of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies. Her research interests include literary translation studies and translation history, with a focus on sociological approaches, and her interdisciplinary publications focus on the translating subject and manifestations of intercultural and interlinguistic cohabitation and contact on translation products (e.g. textual manipulation). She has published journal articles in, for example, Translating and Interpreting Studies and Cadernos de Tradução, as well as chapters in collected works such as Translation Effects: The Shaping of Modern Canadian Culture (McGill-Queen’s 2014), Paradoxes du plurilinguisme littéraire 1900 (P.I.E. Peter Lang 2015), and the Routledge Handbook of Translation and Politics (2018). Furthermore, she has edited three thematic issues of TTR (2002 and 2010 on censorship, and 2009 on comparative literature) and co-edited journal issues (e.g. Alternative francophone 2008 and Meta 2014) as well as collected works (e.g. The Power of the Pen: Translation and Censorship in Nineteenth-century Europe, Lit Verlag 2010; Territoires de l’interculturalité, Presses de l’Université Laval 2013; and Plurilinguisme et pluriculturalisme: Des modèles officiels dans le monde, Presses de l’Université de Montréal 2016). DONNA PATRICK is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, Ottawa. Her research in linguistic anthropology focuses on Indigenous and minority language politics, rights, and practices and has included work on language endangerment, language socialization, language education policy and practice, critical literacies, and social semiotics. Her most recent work involves participatory action research with Inuit in Ottawa and Montreal; this explores Inuit identities, life histories, literacies, and the construction of place in transnational contexts through objects, food, stories, and, most recently, community radio.

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Deb or ah Sh a d d is manager of translation research and training at the Nida Institute and dean of admissions for the Nida School of Translation Studies. She holds a PhD in translation studies and Canadian studies from the University of Ottawa and has held a number academic positions at Canadian universities, teaching both translation theory and practice and applied linguistics. She has additionally worked as a freelance translator. Her research focuses on the intersection of language and education policy in the formation of cultural identity among linguistic minority groups in Canada, as well as on post-colonial translation theory, political discourse, and the maintenance and management of Canadian multiculturalism. Z HA ILA GUL SA GY ND Y K OV A holds a PhD in philology and is currently associate professor of English at Kokshetau State University, Kazakhstan. Her interdisciplinary research interests include linguistics, multilingualism, and internationalization of higher education. Her main publications have appeared in the Journal of International Research in Higher Education, The Aitmatov Academy Journal, and Bulletin Almanac of the France-Kazakhstan Scholarly Association France-Kazakhstan. She has presented at numerous international conferences, including at the 8th Annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, and the Rural Environment, Education, Personality (REEP) conference in Latvia. As a visiting scholar she has worked in collaboration with Boston College’s Center for International Higher Education and Penn State University’s Global Office. Dr Sagydynkova received a Best Teacher Award in 2016 from the Kazakh government. Her research monograph on trilingual policy in Kazakhstan, which analyzes the present condition of Kazakh, Russian, and English in the northern part of the country, was published in 2017.

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Page numbers in italics refer to figures and tables. Abacha, Sani, 239, 244, 245 Abdelmoumen (caliph of Morocco), 259 Aboriginal languages. See Indigenous (Aboriginal) languages Académie de la langue arabe (Algerian Academy of the Arabic Language), 256 Actioun Lëtzebuergech, 67 Adam, Dyane, 164 Adélard-Tremblay, Marc, 197 Africa, language policies in, 231– 47; and colonial languages, 231, 235, 236, 240, 247; and education, 234, 235; endoglossic, exoglossic, 233–4; and goal to promote independence from Western control, 234; Indigenous languages in, 234; multilingualism in, 231; national and sectoral policies in, 234; and Nazam Halaoui’s typology for colonial language, 234, 236, 240 African Union, 286 Akinpelu, Michael, 25

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Albania, 292, 299 Albanian (language), 109, 299, 302; Arbëresh, 118 Algeria, 6, 25–6, 251–69, 316, 317, 318; and Algerian identity, 258, 263, 264, 265, 269, 318; and Arabization, 264–5, 266; arabophonists vs francophonists in, 254, 255, 257–8, 260, 264, 267– 8; constitution of, 251, 252, 269; and creation of Haut commissariat à l’Amazighité (High Commission for Amazighity), 252, 268–9; cultural and linguistic diversity in, 26, 251–69, 252; cultural and symbolic status of French in, 26, 251, 253, 254, 255–6, 257, 261–2, 263, 264–5, 266–8; diglossia in, 255–6, 264; and French colonialism, 25, 251, 252, 253, 257, 260, 262; Indigenous languages and cultures in, 165; Islam in, 258, 260, 262, 265; Journal officiel de la République algérienne démocratique et populaire (J O), 266; and

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language of education, 252, 253, 258–9, 262, 264, 265–6; language legislation and policy in, 255–6, 259–62, 264–6, 268; language survey in, 26, 254–5, 257, 260–7, 268, 270n6; “Les jeunes algériens déconstruisent la symbiose identitaire” (“Young Algerians Deconstruct the Identitary Symbiosis”), 268; privileging of Arab / Islamic identities in, 251, 253, 254; rewriting of history in, 26, 256–60, 261–2, 264; treatment of bi-nationals in, 251–2; and war of independence, 6, 26, 252, 257, 258, 259, 271n12 Algeria, languages spoken in: Amazigh (official language), 26, 251, 252, 253, 255, 260, 261, 267, 268–9, 272n32; Arabic, Algerian, 26, 28, 253–4, 260–1, 263; Arabic, classical, 26, 254, 262; Arabic, official, 26, 253–4, 255, 256, 260, 263, 265, 267–8, 269; English, 255, 256; French, 26, 253, 254, 255–6, 260–1, 263, 267; Italian, 253; Kabyle, 260–1, 262; Latin, 253; Spanish, 253 Althusser, Louis, 189–90 Amazigh (language), 26, 28, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 260, 261, 267, 268–9, 270n2, 272n32 Andaman Islands, 40; Aka-Bo ­spoken in, 40 Apulia (Italy), 105, 106, 109, 111, 112, 113, 120, 318; Albanian spoken in, 109; Celle di San Vito, 112, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120; Faeto, 112–13, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121n5; and

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Francoprovençal cultural events (Francoprovençal Day), 118; Francoprovençal spoken in, 105, 106, 111, 114–19; Modern Greek spoken in, 109; preservation and protection of Francoprovençal in, 106, 114– 19. See also Francoprovençal (language) Arabic (language), 25, 26, 28, 87, 92, 236, 252, 253, 263, 264, 266–8, 288; Algerian, 26, 28, 253–4, 260–1, 263; classical, 26, 253, 254, 262; Koranic, 253, 269; official (Algeria), 253–4, 255–6, 263, 265, 267, 268, 269 Argentina, 43, 52 Ascoli, Graziadio Isaia, 107–8, 109; Proemio to Archivio Glottologico Italiano, 107–8 Assembly of First Nations (A FN), 210; and call for official recognition of First Nations languages, 210–12. See also National Indian Brotherhood Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing, 115 Augustine, Saint, 259 Australia, 52, 171, 280, 289; Pitjantjatjara-Yankunytjantjara spoken in, 47 Austria, 294 Azerbaijan, 86 Baer, Brian, 18, 19, 91, 92, 93 Bamgbose, Ayo, 244 Bangor University, 143; Translation in Non-State Cultures: Perspectives from Wales, 143; Centre for the Standardization of

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Welsh Terminology, 143–4; Porth Termau (National Terminology Portal), 143 Bashkortostan, 87 Basque (language), 143 Beirão, Delfina, 77–8 Belgium, 7, 66, 69, 76; Brussels, 8, 39, 55n4, 63; official language model in, 9 Benghabrit, Nouria, 262 Benin, 235 Berger, Thomas, 219; and 2006 report on Nunavut land claims, 219 bilingualism, 45–6, 115, 191–7, 205, 294, 302; in education, 91, 192, 193–5, 298; official, 7, 9, 21, 22, 23–4, 65–6, 129, 132, 135–9, 141–2, 146, 147, 153–74, 187, 191, 192–3, 201–2, 210, 212, 213, 216. See also entries under Canada Blommaert, Jan, 304 Bonomo, Sara, 116 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 294 Bosnian (language), 70, 302 Botswana, 234 Boudiaf, Mohamed, 258 Bourdieu, Pierre, 46, 68 Bouteflika, Abdelaziz, 268 Brazil, 39, 245, 300 Britain, 20, 21, 23, 126, 128, 129, 232, 242, 245, 280, 317; “multiculturalist” model in, 52; relationship with Wales, 126, 129, 135, 146; Welsh spoken in, 7, 11, 43, 47 Bulgaria, 292 Bulgarian (language), 302 Burkina-Faso, 235

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Burundi, 234, 235 Busch, Brigitta, 88, 90–1, 94 Caïd, Béji, 259 Callet, Auguste, 110; La légende des Gagats, 110 Calvet, Louis-Jean, 3; and ecolinguistic systems, 3; Pour une écologie des langues du monde, 3 Cameroon, 7, 11, 235; and war of independence, 7 Camus, Albert, 42, 55n6 Canada, 7, 11, 12, 22–4, 43, 49, 63, 76, 147, 162–3, 165, 166, 170, 171, 187–207, 210–23, 316, 317; bilingualism in, 23–4, 91, 156, 159, 160, 170, 174n2, 187– 9, 191–7, 202, 210, 212, 213, 216; compared to Ireland, 153, 156, 159, 160, 162, 164, 165, 170; education in, 23, 24, 91, 170, 175n2, 189–90, 191, 192, 193–5, 199–200, 202, 204–5, 210–23; historical settler-­ Indigenous relations in, 23–4, 201, 210, 212–13, 212–15, 318; immigration to, 202, 206; minority languages and cultural groups in, 11, 111, 147, 159, 187, 193– 7, 198, 206, 213; multiculturalism vs integration / assimilation in, 52, 194–6, 198, 210, 213–14, 215, 216, 218, 318; racial hierarchies in, 12, 206, 213, 215, 218, 222; Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–69), 23, 24, 187–9, 188, 190, 191–8, 202–6, 211, 215–16, 217, 218. See also entries that follow, and additional

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entries for: New Brunswick; Nunavut; Québec Canada, education policy related to language in, 23, 24, 91, 170, 175n2, 190, 210–23; in A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada (1966–67) (Hawthorn Report), 198, 199–200, 204–5; and bilingual education, 91, 193–5; and educational outcomes, 219, 220, 221–2; and education in Inuktitut, 218–19; and recommendations in Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 192, 193–5; related to multilingualism and multiculturalism, 190, 207; and role of education in identity formation, 189–90, 196. See also New Brunswick; Nunavut; Quebec Canada, Indigenous languages in, 12, 22–4, 28, 210–23; and Aboriginal language rights, 210–14, 215, 217; Canadian Indigenous Languages Act (proposed), 211, 212; and education, 210–23; importance of for identity, 216; Inuit language policy and politics, 218–22; and need for redress, 212, 213, 222, 223; and resources for, 213, 217, 222; and Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures, 211, 214, 217 Canada, Indigenous populations, status and rights of, 187–9, 197– 200, 203–5, 206, 210–23; A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada (1966–67)

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(Hawthorn Report), 23, 24, 187– 9, 188, 197–200, 206; “Citizens Plus” (the Red Paper), 188, 216; Department of Indian Affairs, 216; and education, 210–23; First Nations, 210, 212, 213, 215, 216; formal recognition of, 215; Indian Act, 203, 210, 211, 213, 216; Indian Affairs Branch, 197, 204, 206; Inuit, 7, 210, 211, 212, 213, 218–22, 318, 319; Métis, 210, 213; residential schooling, 210, 214, 217, 223n1, 223n3; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (R C A P), 211, 214, 216; “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969” (the White Paper), 188, 203–5, 211, 215, 216; and treaty rights, land claims, 211, 213, 216, 218, 219, 222; and Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TR C ), 206, 210, 211, 213–14, 217, 222 Canada, languages spoken in: Anishinaabe-Ojibway, 12; English (official language), 24, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195–6, 197, 200, 201–2, 204, 206, 210, 213, 215, 217, 220; French (official language), 8, 12, 23, 24, 28, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195–6, 197, 200, 201–2, 204, 210, 213, 215, 217, 220; Inuktitut, 12, 24, 43, 211, 218–22, 316, 319; Inuktut, 220; Nehiyaw-Cree, 12, 219. See also Canada, Indigenous languages in Canada, official language policy in, 8, 9, 11, 24, 156, 160, 162, 188,

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210–23; and bilingualism, 156, 159, 160, 174n2, 187–9, 191–7, 202, 205, 210, 212, 213, 216; British North America Act (1867), 193, 202, 213; and call for official recognition of Indigenous languages, 210–12; Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 159, 214; Commissioner of Official Languages, 160, 162, 164, 165, 202, 206; Constitution Act, 1982, 211, 214; English and French recognized as two official and equal languages, 193, 201–2, 210, 213, 215; official bilingualism in, 23–4, 156, 159, 160, 170, 193, 210, 212, 213, 216; and Official Languages Act (1969), 23, 24, 162, 188, 201–2, 211, 217. See also Canada, Indigenous languages in Cape Verde, 235 Cardinal, Harold, 211, 216; The Unjust Society, 211, 216 Castilian (language), 47 Catalan (language), 47, 113, 143 Central Asia, 85, 86, 87–8; Arabic spoken in, 87; Indigenous languages in, 87; language policies in, 85, 86, 87–8; language use in, 87–8; Russian spoken in, 87 Centro Studi della Lingua Francoprovenzale (CES LI F), 106, 117–18 Chad, 11, 235 Charles of Anjou, 112; and Angevin migration, 112–13 China, 88, 245; Kazakh spoken in, 90, 99n4 Chollatáin, Uí, 171

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Chumbow, Beban Sammy, 247, 286 Colombia, 300 colonialism. See decolonization, effect of on linguistic communities Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (C EFR ), 299 Comoros Islands, 11 Congo, Democratic Republic of, 234, 235; Kikongo spoken in, 234; Lingala spoken in, 234; Luba spoken in, 234; Swahili spoken in, 234 Conrick, Maeve, 21 Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues, 296 CorCenCC (Corpws Cenedlaethol Cymraeg Cyfoes – The National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh), 144 Côte d’Ivoire, 235 Council of Europe (CoE), 113, 287, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 302, 319; and Commissioner for Human Rights, 299; “Committee of Experts on Roma and Travellers,” 302; and Curriculum Framework for Romani (C FR ), 299; and European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (EC R I), 299; and Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, 287 Courthiade, Marcel, 301 Croatia, 285 Cronin, Michael, 126, 131 Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru (Association of Welsh Translators and Interpreters), 136, 142, 145

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Cymdeithias Yr Laith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society), 127, 132, 133; civil disobedience ­campaign of, 132 Czech Republic, 294 Czech (language), 302 Dal Negro, Silvia, 108–9 Dave, Bhavna, 83, 89, 98 D’Azeglio, Massimo, 107 Debray, Régis, 53; Éloge des frontières, 53 Decade of Roma Inclusion, 300 decolonization, effect of on linguistic communities, 6, 8, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23, 24, 25–6, 210, 213, 215, 222, 223, 231, 234–5, 236, 237– 8, 247, 257–8, 260, 262, 264, 282, 286, 315, 316, 318 Di Biase, Adriana, 20; and dynamic, “deep” diversity, 20 diglossia, 18, 26, 86, 87, 109, 255–6, 264, 286, 317 diversity, cultural and linguistic, 3–29, 35–54, 64, 70, 73, 74, 76, 109, 173, 252, 253, 283, 300, 315–22; and acceptance of otherness, difference, 49–51, 316, 320; attitudes toward, 13, 35, 36, 51–2; both threatening and threatened, 40–1, 53; and boundaries, 17–18, 36, 39, 45–8, 49–51, 52–4, 316, 318– 19, 321; “complex” and “deep” diversity, 26, 44, 46; components of, 16; and cultural pluralism, 6; ethos of, 13–20, 27, 28, 54, 316, 321; and four types of diversification, 42–3; and globalization, 6, 13, 15, 17, 35,

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39–40, 41–2, 44, 45, 46, 257, 286, 317; immigration / mobility as factor in, 16, 38–40, 42–3, 53, 65, 69, 76, 317; increasing or decreasing, 35, 38–42, 173; linked to creativity, 3, 6, 48, 49, 54, 194; objective and subjective, 40, 41, 52; parallels with biodiversity, 3–4; “perverse” effects of, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 26, 65, 75–6, 78; private sector ­support for, 6, 7, 8, 28; and “superdiversity,” 36, 42–4, 46; sustainability of, 16–17, 18, 19, 20, 27, 28, 35–54, 316, 318, 319–22; top-down vs bottomup policies for, 316, 318, 320, 322; and U N E S C O Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2002), 3–4, 6, 13, 29, 321–2; urbanization as factor in, 38–9, 40; and “us” vs “them” rivalries, 6, 38, 48–52, 54; value of, 3, 44, 53–4, 173, 286–7 diversity management, sustainable policies for, 35–54, 316, 318, 319–22; necessity of, 41, 42; simple vs dynamic, 35, 37, 316; sustainability defined, 36–7 Djité, Paulin G., 244–5; criteria for good language policy, 244–5 Dunton, A. Davidson, 190, 191, 205–6 Ðurić, Rajko, 302; Gramatika e Rromane Čhibaki, 302; Standarizacija romskog jezika, 302 Dutch (language), 39, 70 Economist, The, 38; “Diversity Fatigue,” 38

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education, 14, 189–90, 210–23, 234–5; centrality of to survival of Indigenous languages, 24, 200, 210–23; and immersion programs, 22, 169, 170, 219; language issues in, 65, 66–7, 70–4, 84, 86, 92, 94–5, 114, 116, 118–19, 120, 129, 132, 133, 139, 140, 143, 146, 153, 163–4, 166, 170, 232, 239–40, 241–2, 252, 253, 264, 265–6, 297, 298, 299; and protection and promotion of minority languages, 113– 14, 115–16, 129, 241–2; role of in fostering identity, 23, 107, 189, 216 Edwards, John, 46, 49, 156 Egypt, 253 English (language), 9–10, 11, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 63, 70, 71, 71–2, 73, 84, 85, 88, 90, 98, 127, 129, 131–2, 133, 134, 137, 138, 141, 146, 156, 158, 166, 172, 173, 191, 194, 195, 196, 201–2, 204, 210, 217, 220, 231, 234, 235, 236, 237–8, 239–40, 243, 245, 246, 247, 255, 288, 302–3, 318, 319; international or global, 19, 85, 288 Ethnologue archive, 111 Europe, 5, 12, 27, 43, 52, 69, 89, 107, 280, 287, 297; European identity, 283; minority languages in, 27, 43, 113, 287, 294, 297; Romani in, 279, 280, 281, 284, 287, 289, 291, 292, 294–5, 296, 297–300. See also Council of Europe; European Union European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRM L),

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27, 113, 287, 294–5, 298, 300, 305n7 European Commission, 47 European Roma and Travellers Forum (ER TF), 297–8; Charter on the Rights of the Roma, 297–8 European Roma Rights Centre (ER R C ), 298–9; EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020, 299 European Union (EU), 19, 22, 27, 38–9, 69, 75, 77, 143, 146, 154, 170–1, 279, 283–4, 296, 299, 300, 316, 319; advocacy of minority, ethnic language rights, 287, 300, 304; language policies of, 283–4, 287; and non-­ territorial languages, 287; and policies related to Romani peoples, 284, 296, 299, 300; respect for and protection of minority groups in, 27, 284, 285, 287; social inclusion initiatives of, 304 Evans, Gwynfor, 133 Evas, Jeremy, 145 Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs, 142 Fehlen, Fernand, 68 Finland, 285, 294 Finnish (language), 300, 302 Fishman, Joshua, 68 Florentine (language), 107, 108; adopted as Italian national language, 108 Folaron, Debbie, 26–7 France, 18, 20, 23, 52, 69, 76, 112, 251, 259, 262, 271n12; Breton spoken in (Brittany), 170,

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176n26; discrimination against Algerians, Muslims in, 257; Francoprovençal spoken in, 20, 105, 110, 111, 115; Langue d’Oc (Provençal, Occitan) and Langue d’Oil spoken in, 109, 112; linguistic diversity in, 109; migration from, 107, 112 Francoprovençal (language), 7, 12, 20, 105–20, 316, 318, 319; education in, 106, 114, 116, 118– 19, 120; effect of emigration on, 115; funding for, 119, 120; initiatives for preservation and promotion of, 105, 106, 113, 114, 115–19, 319; literature in, 117; location and number of speakers of, 110–13; official status of, 105; origins and history of, 20, 106, 111–12; other names for, 110; and pride of speakers, 114– 15, 120; scholarly research into, 118; standardization of, 20, 116; uncertain future of, 20, 115 Fraser, Graham, 162 French (language), 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18, 24, 39, 52, 63, 65–7, 68–70, 70, 71, 71–2, 73, 109, 112, 115, 118, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 201–2, 204, 210, 217, 220, 231, 232, 234, 235, 236, 239–40, 243, 246, 247, 253, 254, 260–1, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267–8, 288, 302, 318, 319 Friedman, Victor, 282 Fulbright Commission, 171; Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants (FLTAS), 171 Gabon, 235 Gallego (language), 47

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Garcia, Núria, 17–18 German (language), 18, 39, 52, 63, 65–7, 68–9, 70, 71, 71–3, 109, 288, 302, 303 Germany, 69, 294; and fall of Berlin Wall, 39; immigration from Turkey to, 43; Munich, 39 Ghana, 235 Ghosh, Palash, 89 globalization, 5, 13, 39–40, 41–2, 44, 46, 279, 286, 315; and alterglobalization, 42; impact of on linguistic and cultural diversity, 6, 13, 15, 17, 35, 39–40, 41–2, 44, 45, 46, 257, 286, 317 Google, 171–2, 302; Endangered Languages Project, 171–2; Google Translate, 302 Greece, 292 Greek, Modern (language), 109 Grin, François, 16–18, 20, 28, 29n5, 315–22; and “complex,” “deep” diversity, 17, 44, 46, 315, 318, 321; and “dynamic” sustainability, 20, 28, 35, 37, 316, 320; and ethos of diversity, 16, 17–18, 28, 54; and “languaging,” 17, 36, 45–8; and ­linguistic, ­cultural boundaries,” 15, 17–18, 36, 39, 45–8, 49–51, 52–4, 316, 317–18; and objective vs subjective diversity, 17, 40, 41, 52, 317, 322; and “simple” sustainability, 35, 37; and “superdiversity,” 17, 36, 42–4, 46; and “tolerance,” “toleration,” “tolerability,” 17, 49–51, 320 Guehria, Wajih, 25–6 Guinea, 234

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Hadj-Nacer, Abderrahane, 258–9 Haiti, 7, 11; and war of independence, 7 Halaoui, Nazam, 233, 234–5; and national, sectoral language policies, 234; and policies with respect to colonial languages in Africa, 234–5, 236, 240 Halwachs, Dieter W., 294, 303 Hancock, Ian, 291, 305n6 Haque, Eve, 196, 215; Multilingualism within a Bilingual Framework, 196 Hardiman, J., 158 Hausa (language), 11, 25, 232, 234, 237–8, 241 Haut conseil de la langue arabe (High Council of Arabic Language), 256 Hawthorn, Harry, 197, 206 hegemony, linguistic, 5, 128, 246, 318; and nationalist ideal of one nation, one people, one ­language, 5, 94, 97, 317; and reduction in global cultural diversity, 5, 47, 318 Heine, Bernd, 233–4; and endoglossic, exoglossic language policies, 233–4, 247 Henriet, Joseph, 110; and Arpitaniste movement, 110 Henry VIII, 21, 128; and Acts of Union, 128 Higgins, Michael D., 169 Hungarian (language), 89, 302 Hungary, 285, 294 Igbo (language), 11, 25, 232, 234, 241 immigration / mobility, 16, 38–40, 42–3, 53, 65, 69, 73, 74, 75–6,

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77–8, 86, 108, 112, 315; as factor in cultural and linguistic diversity, 16, 38–40, 42–3, 53, 65, 69, 76, 317; and ghettoization of immigrant groups, 8, 12, 28; and translation / interpretation, 8 India, 7, 9–10, 25, 27, 76, 245–6, 280–1, 284, 290, 291, 300, 301; Indigenous languages in, 245; official language model in, 9–10, 231, 245–6, 247; official languages of, 245–6; Official Languages Act (1963), 9, 245; Official Languages Rules (1976), 9. See also Nigeria, official language policy in: comparison with India India, languages spoken in: English (official language), 9–10, 245; Gujarati (state official language), 9; Hindi (official language), 9–10, 245; Marathi (state official language), 9; Punjabi (state official language), 9; Tamil, 245; Telugu, 245; Urdu (state official language), 9 Indigenous (Aboriginal) languages, 7, 11, 12, 22–4, 25, 43, 47, 87, 108, 200, 210–23, 231, 234–5, 243, 245, 265, 285, 286, 318; importance of in education, 24, 200, 205, 210–23, 235, 241–2; official status of, 12, 319; protection of, 7, 12, 214, 246, 286. See also Canada, Indigenous languages in; Nigeria, languages spoken in International Romani Union (IR U), 279, 301; website, 303 Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (I T K ), 220

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Inuktitut (language), 12, 24, 43, 211, 218, 316, 319; standardizing of, 219, 220, 318, 322n1 Inuktut, 220; and Inuit Language Protection Act, 211, 220; standardizing of, 220, 221, 224n7 Iraq, 253 Ireland-Canada University Foundation (I CU F), 171 Ireland, 11, 21–2, 28, 79n1, 126, 153–74, 316; comparison with Canada, 153, 156, 159, 160, 162, 164, 165, 170, 175n17; concentration of Irish speakers in, 155; demolinguistic and census data in, 153, 154, 165–9, 172; English (second official language) spoken in, 22, 156–9, 166, 172, 173; and Gaelscoileanna (Irish immersion education), 170; Gaeltacht regions, Irish spoken in, 159, 168–9, 170, 171; Irish (official language) spoken in, 11, 21–2, 153–74; language planning and legislation in, 22, 153, 154, 155–61, 165–6, 172, 173; linguistic, sociolinguistic complexity of, 153, 173; migration to, 172, 173; minority languages spoken in, 173; and “subtractive form of bilingualism,” 169. See also Ireland, official language policy in Ireland, official language policy in, 21, 126, 153–74; Bord na Gaeilge (state board for the Irish language), 159; constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na h-Éireann, 1937), 21, 154, 156–9; Irish Sign Language Act, 161; and official

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bilingualism, 21, 22, 153, 172; Official Languages Act, 154, 159–61, 168–9, 172; and reports of An Coimisinéir Teanga (Official Languages Commissioner), 160–1, 162–5, 170, 172; 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language, 163 Irish, 11, 21–2, 28, 153–74, 317, 319; concentration of speakers, 155; contemporary use of, 153, 165–9, 172, 175n16; declared official language of European Union, 154, 171, 319; as a de facto minority language, 172; education in, 22, 153, 163–4, 166, 169, 170, 173; as first national language of Ireland, 156–9, 166, 173; importance of to national identity, 156; interest in outside of Ireland, 171, 173–4; and Irish Sign Language, 161; promotion, protection, and status of, 22, 154, 159–61, 162–9, 168, 172, 174; prospects for, 170–2 Irish Times, The, 167–8 Islamic Salvation Front (ISF), 265 Israel, 11–12; Hebrew (official language) spoken in, 11–12 Italian (language), 20, 47, 52, 70, 71, 71, 105, 115, 120, 120n2, 253, 302; as national language of Italy, 105, 108, 119 Italy, 7, 20, 69, 259, 317; and choosing of national language (Questione della lingua), 107–8; linguistic heterogeneity in, 105, 107–9, 119; migration to, 107, 112; minority languages and dialects in, 105, 107, 108–9, 113,

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115, 120; national identity in, 106, 107–8, 115; protection of minority languages in, 106, 107, 108, 113–19; Rome, 39–40. See also Apulia (Italy) Italy, languages spoken in: Albanian, 113; Catalan, 113; Francoprovençal (official language), 7, 20, 105, 109, 110–13, 114–19; French, 109; German, 109, 113; Greek, 113; Italian (national language), 105, 115; Piedmontese, 113; Venetian, 113 Izsák, Rita, 300–1 Japan, 39; Japanese spoken in, 39 Jessner, Ulrike, 5 Johnson, David, 293, 297 Jordan, 253 Kabyle (language), 254, 260–1, 262, 272n32 Kaufmann, Judith, 131, 134, 138, 145 Kazakh (language), 18–19, 83–6, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92–9; alphabet for, 84, 87, 99n4; dialects of, 90; and Kyrgyz, 87, 99n4; as minority language in Kazakhstan, 85–6; promotion of, 89, 95, 98; as state language of Kazakhstan, 84, 86 Kazakhstan, 7, 18–19, 83–99, 316, 317, 318; disconnect between policy and experience in, 19, 88–99; ethnic, linguistic minorities in, 83, 85–6, 318; history of multilingualism in, 18, 85–9; and language of education, 86–7, 92, 94; language mixing in, 87; language policies, post-Soviet, 84, 94, 98; language survey in,

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89–98; and marginalization of non-ethnic Kazakhstanis, 98–9; minority status of Kazakhs in, 85–6; popularity of Arabic, Russian names in, 92; and Three Languages Policy, 18, 83–5, 88 Kazakhstan, languages spoken in: English, 18, 84, 85, 86, 88, 90, 98; Kazakh (national language), 7, 18–19, 83–6, 84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92–9; Russian (official language), 18, 83–8, 84, 89, 90, 92–8 Kenya, 234; Swahili spoken in, 234 Kloss, Heinz, 109 Knight, Dawn, 144 Kosovo, 292, 299 Kuzhabekova, Aliya, 86–7, 88 language: and boundaries, 15, 17–18, 36, 39, 45–51, 52–4, 316, 317–8; and code-switching, 45, 93, 98; hegemony of, 5–6, 13, 47; hybridity of, 45, 46, 48; and “languaging,” 17, 36, 45–8, 98; linked to identity, 5, 18, 19, 21, 23, 76, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 98, 115, 126, 130, 131, 135, 136, 147, 156, 162, 189, 196, 221, 263, 269, 283, 288–9, 303, 318; and “mother tongue,” 94, 95–7, 285; named, 45–6, 48, 55n7; “native,” 90, 285; porousness of, 47, 48; standardization (codification) of, 20, 27, 107, 116, 130, 136, 143, 144, 219, 220, 221, 224n7, 242, 283, 287, 293, 294, 297, 298, 299, 301, 302, 303, 304, 318, 320, 322n1; translationing of, 292–4 language and cultural policies, official: de jure and de facto, 15, 16,

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18, 19, 22–3, 26, 27–8, 29, 282, 287, 293, 297, 304, 316–17, 320, 321; paradoxes of, 14–16, 17, 316, 320–21 language planning, 11, 25, 27, 71, 86, 98, 115–19, 120, 126, 143, 145, 146, 147, 153–74, 231, 238–45, 246–7, 286, 298, 322; acquisition planning, 20, 115, 118–19, 120, 130; and barriers to implementation, 231, 240–5, 246–7; corpus planning, 20, 115– 16, 120, 130; defined, 130, 131; status planning, 20, 115, 116–18, 120, 130, 153, 155–9, 165 Langue d’Oc (Provençal, Occitan) (language), 47, 109, 112 Langue d’Oil (language), 109, 112 Latin (language), 112, 253 Latvian (language), 173, 302 Laurendeau, André, 190, 191, 205–206 Le Bas, Damian, 292 Lithuanian (language), 173 Llewellyn, Anastasia, 21 Luxembourg, 7, 10–11, 12, 18, 63–79, 316, 317, 318; bilingualism and Mischkultur in, 65–7; foreign-language speakers in, 63, 65, 67, 69, 76; immigration to, 64, 65, 69, 74; and language of education, 65, 66–7, 68, 70–4, 78–9, 80n4; monoculturalism in, 18, 74–8, 79, 318; multilingualism and exclusion in, 18, 63–8, 70, 74, 75–6, 78; and national language census (2011), 69–71, 70, 71, 80n6; and national language plebiscite (1941), 64, 67; Nazi occupation of, 64, 67;

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official language policies in, 63, 64, 65–8, 71, 75; Portuguese immigration to, 64, 65, 69, 74, 77–8; and referendum on voting rights (2015), 65, 78; status of language in political life of citizens (“political monolingualism”), 18, 65, 70, 75–6, 77–9 Luxembourg, languages spoken in: Bosnian, 70; Dutch, 70; English, 63, 69, 70, 71, 71–2, 73; French (official language), 10, 18, 63, 64, 65–7, 68–70, 70, 71, 71–2, 73, 77, 78, 80n4; German (official language), 10, 18, 63, 64, 65–7, 68–9, 70, 71, 71–3, 77, 78, 80n4; Italian, 69, 70, 71, 71; Luxembourgish (official language), 7, 10, 18, 64, 68–79, 70, 71; Portuguese, 10, 69–70, 70, 71, 71, 73; Serbian, 70; SerboCroatian, 70; Spanish, 70, 71 Luxembourgish (language), 7, 18, 68–79, 70, 71, 79n2; granted national language status, 64, 65–6, 67, 75; movement for the defence of, 76 Macedonia, Republic of, 292, 295, 299 Macedonian (language), 302, 303 Mali, 234, 235; Bambara spoken in, 234 Manzoni, Alessandro, 107, 108 Marella, Antonio, 115 Marr, Nikolai, 87 Matras, Yaron, 292 McIvor, Onowa, 212 McKay, Sandra Lee, 115, 118, 120; and corpus planning, status

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planning, acquisition planning, 115–19, 120 Métaoui, Fayçal, 258 Mexico: Tzotzil spoken in, 47 Meylaerts, Reine, 9; and linguistic territoriality regime, 9 Microsoft, 144; and translation software, 144 minority languages, 11–12, 19–22, 40, 41, 43, 47, 85, 91, 108–9, 129, 241, 318; distinguished from Indigenous languages, 16, 22; endangered and repressed, 11, 15, 19–22, 39, 40, 115, 286, 318; funding to support, 119, 120, 129, 135, 139, 144, 217, 241–2; protection / preservation and promotion of, 12, 37, 76, 105, 106, 115–19, 129; importance of translation to, 129, 131, 134, 143; and linguistic human rights (L H R ), 47; and risk of language extinction, 19; role of in national identity, 136, 189, 318 Mirga, Andrzej, 296 Mongolia: Kazakh spoken in, 90, 99n4 monolingualism, 8, 9, 12, 18, 74–5, 240, 286, 294, 317; associated with progress, modernization, national unity, 286; “political monolingualism,” 18, 75–6 Montenegro, 294 Morocco, 259 multiculturalism, 5, 16, 27, 36, 42, 44, 48, 52, 53, 54, 65, 74–8, 79, 189, 190, 194–5, 205, 210, 212, 213, 217, 256, 266, 315–16, 317; models of, 6–13

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multilingualism, 5, 7–8, 22–3, 25, 36, 44, 45–6, 48, 52–3, 63–79, 85–99, 205, 235–47, 256, 266, 285, 286–7, 294, 303–4, 315–16, 317, 318–21; benefits of, 18, 97–8, 173; in education, 70–4, 190, 235, 238, 239–40, 241–4; models of, 9–13, 63–70, 78; official, 7–8, 9–11, 12–13, 15, 42, 54, 63–79, 321–2; “perverse” effects of, 12, 18, 19, 26, 65, 75–6, 78; role of political will in, 8, 12, 19, 22, 27, 174, 296, 300, 319, 320; role of private sector support in, 7, 8; without multiculturalism, 74–8, 79 Nagy, Naomi, 116, 117, 120; Language Contact and Language Change in the Faetar Speech Community, 117 National Indian Brotherhood (NIB ) (later Assembly of First Nations), 216; “Indian Control of Indian Education,” 216–17 National Union of Teachers of Welsh, 132 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 88 Netherlands, 294; Amsterdam, 39 New Brunswick (Canada), language policy in, 7, 147, 188, 190, 202; New Brunswick “School Question,” 190; Official Languages Act, 188, 202 New Zealand, 12; Māori (official language) spoken in, 12 Niger, 235 Nigeria, 7, 11, 12, 25, 231, 232, 235–47, 316, 317, 318, 319; constitution of, 232, 237–9,

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240, 242; effects of colonialism in, 237, 240; effects of political instability in, 240–1; endogenous and exogenous languages in, 236, 318; and independence, 7, 231, 232, 237, 240–1; and language of education, 232, 238–40, 241–2; language planning, and barriers to implementation in, 231, 240–5, 246–7; national languages in (Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo), 236, 238–9, 240, 241, 242; and Nigeria French Language Project, 243–5; Nigerian Civil War (Biafran War), 241; and rivalry among majority language groups, 242; sociolinguistic context of, 235– 7, 240. See also entries that follow Nigeria, languages spoken in, 232, 237; Arabic, 25, 236; Edo, 234; Efik, 234; English (official language), 11, 25, 232, 235, 236, 237–8, 239–40, 242, 243, 246; French (second official language), 11, 12, 25, 232, 236, 239–40, 243, 244, 246; Fulani, 234; Hausa (official, later national language), 11, 232, 233, 234, 236, 237–9, 241; Igbo (national language), 11, 232, 233, 234, 236, 238–9, 241; Ijo, 234; Indigenous languages, 12, 25, 243, 246; Kanuri, 234; Nigerian Pidgin English, 25, 242–3, 318; Tiv, 234; Urhobo, 234; Yoruba (national language), 11, 232, 233, 234, 236, 238–9, 241

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Nigeria, official language policy in, 11, 25, 232, 236, 237–40, 241–2, 243, 247; and comparison with India, 245–6; constitution of 1947, 232, 237; constitution of 1954, 237–9, 240; constitution of 1999, 232; National Policy on Education (NPE), 232, 236, 238, 239–40, 243 Nigerian Pidgin English, 25, 242–3, 318 Norway, 42, 294; migration from to United States, 42–3; Oslo, 39 Norwegian (language), 302 Novoselsky, Valery, 303 Numidia, 259 Nunavut (Canada), language policy in, 7, 24, 25, 211, 212, 218, 219– 20, 319; education in, 219–20; Inuit Language Protection Act (2008), 211, 220; Official Languages Act, 211, 220; and proposal for Canadian Arctic university, 220–1; and “Uqausivut Plan,” 220 Ó Cuirreáin, Seán, 162, 163–4 Ó Cuív, Éamon, 160 Ó Domhnaill, Rónán, 168–9 Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, 296 Open Society Institute, 296 Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, 255 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 296 Patrick, Donna, 24, 25, 215 Pearson, Lester B., 187, 191 Peck, Edmund, 221

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Persian language group (Azeri, Dari, Tajik, Bukhori), 87 Pitjantjatjara-Yankunytjantjara (language), 47 Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales), 132, 133, 138, 146; and independence movement, 146 Poland, 295, 301; Polish ethnic groups, 86 Polish (language), 173 Portugal, 69 Portuguese (language), 10, 11, 39, 47, 70, 71, 71, 73, 231, 234, 247 Provençal. See Langue d’Oc Québec (Canada), language policy and legislation in, 9, 12, 23, 49, 191, 201, 202, 211, 218, 219; and Bill 101, 220; Charte de la langue française 1977 (Charter of the French Language), 202; and education, 191, 202, 218, 219; Loi pour promouvoir la langue française au Québec 1969 (Act to Promote the French Language in Québec), 202; Loi sur la langue officielle 1974 (Official Language Act), 202; and Nunavik, 218, 219; and the Quiet Revolution, 191; and Royal Commission of Inquiry in Education in the Province of Québec, 191 Rafael, Vincente, 90; Motherless Tongues, 90 Renan, Ernest, 67 Ricento, Thomas, 286 Richards, Arthur, 237 Rishi, W.R., 300

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Roma Times, 303 Romaine, Suzanne, 174; “Irish in the Global Context,” 174 Romani (language), 7, 12, 27, 280, 282, 287–9, 297, 304n1, 306n10, 316, 318, 319; de facto development of, 282–3; dialects of, 27, 284, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 298, 302, 318; history of, 282–3, 287, 290–2, 303; Kalderaš (dialect), 288, 289, 302; language affiliations of, 282–3, 290–2, 291, 302–303; and language loss, 288; as language of education, 288, 297, 298, 299; linguistic competence in, 288; as a minority, non-territorial language, 287, 294–300; origins and composition of, 290–2, 291; and the Rom Archive, 303; and RomLex, 303; standardizing of, 27, 284, 294, 299, 301, 302, 303; stigmatizing of, 27; and translation, 301–3; and translationing, 292–4, 304; and World Day of Romani Language, 300 Romani peoples, 26–7, 279–303, 319; advocacy for and protection of rights, 296–303, 304; in Australia, 280, 289; Croatian Roma, 285; de facto minority status of, 282, 284, 285, 297; ethonyms of, 288; and European Roma policy, 294–300; Finnish Roma, 285; and the “Gypsy Problem,” 284; heterogeneity of, 287–92; Hungarian Roma, 285; linguistic-cultural identity of, 279, 289–90, 291, 297, 301, 303, 304; living conditions of,

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295; migrations of, 280–1, 282, 284, 287–92, 291, 300; nonterritorial nation status of, 301; in North and South America, 280, 289, 301; origins of in India, 27, 280, 281, 284, 291, 297, 301; prejudice toward and persecution, extermination of, 284, 289, 295, 296, 298; Roma Nation Day, 301; and “Romani-ness,” 289, 297, 304; social exclusion of, 295–6, 319; “transnational nation” status of, 279, 301, 303; virtual communities of, 303 Romania, 289, 294, 299, 306n10 Romanian (language), 89, 173, 302 Russia, 7, 19, 39, 40, 85, 86, 88; Akkala Sámi spoken in, 40; minority identities in, 284–5 Russian (language), 18, 19, 39, 83–5, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92–8, 173, 302; and Cyrillic vs Latin alphabet, 86; and Russifikatsiia (Russification), 87, 92 Rwanda, 11, 234; English (official language) spoken in, 11; French (official language) spoken in, 11; Kinyarwanda (official language) spoken in, 11 Saadi, Ait, 258 Sagyndykova, Zhailagul, 18 Sakalin Islands, 86 Scotland, 129; independence movement in, 133 Senegal, 11; French (official language) spoken in, 11 Serbia, 295, 299 Serbian (language), 70, 299 Serbo-Croatian (language), 70, 302 Shadd, Deborah, 23–4

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Shalgimbekova, Kenzhegul, 89 Shohamy, Elana, 45, 130, 139 Sijerčić, Hedina Tahirović, 279 Sinclair, Murray, 210 Slovak Republic, 295, 299 Slovak (language), 302 Slovenia, 294 Sokolovskiy, Sergey, 284 South Africa, 7, 29n3; official languages of, 10 Soviet Union: dissolution of, 14, 18, 86, 88; language policies in, 86–7; suppression of religion in, 93 Spain, 76 Spanish (language), 11, 70, 71, 71, 231, 234, 247, 253, 288, 302 Spolsky, Bernard, 130–1, 139 Stalin, Joseph, 86 Stankiewicz, Stanislaw, 279, 283 Stich, Dominique, 116 Sudan, 234 Sweden, 294, 300; official minority languages in, 300; Romani spoken in, 300 Switzerland, 7, 49, 51–2, 63, 79n1; diversity survey in, 49, 51–2; official language model of, 9 Switzerland, languages spoken in: Francoprovençal, 7, 20, 105, 110, 111, 115; French, 52; German, 52; Italian, 52 Syria, 253 Taleb-Ibrahimi, Ahmed, 264 Tanzania, 234 Tatar (language), 89; education in, 87 Tatarstan, 87 technology, role of in language promotion and protection, 144–5, 171–2, 302–3 Thomas, Huw S., 144

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translation, 137, 140–5, 147, 171, 253, 293, 299, 304, 317, 320; computer-assisted, 144–5; and Google Translate, 302; qualifications and training for, 142–3, 145, 146, 171; resources for, 146, 253; role of in promotion and preservation of minority languages, 129, 130, 131, 134, 141; and shortage of translators, 130, 142–3; translation policy, defined, 130. See also entries under Wales Tremblay, René, 187, 197 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott, 201 Tuaillon, Gaston, 111, 112 Turkey, 86, 292, 299; immigration from to Germany, 43 Turkic languages (Turkmen, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek), 87 Turkish (language), 253 Turkmenistan, 86 Uganda, 234; Swahili spoken in, 234 Ukraine, 89; Hungarian spoken in, 89; language policy in, 89; Romanian spoken in, 89; Russian spoken in, 89; Tatar ­spoken in, 89 UNESCO, 3–4, 6, 7, 13, 28, 29, 244, 317; Sub–Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, 300; Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2002), 3–4, 6, 13, 29, 321–2; World Day of Romani Language, 300 United Kingdom, 7, 11, 20–1, 43, 126, 146. See also Britain United Nations, 19, 143, 217, 296, 316; Economic and Social

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Council, 298, 301; Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHC HR ), 300–1 United States, 40, 52, 88, 171, 253, 257; Eyak spoken in (Alaska), 40; Norwegian migration to, 42–3; self–perceived as immigration country, 52 Urdu (language), 9 Uzbekistan, 86 Vanuatu, 40; Sowa spoken in, 40 Venetian (language), 113 Vocino, Michele, 112 Wales, 20–1, 22, 126–47, 168, 316, 322n1; and Acts of Union, 127, 128, 131–2; bilingual status of, 129, 132, 135–6, 137, 141, 146; Cymru Ar-lein (Wales Online), 136; English (official language) spoken in, 21, 127, 129, 131–2, 133, 134, 137, 138, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146; and the European Union, 146; language legislation in, 127, 132–5, 136–9, 141; modern nationalist independence movement in, 126, 129, 133, 146; National Assembly for Wales, 127, 137–9, 140, 141, 143, 144; and promotion of Welsh language, 129–30, 132–3, 134, 135, 136–40, 146–7; and referenda on devolution (1979, 1997), 127, 133; relationship of to Britain, 126, 129, 135, 146; translation policy in, 21; and “The Treachery of the Blue Books,” 127, 132; Welsh Government Translation Service, 144, 146; Welsh (official

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350 Index

language) spoken in, 21, 47, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131–40, 145. See also Wales, official language policy in Wales, official language policy in, 20–1, 22, 126, 127, 129–30, 131–42, 146–7; Achieving the Ambition: Inquiry into the Welsh Government’s New Welsh Language Strategy, 140; and Acts of Union, 131–2; and Comisiynydd y Gymraeg / Welsh Language Commissioner, 137, 142; Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers, 140, 146; Education Act (1870), 132; Government of Wales Act 2006, 137; Hughes-Parry Report, The Legal Status of the Welsh Language, 127, 133; Iaith Pawb – A National Action Plan for a Bilingual Wales, 135–6, 139; Kilbrandon Commission, 127, 133; A Living Language: A Language for Living – Welsh Language Strategy 2012–17, 139–40; National Assembly for Wales (Official Languages) Act 2012, 127, 135, 137–9; Welsh Act 1978, 133; Welsh Courts Act of 1942, 132–3; Welsh Language Act 1967, 133; Welsh Language Act 1993, 127, 133–5, 141; and Welsh Language Board, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138–9; and Welsh Language Partnership Council, 137; and Welsh Language

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Tribunal, 136–7; Welsh Language (Wales) Measure, 127, 136–7 Wee, Lionel, 304 Welsh, 7, 11, 21, 43, 47, 126–47, 168, 317, 318, 319, 322n1; association of with national identity, 126, 130, 131, 135–6, 145, 147; banned from public life, 131, 132; citizen engagement with, 136, 140, 141; concern for survival of, 132; considered a “drawback” to Welsh population, 127, 132; given equal status with English in law, 127, 133, 134, 137, 138; history of promotion, status of, 127; as language of education, 129, 132, 133, 139, 140, 143, 146; number and concentration of speakers of, 127, 128, 129, 140, 146; and Porth Corpora Cenedlaethol Cymru (Welsh National Corpora Portal), 144; promotion of learning of, 129, 136, 137; recognized as official language in Wales, 127, 134, 136, 139, 141, 145; social and political campaigns supporting, 132–3, 135, 136–40, 146–7; standardization of, 136, 143, 144; translation, strategy for, 136, 137, 138–9, 140–6; and the Young Wales Union, 132 World Romani Congress, 301 Yanukovych, Viktor, 89 Yoruba (language), 11, 25, 232, 234, 241

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