Language Conflict and Language Planning 9783110886580, 9783110135398

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Language Conflict and Language Planning

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 72

Editor

Werner Winter

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Language Conflict and Language Planning

Edited by

Ernst Häkon Jahr

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1993

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

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Language conflict and language planning / edited by Ernst Hakon Jahr. p. cm. — (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs ; 72) Thirteen of the sixteen papers were first presented at the Sixth International Tromso Symposium on Language, held Nov. 15 — 17, 1990, at the University of Tromso. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-013539-6 1. Languages in contact — Congresses. 2. Language planning — Congresses. I. Jahr, Ernst Häkon, 1948— II. International Tromso Symposium on Language (6th 1990) III. Series. P40.5.L38L36 1993 306.4'49—dc20 93-6305

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication

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Language conflict and language planning / ed. by Ernst Häkon Jahr. — Berlin ; New York Mouton de Gruyter, 1993 (Trends in Linguistics Studies and monographs ; 72) ISBN 3-11-013539-6) NE: Jahr, Ernst Hakon [Hrsg.] ; Trends in Linguistics / Studies and monographs

© Copyright 1993 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Typesetting and Printing: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Berlin. — Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin. Printed in Germany

Preface

Thirteen of the sixteen papers included in the present volume were first presented at the Sixth International Troms0 Symposium on Language, held at the University of Tromso 15 — 17 November 1990. (The papers by Don Cartwright, R. B. Le Page and P. Sture Ureland were not discussed at the Tromso symposium.) The theme of the symposium was "Language conflict and language planning" The symposium received financial support from the University of Tromso, the School of Languages and Literature (University of Tromso), and the Norwegian Research Council for the Humanities. Hamburg, June 1993 Ernst Häkon Jahr

Contents

Introduction

1

Language conflict and language planning in Ireland Anders Ahlqvist

7

Conflicting ideologies in contemporary Norwegian language planning Tove Bull

21

Sociolinguistic events in an intranational borderland: A nudge to a diverging nation Don Cartwright

39

Language conflict in Madagascar around AD 700 Otto Chr. Dahl

59

Reversing language shift: Successes, failures, doubts, and dilemmas Joshua A. Fishman

69

Parallels and differences in the linguistic development of modern Greece and modern Norway Ernst Häkon Jahr — Peter Trudgill

83

From small to large-scale language conflicts: A philosophical perspective Karol Janicki

99

Sami language communities and the conflict between Sami and Norwegian Nils Jernsletten 115 Language planning from a management perspective: An interpretation of findings Björn Η. Jernudd

133

Conflicts of metaphors in the discussion of language and race Robert B. Le Page

143

Contact or conflict? Observations on the dynamics and vitality of European languages Peter Hans Neide

165

viii

Contents

Language conflict in Jerusalem — 1880 and 1980 Bernard Spolsky

179

Conflict between Irish and English in the secondary schools of the Connemara Gaeltacht 1986-1988 P. Sture Or eland

193

On the choice between two written standards in Norway Kjell Venäs

263

Principles of corpus planning — as applied to the spelling reforms of Indonesia and Malaysia Lars S. Vikor 279 Some conditions for the survival of small languages Werner Winter

299

Index

315

Introduction

The papers in this volume address various issues involved in language contact, language conflict, and language planning. The main emphasis, however, is on different types of language conflict. The overall implication is that language contact frequently leads to language conflict, and language planning is then applied to solve the problem. However, language planning activity may itself ultimately be the cause of serious problems as well as major conflicts. Thus, through theoretically as well as empirically based contributions, the main objective of the present volume is to provide further insights into the relationship between language contact, language conflict and language planning. The different papers show that both "language conflict" and "language planning" can be viewed in a variety of ways. Theoretically and empirically oriented papers alike draw on the multifaceted aspects of language conflicts and of different approaches to language planning around the world. Both large and small scale conflicts are discussed. It is common knowledge that there are a multitude of different factors which may generate language conflict. Some of these factors are treated in this book. For instance, it is evident that intolerance towards linguistic variation may in many instances lead to serious conflict (cf. e.g., papers by Jernsletten, Spolsky, Neide). Lack of tolerance towards language variation may in certain cases even lead to language loss, or at least to the hiding away of a scorned minority, as shown in the paper on the Sami language in Norway (cf. paper by Jernsletten; cf. also the papers by Fishman, Winter, Ahlquist). Political ideologies which include language as an important symbolic feature can produce major language conflicts, as evidenced e.g., in Norway and Greece (cf. paper by Jahr — Trudgill) and also in Canada (cf. paper by Cartwright). Language purism — understood either as an effort to enhance the sociolinguistic "purity" of a given standard language (cf. paper by Janicki) or as an attempt to avoid overt foreign lexis (cf. paper by Jahr — Trudgill) — may lead to language-internal conflicts. In regard to this second aspect of purism just mentioned, Norway can serve as a useful example, with one of the two national standards being much more puristic than the other (cf. papers

2

Introduction

by Bull, Venäs). The situation may be more extreme in Greece, where the puristic tradition of Katharevousa is an even more salient feature, compared to Dimotiki, than is the case between Nynorsk and Bokmal in Norway (cf. paper by Jahr — Trudgill). Conflicting values in language planning can in some instances lead to larger problems than the ones language planning activity was meant to solve, as seen in Norway (cf. papers by Bull, Venäs, Jahr — Trudgill). The Norwegian language situation is often referred to in literature dealing with language conflicts and language planning. Three papers in this volume are devoted to the Norwegian situation. Tove Bull ("Conflicting ideologies in contemporary Norwegian language planning") discusses the apparently conflicting ideologies in current Norwegian language planning. Bull claims that it is not only differences in ideologies, e.g., national or social, which are important. In her view, the difference between an instrumental approach to language planning as opposed to a sociolinguistic approach is a more fundamental issue. Kjell Venäs ("On the choice between two written standards in Norway") gives an overview of the competition between the two national written standards in Norway, with special reference to competition in schools, since local authorities can decide which of the two standards should be taught as the written medium for the schools in their districts. Up to World War II, the Nynorsk standard was on the offensive and increased its geographical area year by year, but in the post-war period Nynorsk lost ground in schools until the middle of the 1970s. From then onwards, Nynorsk has again had a small increase in use. Venäs discusses and suggests some explanations for this development. Ernst Hakon Jahr and Peter Trudgill describe similarities and differences between modern Greek and modern Norwegian language history ("Parallels and differences in the linguistic development of modern Greece and modern Norway"). Both countries achieved political independence at about the same time Norway in 1814, Greece in 1829 and the comparison shows striking parallels, for example, both countries have experienced language struggle and competition between two national standards, and both have generated nationalist as well as social arguments for the promotion of one rather than the other of the two competing standards. However, this paper also shows that there are important differences to consider between the linguistic developments in the two countries. These differences can to a certain extent explain why the language struggle now seems to be over in Greece — with Dimotiki as the victorious variety — while in Norway there is no reason to believe

Introduction

3

that the language question will be resolved by one standard winning completely over the other. Nils Jernsletten's paper, "Sami language communities and the conflict between Sami and Norwegian", also concerns the linguistic situation within the borders of Norway. However, Jernsletten covers the conflict in the northern part of the country between the majority language (Norwegian) and the indigenous minority Sami language. Jernsletten describes various typical Sami communities: in some, the Sami-speaking population constitutes the majority — mainly inland communities where reindeer herding is an important occupation; in others, there are few Sami-speaking families and they are often secretive about their language. In many of these largely coastal areas, until quite recently it was believed that Sami had died out and that Norwegian was the only language used. But now, with Sami values in general having enjoyed a growth in status, it turns out that Sami nevertheless has been transmitted to younger generations in many of these costal communities. Apparently, Sami has been used in private homes, hidden away almost as a secret language and therefore seldom, if ever, spoken outside the family. The extremely important role of the family in language maintenance and in the transmission of a threatened language from one generation to the next receives emphasis in Joshua Fishman's contribution "Reversing language shift: successes, failures, doubts and dilemmas" According to Fishman, the family is more vital for the preservation of small, endangered languages than any other single factor, including school instruction, which is often vastly overrated in modern societies. Werner Winter's contribution ("Some conditions for the survival of small languages") also deals with the crucial question of preserving the many small and threatened languages of today. He discusses the situation of Low German, Swiss German, the Amerindian language Walapai in Arizona, and the Kiranti languages in Nepal in order to single out general features that seem vital for the further transmission of endangered languages. In his discussion, Winter stresses the importance of parental motivation for preserving a threatened minority language. If the parents see no justification and have no motivation for using the language in the home, there is a great danger of language loss. Anders Ahlquist ("Language conflict and language planning in Ireland") surveys the situation in Ireland in general, both historically and with regard to the present situation, while P. Sture Ureland ("Conflict between Irish and English in the secondary schools of the Connemara Gaeltacht 1986-1988") gives a detailed empirical report on an investi-

4

Introduction

gation conducted in Irish schools, which shows encouraging results with regard to school children's knowledge of Irish in the Connemara Gaeltacht area. Ureland also compares the Irish-English conflict in the Gaeltacht with the Romansh-German conflict in Switzerland. More general and theoretical issues are raised by Karol Janicki ("From small to large scale language conflicts: a philosophical perspective"), R. B. Le Page ("Conflicts of metaphors in the study of language and race"), and Björn Jernudd ("Language planning from a management perspective: an interpretation of findings"). Drawing heavily on the philosophical writings of Karl Popper, Karol Janicki argues that an Aristotelian essentialist attitude to definitions of concepts, especially political concepts, may initiate serious disagreements which could easily develop into serious problems. However, a non-essentialist approach, in Janicki's view, invites discussion and acceptance of differences of opinions, and may, therefore, help to prevent conflicts. R. B. Le Page's paper follows this up with a discussion of the problems connected with the use of the genetic metaphor with regard to language. His discussion illuminates the definition of "languages" as opposed to "dialects", and he points to several serious misconceptions, held also by many linguists, due to an unconscious use of the genetic metaphor when speaking about language. Björn Jernudd's paper on language planning theory also deals with some of the points made by Janicki. The language management model discussed by Jernudd seeks to explain how language problems arise in ordinary language use. By looking at language planning in Israel and Canada, Jernudd seeks to demonstrate how this model can be used in explaining language planning results. While most of the papers in this volume concentrate on conflict situations in Europe, all continents except Australia are represented. Europe in general is treated by Peter H. Neide in his paper "Contact or conflict? Observations on the dynamics and vitality of European languages" Neide claims that Europe has not prepared sufficiently for a multilingual European Community. He gives a survey of various language conflict situations within Europe and suggests possible steps to be taken in order to reduce these conflicts. The American continent is represented by Werner Winter's discussion of the situation for Walapai speakers in the U.S. and by Don Cartwright's treatment of the borderline in Canada between the francophone and anglophone cultural realms, a region in which sociolinguistic events have generated conflict and competition which have had national consequences ("Sociolinguistic events in an intranational borderland: a nudge to a

Introduction

5

diverging nation")· Also in R. B. Le Page's paper we find several references to America, especially Latin America. Africa is represented by Otto Chr. Dahl's paper "Language conflict in Madagascar around AD 700", in which he reports on the historical contact and conflict situation that occurred in Madagascar when people migrated from Kalimantan (now the Indonesian part of Borneo) to Madagascar and the Ma'anyan language of the immigrant merged with the Bantu language which was spoken in Madagascar at that time. The Middle East is represented by Bernard Spolsky's paper "Language conflict in Jerusalem 1880 and 1980" In 1880, Turkish was the language of government, Arabic the vernacular of the Muslim and Christian Arabs, while the Jewish population was divided between speakers of Ladino and Arabic and speakers of Yiddish. In 1980, Hebrew is the language of government, of the majority of residents of Jerusalem, and of the Jews in the Old City. On the other hand, Arabic is the language of the Muslims and the Christian majority, and English has come to play a part as a lingua franca for tourists and intercommunal contact. Spolsky reveals that the language conflicts within the special language community of Jerusalem have been considerably greater than the conflicts with languages outside the city. Finally, Asia is represented by Lars S. Vikor's paper "Principles of corpus planning — as applied to the spelling reforms of Indonesia and Malaysia", in which he discusses the most controversial point in Malay language planning. In 1972, a common spelling for Indonesia and Malaysia was agreed upon after more than two decades of lively discussion within both countries. Vikor describes the ideological background for the spelling reform; he focuses particularly on the types of arguments used for different solutions to the problems and the way these arguments and the decisions made can be attributed to more general language planning principles.

Language conflict and language planning in Ireland* Anders

Ahlqvist

It is well-known that Celtic is one of the components of the IndoEuropean group of languages, and also that the Indo-European languages spread somehow from somewhere further east than Ireland. This means that other languages were spoken there in pre-Celtic times. There have been quite a few theories advanced about the nature of these languages: I only need to mention the two names Pokorny 1 and Wagner 2 to you to remind you of this fact. Also there is a very useful account of these views and much else concerning the linguistic history of Ireland, in a very comprehensive article (1970) by the late Brendan Adams from Belfast. Since I am myself not personally 3 convinced by any particular one among the various substrate theories I shall not say anything more about them here. Then we have a Celtic language, Irish, spoken in Ireland. It is usually accepted, presumably mainly for lack of contrary evidence more than because we know it to be a definite fact, that Irish was established as perhaps even the sole language of Ireland by historical times, by which (in this context) I mean the time around the completion of the Roman invasion of those parts of Great Britain that were invaded by Rome. This means that the first language to challenge Irish in its assumed complete domination of the island was of course Latin. Latin came into Ireland quite early, probably quite some time (Adams 1986: 16) before Christianity. Some few hundred years after those events, we find an interesting Irish text called Auraicept na nEces (The Scholar's Primer). 4 This is a text that deals with language; it is probably the first European text to do such a thing. Amongst other interesting things, it illustrates the way Irish and Latin competed in the language when terminology, in this case, grammatical terminology based on the native language was established: firinsce 7 baninsce j neminsce5 mean 'masculine, feminine, neuter', but we also have loan words direct from Latin: mascul j fernen j neuter to denote exactly the same things. 6 This text is also interesting for another reason and this is because there is a short passage (Ahlqvist 1982: 47, cp. 40) in

8

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Ahlqvist

it which has the audacity to maintain that Irish as a language is not equal to Greek and Latin but that it is superior to them. This kind of notion I do not believe occurs anywhere else in mediaeval times. Moreover, it does not occur much later on either because this kind of consciousness about language is something that one usually associates with the doctrines of Herder and other German thinkers in Germany in the last century. In this context I should like to mention a book (Colliander 1963) that deals with that particular question and which unfortunately does not seem to have received the recognition it deserves. After Latin, the next language of influence in Ireland was that of the Viking invaders, who left a certain amount of terminology behind them: one typical example is the word bäd'boat, ship'. 7 The Viking terminology that remains in Irish is mostly of a similarly practical sea-faring and trading nature (Adams 1986: 18). Slightly later, then, we get Norman French coming into Ireland and that, too, has left a certain amount of lexical heritage: one typical word (Dinneen 1927: 521) is garsun 'boy'. However, there is of course no question but that the main outside linguistic influence to be felt in Ireland has been that of the English language, even if it was rather slow to establish itself at first. The process of assimilation to English did not really get going very much outside the main settlement areas of Dublin and a few other urban centres until perhaps sometime in the 15th, 16th centuries, even if it was much later before it achieved any momentum (Adams 1986: 23-24). At this point, it may be useful to mention a few very basic facts about Irish itself. The first one is that it is a verb-initial language, the basic word order in most stages of attested Irish being verb, subject, object (VSO). This is highly interesting for typological reasons. Irish shares this feature with the other Insular Celtic languages; it also shares another feature with them, which is that it has initial mutations. In other words, the beginning of a word in the language may change under certain circumstances, either because the previous word influences the word coming after it, or for syntactic reasons. This can also be used to illustrate a salient fact about the spelling of Irish, which is that it is a morphophonemic one, unlike that of Welsh. If we look at the following example (which I have made up myself but which I believe would be acceptable to native speakers both of Irish and of Welsh), this should become clear: Irish / dTroms0 correponds to Welsh yn Nhromsß; both mean 'in Tromso'. 8 In Irish, the radical remains in the spelling when the initial mutation has been at work; in Welsh it does not: this means that — at least if one does not know the radical — the Irish spelling system is slightly more practical.

Language conflict and language planning in Ireland

9

If one is a native speaker, it is likely that it usually does not matter, except possibly in cases like the one just cited. There is another feature of Irish that is not shared by the other insular Celtic languages and that is that all consonants may be either "broad" or "slender" — to use the terminology of native grammarians. 9 It corresponds roughly to the distinction we find in Russian between hard and soft consonants. Thus you will find a phonemic distinction between a word like gui 'praying' and a words like gi 'although' 10 This will have to suffice about the language itself,11 so as to enable us to turn to its more modern history. One can put the year 1600 as a rough date for the dismemberment of the Gaelic order. It may be said that around that time Irish began to cease to be used as the normal vehicle for communication of all social classes in the country. There are various events which mark this process; one such is that known as the Flight of the Earls, 12 when an important section of the old native noblemen were forced to leave the country. With that we get to the year 1800. It has been estimated that the situation then was roughly this: the whole western seaboard still had an undoubted Irish-speaking majority, whereas English was the majority language only in and around Belfast, in Dublin itself and in a small area in and around Wexford, in the far south-east corner of Ireland — or so a map based on literary sources would seem to reveal. This map (Hindley 1990: 9) is to be found in a recent book with the rather provoking title The Death of the Irish Language. I shall get back to some of his conclusions later. The erosion of Irish took place quite rapidly in the last century, as the following brief sketch will show. In 1851 the situation had deteriorated considerably: as Hindley's (1990: 16) map shows, Irish was no longer the majority language of a contiguous area on the western seaboard. Instead, it remained dominant only in a number of areas (mainly in Counties Donegal, Mayo, Galway and Kerry), separated from each other by areas which had become English-dominated in the previous years. We must, of course, remember that shortly before 1851 the Great Famine had taken place and that this had affected the Irish-speaking part of the country much more than it did the English-speaking one. 1851 was also the year of the first Census and it was about this time the following rough figures were arrived at. The whole island had roughly 6.5 million inhabitants, out of whom 320,000 spoke Irish only and roughly 1,5 million spoke both languages, so that by this time Irish was no longer the majority language of the island. If we then go further (Hindley 1990: 22-23) on to the Census of 1911 we can see that the situation had deteriorated further.

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Ahlqvist

According to the sources, the whole island had a population of about 4.4 million out of whom some 600,000 spoke Irish and presumably English, too (most of them, at any rate). Important political events took place, which I shall get back to later, so that the following Census (in 1962, see map: Hindley 1990: 25) then excludes Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom after the early 1920s. In 1926 the new Government of the then Irish Free State established a Commission to look at the Irish-speaking area. The term Gaeltacht™ was introduced to cover all the Irish-speaking areas, and boundaries were established for the Gaeltacht. These boundaries are still officially recognised today. In 1926 the population of the 26 counties of the Irish Free State was estimated (Hindley 1990: 23) at roughly 3 million, out of whom a little more than 0.5 million spoke Irish. But, of course, by this time the distinction between native speakers and learners of Irish becomes a problem: one that subsequent Censuses have been very careful not to look at, for reasons which I am afraid will become quite obvious below. If we go on to 1981 first of all we get a map (Hindley 1990: 31-32) for a sadly shrunken Gaeltacht, in which only some very few, quite small districts remain majority Irish-speaking, again in Counties Donegal, Mayo, Galway and Kerry. The Census figures on the other hand (Hindley 1990: 27) tell us that the Republic by then had 3.2 million inhabitants, of whom more than one million declared, in answering their Census questions, that they spoke Irish, something that in itself is quite interesting. However, a very large proportion of this million people were, of course, not themselves native speakers of the language and indeed one may doubt the veracity of some of these answers, which were based purely on self-assessment. I shall then very rapidly move on to Hindley's (1990: 251) conclusions after his inquiry. After a thorough and very interesting discussion of most relevant factors involved, he states: Budding linguistic statisticians should note that 8,751 is the figure finally preferred as the most likely residue of native Irish speakers living in communities with sufficient attachment to Irish to transmit it to a substantial majority of their children as language of the home and community. They alone are living in circumstances in which continued transmissions seems possible or even probable in the light of experience. This is all that close scrutiny leaves of the 1,800,413 persons aged 3 years and over who were enumerated as Irish speakers in the Census of 1981 and is reasonably proportionate to 1,473 number of children in 70% ifeo«tas14-majority schools. I do not suggest this dogmatically but feel it safe to set a 10

Language conflict and language planning in Ireland

11

thousand upper limit to the current numbers of habitual native speakers while admitting that many of them share grave doubts about the advisability of continuing to speak Irish and may well end their careers more fluent in English and in normal circumstances no longer using Irish.

Naturally, these findings were not universally popular in Ireland, as one may well understand. There is one review15 that has come to my attention in a newspaper called the Irish Times, in which Deaglän de Breadün (1990) looks at the book and makes the point that Irish is used for many purposes outside the Gaeltacht, in other words, by people other than genuine native speakers and that, perhaps, is where its future lies. He finishes his review with these words: "An honest appraisal of the language movement combined with Hindley's clear-eyed view of the Gaeltacht could be the basis for devising a strategy to ensure that Irish will survive and even prosper." Of course, emotionally speaking, one might wish that he were right but at the same time, trying to be honest and scholarly about things, one has to wonder. In any case, having provided these basic facts about the linguistic situation itself, I may proceed to a brief summary of the political background. First of all, it is safe to say that during the period of British Rule, Irish did not have any particular legal status, but then it has to be admitted that the constitutional position of languages in the United Kingdom is in any case a fairly grey area. 16 However, probably the first little bit of recognition that Irish did get was in 1908, when the National University of Ireland was established and the Irish Universities Act provided for Irish to be a compulsory matriculation subject to get into the colleges of the University, as still is the case, but in the National University only. There are of course other universities in Ireland. In any case, after 1916 and after much turmoil and upheaval a new state called Saorstät Eireannv was established — the Irish Free State provided for Irish to be official in at least part of the island of Ireland, for the first time ever. In 1937 a new Constitution was introduced and this is the one that still applies. Amongst other things it provided for the official name of the country to be Eire,18 or in the English language Ireland. That last little addition has never been popular in British circles for reasons that I shall not go into here. There is a paragraph in this constitution that deals with Irish: 1. Os ί an Ghaeilge an teanga näisiünta, is ί an phriomhtheanga oifigiiiil i. 2. Glactar leis an Sacs-Bhearla mar theanga oifigiiiil eile.19

The English translation is: 'The Irish language as the national language is the first official language. English is recognised as another official

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Ahlqvist

language' It goes on to state that provision may be made in relevant cases for the use of either one or the other language. This has a great deal to do with the symbolic function of the Irish language in Ireland today. However, when Ireland, together with the United Kingdom, became a member of the European Economic Community, Irish was accepted as one of the languages of the community but it was not given the status of a working language of the Community. It is unique amongst the official languages of the countries that make up the Community. Evidence20 is now coming to light that this was done, not because of opposition from Brussels, but because the Dublin authorities felt that it would be easier that way. People have, of course, criticized this because, amongst other things, it is quite obvious that, had Irish been made an official working language of the Community, there would have been much scope for employment of graduates in Irish, notably to translate official documents into the language. I may then pass on to say something about schools. Irish is a compulsory subject in all primary and secondary schools. Some schools use it not only as a subject that the children are instructed in but also as the medium for all or part of whatever instruction is given in that particular school. Standards on the other hand vary enormously. At university level then, as mentioned above, Irish is a compulsory matriculation subject in the National University of Ireland. Students have to pass in Irish to get into the National University which has three constituent colleges: Dublin, Galway and Cork. The other universities, Trinity College, Dublin, the new University of Limerick and the new Dublin City University, on the other hand, do not require Irish as a matriculation subject and I may add that Limerick and Dublin City do not even have departments teaching Irish. My own college in Galway has a special position in this regard, in that it is by an Act of Dail Eireann (the Irish Parliament), dating from 1929, required to become eventually a college that conducts all its business in Irish only. However, it certainly has not reached that stage yet and when that will happen is rather a mystery to me. Nevertheless, it is possible to have Irish as a medium of instruction there, in a number of subjects, including Irish itself, History, Geography and some areas of Chemistry. Then there is the matter of the media and on this score one may note that there is one weekly newspaper 21 published in Irish with a circulation of a few thousand copies every weekend. There is a full radio service in Irish but very little on television. There is much agitation just now for the establishment of something that would be called Teilifis na Gaeltach-

Language conflict and language planning in Ireland

13

ta 22 to cater for the remaining Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht and especially for the needs of their children. Discussing about Ireland one has to mention the Church. As you know the Roman Catholic Church abandoned Latin some twenty odd years ago. This has had one positive result in Ireland, as far as the Irish language is concerned, which is that Irish is now used for liturgical purposes. When one thinks of what I personally feel to be the rather noticeable aestethic poverty of the new English Mass (at least as celebrated in Ireland), it is not entirely surprising that for some Irish people, Irish is now acquiring the force of a new liturgical language. On the other hand, the abandonment of Latin has had many negative results as well, in Ireland. It is not taught much in schools and it seems to me that the general respect for language as an abstract concept has suffered a great deal. However, to return to Irish, there is no doubt that it retains an important symbolic value for many Irishmen, probably even a majority of them. Yet, a general feeling seems to be along the lines of statements like "it is fine to keep it as long as someone else speaks it"; of course, that is really not good enough to enable the language to survive as a genuine spoken language. 23 At the same time, there is no doubt, in my mind at any rate, that there is at the moment a sort of marginalisation process at work in respect of Irish: it seems for instance to me rather symptomatic that, at the time of the recent presidential election, none of the three candidates for the highest office of the country was able to muster up much competence in its first official language. What then are the reasons for the decline of Irish? Geography to my mind is the principal one, simply because when the competing language is, whether one likes it or not, the main world language and when that is spoken all around you in all neighbouring countries (remembering also that for many people on the West coast of Ireland the next suburb is Boston, Massachusetts), then the odds are formidable indeed. However, there are possibly other reasons too. I think a comparison with Welsh may be instructive. Wales today has about a quarter of a million quite genuine native speakers of Welsh. The Welsh Bible24 was first published in 1588 and people started reading it immediately. In Irish the entire Bible25 was first published in Irish around 1690, but since it was a Protestant rather than a Roman Catholic translation, it was never widely read. In fact the Bible in Irish for the Catholic population was not made available until the year 1981.26 Indeed it was a wonderful achievement but yet it probably came rather too late. Thus, it may well be that the

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religious background is one principal reason 27 for what happened in the last century. Finally, I shall say something about language planning efforts. Obviously, in a situation like the one I have described, at least some people will feel that they have to try to do something about it. Before I get to the present day, I should like to mention something similar that belongs to the period of what is known as Classical Modern Irish: that is the period roughly between 1200 and 1600. There was a regulating agency at work to keep the language standardised and this may be described collectively as the Bardic grammarians. 28 They established and kept alive a standard for the language, from Northern Scotland to South West Kerry. The reason for this was quite practical: these were professional poets and they had to find employment all over the Gaelic area. Incidentally, their example should be quite interesting to Norwegian people, because theirs was a flexible standard that in many cases allowed for acceptable by-forms. There is a fine gradation of linguistic acceptablity going something like this: ζ is the correct form, y is an alternative correct form, ζ is acceptable as dialect, and w, lastly, is not acceptable at all. Given also the intricacies of Classical Modern Irish metre, it was very useful to have a large body of different choices so as to be able to make it easier to get the language into the straightjacket of the metre. In the 16th century, a very acceptable standard for prose was set by Geoffrey Keating who wrote an historical work, For as Feasa ar Eirinn29 in very lucid prose, 30 that in different circumstances might have helped towards forming a standard for a printed written language, but the problem was that, with the dismemberment of the old social order in Ireland, Irish did not (in any meaningful quantities, at any rate) become a printed language until the last century. Something not very remote from the Keating standard was adopted in 1927 when Fr. Patrick S. Dinneen's authoritative Irish-English Dictionary was published. This worked reasonably well for some time, although some people were getting unhappy about the fact that the language had changed a great deal since Keating's time, so that a movement was set up to start basing the language on the dialects. Gradually, this led to government action that was codified in a book often referred to as An Caighdeän OifigiüilM 'The Official Standard' which was first published in 1948 and which simplified a number of items of orthography and of grammar. To mention but one example, the word meaning 'pay' which used to be spelt päighe is now spelt pä. This is fine for Munster Irish where the word is pronounced ['pa:] but in the West it is pronounced ['pa:i:] and in the North ['pays] so that, quite obviously,

Language conflict and language planning in Ireland

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( 0 Siadhail 1981: 73) for those two dialects the old spelling would have been more practical. Parallel situations exist elsewhere. Thus, it seems to me that the spelling reformers who established the new standard of Swedish in 1906 made a mistake when they removed the h from the word hvad > vad 'what', thus ignoring the fact the sound it represents actually survives in some Swedish dialects, notably in Finland. In 1959 and 1977, respectively, Thomas de Bhaldraithe and Niall 0 Donaill published an English-Irish Dictionary and an Irish-English Dictionary. These are now the "official" dictionaries, which currently set what effectively is the standard for people wishing to write in Irish, not only for official purposes, but also in schools and even for literary purposes. They have not been universally popular. Thus, my Galway colleague Gearoid Mac Eoin (1961) has for instance written an excellent review of de Bhaldraithe's dictionary, criticizing amongst other things the fact that while it gives a lot of technical terminology, scientific terminology and so on the compiler seems to have forgotten about linguistic and literary terminology. However, something 32 is now being done about that. Another thing that has been seen as a problem for some is the numeral system. This is something in which the official standard in actual fact departs completely from all genuine dialects of Modern Irish. For instance, take a number like "96": in traditional native speaker Irish it is se deag is ceithre fichid.33 This was felt to be too complicated and instead it was thought that it would be more rational to devise a completely new system, giving forms like nöcha se34 '96' It is quite obvious that had the Irish language planners involved been French speakers and been used to forms like quatre-vingt-seize, the results might have been quite different. In any case, the new numerals have been adopted officially and are now used by quite a few people, even among the 10,000 genuine native speakers, especially younger ones, that Hindley (1990: 251) referred to in his book. Another thing that official terminologists have been quite keen on is compounds, in spite of the fact that they do not actually (to my mind, at any rate) suit the language all that well, as I have pointed out in another conference paper (1985). In any case, we may now briefly look at a very recent (Tiarmai Riomhaireachta 1990) dictionary of computer terminology for Irish. I shall discuss just one item, bogearrai 'software' Bog means 'soft', earrai means 'goods' (as purchased in shops). No attempt was made in this particular case to look at the basic semantic content of the lexical item and to find something in the language that would have suited better. This is obviously something that it is easy to poke a lot of fun at. In any case, if we disregard the not unserious

16

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problems posed by the pronunciation 35 we here have a compound that does not feel very native. Compare in this instance the very useful terminology the French have for this kind of thing. The French word for 'software' is logiciel, which corresponds very nicely to materiel which is their word for 'hardware' In conclusion, one might say that perhaps Ireland in a way is a sort of warning example to the rest of Europe. If one does not make sure that what Fishman 36 has called Stage 6 actually works, that is, that people themselves actually transmit their languages to their children, if that does not happen, languages do not remain alive. They — as Winter 37 has put it — commit linguistic suicide. In some cases (although I should hesitate to say this about the Irish situation), one might even talk about linguicide or linguistic murder. On the other hand, there is the view that as scholars, although we may be emotionally committed to our own native minority languages and ones that we have worked with, we must at the same time try to be balanced about the matters we study. Then, there are, of course, those who feel that what is happening is just good riddance to old rubbish and that it is much better for everybody to speak the same language, by which nowadays they usually mean English. Finally, it may be the case that there is a certain bit of truth in a statement that was made by Gearoid Mac Eoin in his concluding remarks at the very end of The Fourth International Conference on Minority Languages in Galway in 1986, comments which, by the way, have not yet been published. 38 On that occasion, he argued that what is good for a minority language as a language is not necessarily always very good for the speakers of these languages as individuals, especially in the context of their material welfare.

Notes * This paper is an edited version of what I actually said at the Symposium in Tromso on 17. 11. 1990. I am extremely grateful to Sile Mhic Dhonncha for much valuable help in preparing it for publication, help given unstintingly during, at times, rather trying circumstances. I have added some additional information, mainly of a bibliographical nature, in this and the following notes, and in the bibliographical Section ("References") printed at the end of the paper. 1. See especially his important article (1927 — 1929) on the non-Indo-European substrate in Irish. 2. Wagner's most important work on this topic was probably that (1959) which deals with the verb of the languages of the British Isles. 3. However, I must make it perfectly clear that I regard them as being of high scholarly validity and therefore well worth looking into.

Language conflict and language planning in Ireland

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4. It has been edited twice, first by Calder (1917), who has reproduced both text and extensive commentary, and later by me (1983), but I only gave the original seventhcentury (?) canonical part of the text. 5. This may have been pronounced along the following lines [ fiJ,jnj£e ogas 'baiyqjge ogas 'neyinfge]. 6. ['maskul ogas 'feyen ogas 'qeudur], cp. further either my edition (Ahlqvist 1982: 49) or Calder's (1917: 40), or both, and note that modern Irish grammatical terminology has chosen to use a mixture of the native and the borrowed terms, as a look at my list (Ahlqvist, forthcoming, s.v.) will reveal. 7. However, note (with Vendryes 1981: 22) that it may have come into Irish directly from Anglo-Saxon, if that really is where the Scandinavian word (as in Swedish bat) came from. 8. These are pronounced something like [a dromsa] and [a nrom.sa], respectively. 9. This is equivalent to using terms like "palatalised" and "non-palatalised" in presentday linguistic terminology. 10. ['gi:] and f'gi:]. 11. Cp. Ο Siadhail 1990 for an up-to-date description of the linguistics and dialectology of Modern Irish. 12. After the battle of Kinsale, in December 1601 (cp. Canny 1989: 130-131 and Mac Curtain 1972: 140). 13. [ geiltsxt]. 14. Deontas [' ιη σ

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English) by only treating the influence of Irish on English in the essays written in English. The other aspect of the conflict (contact pattern: English > Irish) could not be treated in this article, although it is of the same magnitude. It is hoped that the formal linguistic interference structures caused by the latter conflict will be dealt with in a forthcoming publication. 33. In Harris and Murtagh (1987 and 1988) results of error analysis of data are presented which were collected and measured by pedagogues and school inspectors whose primary concern was to judge the listening and speaking abilities of Irish among English speaking

Conflict between Irish and English

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monoglots in the national schools of the Republic of Ireland. Since both the methods, the goal, the data (spoken Irish) and, in particular, the category of pupils (monoglots) vary so much from those of the present investigation, it is not possible to compare their results with ours. 34. For information on Irish structures and orthography I thank Dr. Micheal 0 Flaithearta, Bonn; Thomas Feito-Caldas, Mannheim; and Dr. George Broderick, Ramsey. To Dr. Broderick I owe further insights into the art of writing in Irish and English. George had much patience in carrying out the Knochenarbeit of correcting and evaluating (minus-points) the Irish compositions and correcting the English essays. The evaluation of the English essays was done by myself (see also Ureland 1991 b: 643 — 652).

References Bammesberger, Alfred 1982-1984 A handbook of Irish. Vols. I-III. Heidelberg: Winter. Bliss, Alan Joseph 1979 Spoken English in Ireland 1600-1740. Dublin: The Dolmen Press. Bord na Gaeilge 1988 The Irish language in a changing society: Shaping the future. Dublin: Bord na Gaeilge. CLAR 1975 Committee on Irish language attitudes research. Dublin: Stationery Office. Edlund, Lars-Erik (ed.) (forthcoming) Kulturgränser — myt eller verklighet [Cultural borders — myth or reality]. (Proceedings of a symposium held at the University of Umeä, Sweden, Nov. 1990). Edmondson, Jerold A. — Crawford Feagin — Peter Mühlhäusler (eds.) 1990 Development and diversity. Linguistic variation across time and space. Arlington: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Fennell, Desmond 1977 "Where it went wrong: the Irish language movement", Planet February—March: 3 — 13. 1980 "The last days of the Gaeltacht", Irish Times, 3 June. 1981 "Can a shrinking linguistic minority be saved? Lessons from the Irish experience", in: Haugen — McClure — Thomson (eds.), 32 — 39. Filppula, Markku 1986 Some aspects of Hiberno-English in a functional perspective. Joensuu: University of Joensuu Publications in the Humanities. 1991 "Subordinating and in Hiberno-English syntax: Irish or English origin", in: Ureland - Broderick (eds.), 617-631. Fishman, Joshua 1965 "Who speaks what language to whom and when?", Linguistique 2: 67 — 88. Greene, David 1979 "Perfects and perfectives in Modern Irish", Eriu 30: 122-141. 1981 "The Atlantic group: Neo-Celtic and Faroese", in: Haugen — McClure — Thomson (eds.) 1—9.

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Harris, John 1984 Spoken Irish in primary schools: An analysis of achievement. Dublin: Teangeolaiochta Eireann. 1988 "Spoken Irish in the primary schools system", International Journal of the Sociology of Language 70: 69 — 88. Harris, John 1985 "The Hiberno-English 'I've it eaten' construction. What is it and where does it come from", in: 0 Baoill (ed.), 36 — 52. 1986 English in Ireland. (ESRC pamphlets on regional English syntax.) Harris, John — Lelia Murtagh 1987 "Irish and English in Gaeltacht primary schools", in: MacEoin — Ahlqvist - O'h Aodha (eds.), 104-124. 1988 "National assessement of Irish-language speaking and listening skills in primary school children: Research issues in the evaluation of school-based heritage-language programmes", Language, culture and curriculum 1: 85 — 130. Harris, John — David Little — David Singleton (eds.) 1986 Perspectives on the English language in Ireland. Proceedings of the first symposium on Hiberno-English. Dublin: Trinity College. Haugen, Einar — J. Derrick McClure — Derrick Thomson (eds.) 1981 Minority languages today. Edinburgh: University Press. Henry, Patrick, Leo 1957 An Anglo-Irish dialect of North Roscommon. Phonology, accidence, syntax. Zürich: Aschmann and Scheller. Hindley, Reg 1990 The death of the Irish language. A qualified obituary. London: Routledge. Holtzmann, Ralf 1991 Soziolinguistische Faktoren und Mehrsprachigkeit im Schweizer Kanton Graubünden. Unpublished Μ. A. thesis at the University of Mannheim. Jespersen, Otto 1949 A modern English grammar on historical principles. IV. London: Allen and Unwin. Joyce, Patrick Weston 1910 English as we speak it in Ireland. [1988] [Dublin: Gill]. Kallen, Jeffrey L. 1981 "A global view of the English language in Ireland", Teanga 2: 32—43. MacEoin, Gearoid — Anders Ahlqvist — Donncha 0 hAodha (eds.) 1987 Third international conference on minority languages. (Celtic Papers.) Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Neide, Peter (ed.) 1990 Confli(c)t. (Papers of the Association Beige de linguistique appliquee. Nr. 14.) Brüssel: ABLA. 0 Baoill, Donall (ed.) 1985 Papers on Irish English. Dublin: Irish association for applied linguistics. 0 Cuiv, Brian (ed.) 1969 A view of the Irish language. Dublin: Stationery Office. 0 Murchu, Mairtin 1970 Language and community. (Comhairle na Gaeilge Occasional Papers 1) Dublin: Stationery Office.

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"English and Irish now", Bulletin of the Department of Foreign Affairs 1011: 11-13. 1985 The Irish language. Dublin: Department of Foreign Affairs and Bord na Gaeilge. 0 Siadhail, Micheäl 1980 Learning Irish. Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies. Sullivan, J. P. 1976 The genesis of Hiberno-English: a socio-historical account. (Ph. D. Thesis) New York: Yeshiva University. Ureland, P. Sture 1985 Language contact in the Alps. Penetration of standard German in bilingual schools of the Engadine. (Unpublished report to the Gesellschaft der Freunde der Wissenschaft der Universität Mannheim e. V.) 1987 "Language contact project on the penetration of standard languages in the Connemara Gaeltacht", Celtic cultures newsletter 5: 17 — 24. 1988 "Language contact in the Alps — penetration of standard German in bilingual areas of the Engadine, Switzerland", Folia Linguistica 22: 103 — 122. 1990a "Multilingualism, diglossia and research methods: Focus on the Alps and Ireland", in: Edmondson — Feagin — Mühlhäusler (eds.) 587 — 617. 1990b "Durchsetzung von Standardsprachen in den Alpen und Irland — Umrisse eines Forschungsprojekts", in: Neide (ed.) 193—220. 1991a "Sprachenkampf und Ethnie an der germanisch-romanischen Sprachgrenze in Graubünden und Südtirol", in: IVG (1991): Begegnung mit dem Fremden, Grenzen — Traditionen Vergleiche. Akten des VIII. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses, Tokio 1990. Band 3. Sprachgeschichte und Sprachkontakte im germanischen Raum, 177 — 185. München: Judicium. 1991b "Bilingualism and writing in the Irish Gaeltacht and the Grisons (Switzerland) with special reference to Irish and English", in: Ureland — Broderick (eds.), 633-694. forthc. "Sprachkontakt an der germanisch-romanischen Sprachgrenze in den Alpen", in: Lars-Erik Edlund (ed.). Ureland, P. Sture — George Broderick (eds.) 1991 Language contact in the British Isles. Proceedings of the Eighth international symposium on language contact in Europe, Douglas, Isle of Man, 1988. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Visser, Fredericus Th. 1973 An historical syntax of the English language. Leiden: Brill. Wagner, Heinrich 2 1981 (1958) Linguistic atlas and survey of Irish dialects. Dublin: Institute for advanced studies.

On the choice between two written standards in Norway Kjell Venäs

The background The Norwegian written standard that derives from the Danish which was in use in 1814, has by now been Norwegianized for more than one and a half centuries, at first by quite spontaneous influence from the spoken language, and in this century also by an active policy of language planning (Haugen 1966). Of the five successive reforms it has undergone in this century, I shall here be concerned with the two occurring in 1917 and 1938. Of the two designations that are in use for this standard I shall use the official term Bokmäl, i.e. 'Book language' The official name of the other standard, Nynorsk, i.e., 'New Norwegian', has the same legal warrant as has the name Bokmäl, namely the Education Act of the year 1929. As you will know, Nynorsk is a codification of dialect structure and claims to be a common norm for Norwegian dialects. Being standards, both Nynorsk and Bokmäl are reflected in speech by some kind of received pronunciation, which is partly determined by spelling, and partly, especially as regards accent, a result of the speaker's dialectal substratum. The Bokmäl standard is associated with the speech of the educated class of the urban population. The Nynorsk standard does not have a corresponding basis in the speech of one connected stratum of society, its users being recruited from speakers who have dialects as their first language. The standards have a common stock of words, but parts of their vocabularies differ, because many Nynorsk words stemming from the dialects are not used in Bokmäl, and many Danish-derived Bokmäl words are not regarded as included in Nynorsk. The words may be wholly identical in their orthographical and phonological form, or they may be wholly or partly identical only in their root forms, and differ in their derivative elements. Major differences are found in morphology and to a certain extent in orthography. The differences of syntactic structure

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depend to some extent upon stylistic layer, Nynorsk having its ideal pattern in the popular idiom, Bokmäl being more dependent on the written tradition. It should be noted, however, that Nynorsk has also developed written patterns, and that Bokmäl has been influenced by the insistence of Nynorsk users on the advantage of using spoken patterns in the written language. As codified standards of writing, both Nynorsk and Bokmäl may represent more or less adequately the many speech varieties of Norwegian. In school, Bokmäl is by far the most used variety. As to adequacy, however, it is fair to say that Nynorsk corresponds better to the speech of the majority of the population than does Bokmäl. Aasen's Nynorsk norm approximated most closely to the structure of the dialects of the western part of southern Norway, important features of the eastern and northern dialects not being reflected in the surface form of the standard. As has been pointed out by Haugen (1972), the very aim of making the newly-built norm a common denominator of a multiplicity of dialects forced Aasen to reconstruct earlier stages in the development of Norwegian. For this and other reasons Nynorsk, too, needed reformation before long, and the language planners of this century did, indeed, reform it. Thus the reforms of 1917 and 1938 applied to Nynorsk as well as to Bokmäl. The decision of the year 1885 to recognize both standards as official and to place them on an equal footing took effect for the first time in the Elementary Education Act of 1892. This Act laid down that the municipalities were free to choose which of the standards the pupils should learn to write and in which standard they should have their school-books. An additional clause stated that they should learn to read both standards. The right to decide which standard to use was vested in the education committee of each municipality. Before the committee made its decision, the people living in the school district were required to vote on the matter. A provision which was at first not passed, but was added later on, said that the education committee could not oppose the will of a certain stated majority of the electorate (Lundeby 1966).

The first advance of Nynorsk By the Act of 1892, Nynorsk acquired the necessary basis in law to set out on its conquest of school districts. How impatiently some people waited for Nynorsk is shown by the fact that the first two municipalities

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to introduce Nynorsk did so in 1890, two years before it was sanctioned by the law. They were Hosanger near Bergen in the west and Bykle, a parish of the Setesdal valley, in the south. Their geographical location was symptomatic. Most of the shifts came in the west and the south. Throughout the period between 1890 and 1944 Nynorsk advanced continuously. At a rather early stage it made inroads into Bokmäl territory also in Trondelag and Telemark, and crossing the uninhabited mountain range dividing southern Norway into a western and an eastern part Nynorsk took possession of many school districts and municipalities of the eastern valleys. In this pioneer period the Nynorsk protagonists were imbued with a crusading spirit, disregarding the disturbing fact that not one single town school showed any sign of converting to Nynorsk. Rather than consider such trivialities they tended to envisage their ultimate victory in the manner expressed by a speaker at a congress for Nynorsk in 1934. Illustrating his point by drawing a historical comparison, he recalled the symbolic year 1000 when all Icelanders quite unexpectedly decided to turn away from their heathen gods and join the minority who worshipped Christ. In a similar way the people of Norway would one day have their revelation, when all would suddenly see which linguistic path to tread (Vestlandske mällag 1904-1954: 98). After that the speaker called to mind another good old day: how the Norwegians forgot their internal quarrels about the management of the union with Sweden when all realized that the moment of breakup had come on the 7th of June, 1905. Despite the continuous advance, for the time being revelations were scarce. The telling reasons for the choice of Nynorsk often were rational estimates as to which standard might in the short and the long run minimize the expense of new school-books. It was believed by many that Bokmäl would be revised until it became one with Nynorsk. In might therefore prove the best policy to choose Nynorsk just after a writing reform, when it would be necessary to change school-books in any case. No doubt, economic considerations and calculations of future probabilities made some people vote for Nynorsk. By others and more openly, national feelings were appealed to in the campaigns preceding language plebiscites, voters and education committees being reminded of the fact that Nynorsk was fundamentally Norwegian, whereas Bokmäl was reminiscent of a long-lasting suppression of Norwegian nationhood. Another factor which might be expected to influence the choice of school standard was the degree of correspondence between the structures of the dialect in question and of the two standards respectively. Let me

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illustrate this point by picking out one particular item of linguistic structure, the suffixed definite article for the singular of the feminine gender. The Bokmäl ending was -en, as in solen 'sun-the', the same as in the masculine gender, and evidence of the fact that Bokmäl had two genders, whereas the dialects and Nynorsk had three. Aasen's ending was -i as in soli. From 1938 this ending was discarded as a textbook form, being superseded by -a: sola. The revisionists hoped that by this change Nynorsk would become more acceptable to dialect speakers of the east and north. The development after 1938 seemed to suggest that they had predicted correctly. Especially in the north, i.e., in Tr0ndelag and northern Norway, the advance was substantial and conspicuous. From 1938 to 1939 the percentage of pupils having Nynorsk as their school standard increased from 22 to 29.5. The increase continued, though on a smaller scale, for the following few years, and in 1944, when the maximum figure was reached, the percentage amounted to 34.1. From this and other periods there exists a fairly considerable pamphleteering literature, which shows that some people made a strong point of the structural correspondence between the dialects and Nynorsk. On closer scrutiny, arguments of this kind turn out to be extensions of the argument that Nynorsk possessed most national congeniality. This appeal, however, was more to reason than to feeling. Along with the awakening of more cultural consciousness within the Labour party in the twenties and thirties the speech of the common people, the Folk Language, was put forward as an ideal goal. Politically, arguments were advanced for a rapprochement between farmers and labourers, and some ideologists believed that a co-operation between them would be promoted if Nynorsk was permitted to bridge the linguistic gap. The advance of Nynorsk culminated in the year 1944. In the census of 1945 the pupil percentage of the previous year was reduced by about one per cent, to 33.2. This set a trend which continued until 1977. Between 1944 and 1956 the reduction was at a rate of about one per cent per year. From then is grew smaller; but it was continuous, and never even temporarily halted. When it did halt in 1977, the percentage had reached the level of 16.4. Since 1977 a slow increase of never more than one tenth per cent a year has brought it to 17.0. The change that occurred in 1944 was unexpected and unprecedented. In spite of that, it went practically unnoticed by the Nynorsk campaigners. Apparently some of them had not, even as late as 1949, observed any

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fatal auguries of an impending decline. In that year one of their organizations set up the immediate goal that Nynorsk should be officially recognized as the one dominant language of the country in 1950, which was the 500th anniversary of the Act that symbolically introduced Danish as the written language of Norway. To neutral observers, especially when viewed with hindsight, this would seem to be an extreme kind of wishful thinking. From the outset, the Nynorsk movement was carried forward by liberals, people who possessed democratic and liberal attitudes in general, and who besides their linguistic preoccupation cherished idealistic notions such as teetotalism, devoutness, and a strong love of their country. Some people would say that one contributing cause of the retreat of Nynorsk after the war was a more realistic and less idealistic, not to say a more materialistic, climate in the post-war period. More than on such mental qualities, others would emphasize general lines of societal development in an industrialized country approaching the third millennium.

The development after the war and its reasons Since the war, the language conflict in Norway has not centred primarily on the relations between Nynorsk and Bokmal. Some sections within these two parties have even been on rather intimate terms. The chief adversaries have been found among those who preferred a different version of the same standard, radical or conservative as the case might be. Outside of officially regulated spheres of usage, it is possible for all to demonstrate in their spelling either conservative obstinacy or radical experimentalism. Within the standards there is also room for choice between several forms on many points of orthography and grammar. Most vigour was displayed by the conservative faction of the Bokmal party, who, by the way, do not accept this term for their version of the standard, but retain the older term "RiksmaF Orally, many of this group expressed sympathy with Nynorsk, but nevertheless fought it in the campaigns preceding the language plebiscites in the school districts. Given the choice between the two official norms, they championed Bokmal, although they heartily detested the official version of it, as they claimed that it was corrupted by official regulation. The activity of the Bokmal conservatives was one factor affecting the outcome of the school plebiscites. Another was that the Nynorsk organ-

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izations did not work well in the first period after the war. They made it their strategy to disregard the language elections, hoping that attendance would be too small to bind the education committees. When at last they realised that they had to contest every school district fiercely, the new strategic plan eventually paid off and halted the decline but as we saw, at a considerably lower level than before. The return to Bokmäl by many school districts after the war has been defended by the slogan: "It is no shame to double back." This saying is borrowed from a set of warnings issued to people setting out on ski trips in a dangerous terrain under bad weather conditions. In concise wording it expresses what might seem to be an intuitive knowledge acquired as wisdom after the event: the rash choice of Nynorsk was a mistake. In retrospect, we may ask today why this should be so; and we might go on to ask, for instance, why the noted and well-informed German observer, Heinz Kloss, should have been so grievously mistaken as to prophesy in 1951 that Nynorsk would soon win over all of northern Norway. The complete about-face of many voters and education committees certainly did not come because of new and contrary linguistic information, nor any conviction that Nynorsk could not after all fulfill its promise of becoming the most suitable standard of writing for people speaking this or that dialect. We can conclude today that the reversal cannot be accounted for in terms of linguistic structure, but that the causes were of a sociolinguistic nature. The background to the decline of Nynorsk after World War II can be epitomized as follows: Despite its advance as a standard of mother tongue instruction up to 1944, Nynorsk did not until 1939 gain access to a town, and then only on a small scale: in that year a parallel Nynorsk class consisting of 12 pupils was organized in the small coastal town of Flor0 (Norsk tidend 7. 12. 1939). Despite the equality with Bokmäl given to it in official reports and regulations, Nynorsk was not used in practice as was stipulated in theory. Discrimination against Nynorsk in all branches of public administration was a constant cause for complaint. And even sadder were the conditions in other spheres of community life. If you left the official field, you would soon notice that practically none of the welldressed men of private industry and commerce spoke or wrote this standard. Furthermore, for all its victories in belles-lettres, Nynorsk was obviously not the standard of the newspaper or the weeklies, which are more influential factors in forming public opinion than is literature with a more elevated and refined cultural appeal. For all its national congeni-

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ality, its consistent linguistic structure and its remarkable penetrative power in various cultural fields, Nynorsk was not a standard imbued with and by itself imbuing social status. It was still an object of ridicule on the stage; it was not used by the well-defined cadres setting the norms of superimposed, exemplary social behavior. And still more unfortunately, possessing most of the characteristics that pertain to a rural minority language, it was nevertheless under the necessity of asserting itself in a nation rapidly developing its industry and commerce. When properly assessed in this social context, the development after the war seems logical, reasonable and predictable. It was in fact no wonder that the children of the people who had voted for Nynorsk in far-off, pre-war times should decide on another and opposite departure in the decades following the war. Other, more trivial, causes may surely be pointed out. It seems significant that there was no local press edited in Nynorsk in the regions that had introduced the new standard after 1938. In those parts of the country there was little, if any, activity by associations and societies working to back up the Nynorsk cause. The parents of the children who were to learn Nynorsk at school were themselves not accustomed to reading and writing this standard, and neither were the children's older brothers and sisters. Because they were unfamiliar with the graphemic representation of its linguistic structure, the standard seemed rather strange to them, despite its alleged nearness to their own spoken idiom. In the opposing camp, on the other hand, the economic resources were good, and they were exploited in massive propaganda attacks which led to the launching and carrying through of successful plebiscites.

Voting conditions In 1969 new rules were laid down for the choice of school standard. A main principle of the revised Act was the institution of the sole right of the parents to choose the standard for their children. Instead of the entire district community, only the parents were now given the right to vote on the issue. Many Nynorsk spokesmen raised objections to this restriction of the vote. They maintained that the choice of school standard would determine the future course of cultural development in the local community, and was accordingly a decision to be made by all its members. Such arguments did something to change details in the provisions. An

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observable psychological aspect was the fear entertained by many that the parents acting individually and on behalf of their own children, would be too easily influenced by spurious and untrustworthy propaganda, and might fall prey to considerations based on social prejudices and vanity. The voting qualifications were changed again in 1985. Under the present arrangement the conditions of use and choice of school standard are as follows: the situation in most places, you might say nearly everywhere, is that the standard of mother tongue instruction is the same from year to year and from one school generation to the next, without any change. In the Nynorsk regions and at the geographical borders between Nynorsk and Bokmäl this usage is based on a policy previously established by community decision. A plebiscite for a change of standard may be held anywhere if a sufficiently large number of registered persons ask for it or simply if the education committee decides on it. The committee then provides for a plebiscite to be held according to official regulations. All residents of an area having the franchise are entitled to vote, and up to 1969 the education committee was obliged to act on the vote and institute a change of school standard if a majority of no less than 40 per cent of the electorate voted for it. From 1969 to 1985 only parents and other guardians of children under 14 years of age had the vote in language plebiscites. When in 1985 the Storting amended the Education Act, it reverted to the state before 1969, but with one exception: the outcome of the plebiscite is now just a recommendation to the education committee. There has been a great deal of political controversy about the particular provisions of this passage, as the frequent changes of it may indicate. One reason for the political commitment was that in many municipalities a change of voting qualifications would be decisive as one version would favor an old resident population, and the other those who had recently moved into the area and wanted a change of school standard. It is a matter of common knowledge that in our time towns tend to expand by encroaching on the neighboring countryside. In the rural areas surrounding many towns Nynorsk may for a long time have been the standard of school and church and also of the local administration, in short the linguistic medium carrying the locally based verbal culture. Most of the new residents invading these parishes came from the town, were accustomed to Bokmäl and wanted Bokmäl for their children. Like most applicants on the housing market they were young people, in their child-producing years. Their children might even be the main reason why they moved into another locality. Their claim for a language plebiscite

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was felt by the old residents to be not only a challenge, but a provocation, and in some cases skirmishes and disturbances because of the school language destroyed good neighborliness. In the Education Act there is, however, a safety valve intended to reduce the tension of frustrated language voters. Irrespective of officially instituted elections, all parents may anywhere and at any time ask for another standard for their children than the one that is official in the school district. Separate parallel classes will be organized provided that at least 10 pupils ask for another standard than the official one. The number restriction on the free choice is necessary because of small schools and correspondingly few pupils in the classes of any one year. It has important consequences not only in sparsely settled regions, but in communities that are more densely populated as well.

Some particular cases In some school districts having Nynorsk as their official standard demographic changes may have caused the rather absurd situation that the parents preferring Bokmäl for their children outnumber those wishing the traditional standard. In a certain school district of Steinkjer, an urban municipality of Trondelag, at the beginning of the school year there were 39 pupils asking for the standard not previously used whereas only four were reported as candidates for the established standard of the district. Acting in a true liberal and generous spirit the municipal school authorities of Steinkjer in that year organized a class consisting of only four pupils. The school authorities in other places have not been so swift in making arrangements for smaller classes than the minimum established by law. An unexpected increase in the number of classes may of course be a strain on public resources. In the outskirts of Bergen, where the town has extended its territory at the expense of the neighboring municipalities, there have been some rather difficult cases. It has twice occurred that all school beginners of a district, however few ten and nine respectively — wanted Bokmäl in a Nynorsk district. The school authorities and the Ministry permitted them to have the standard they wanted, but the question presented itself: what if one single beginner asked for the established standard of the district?

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In another school district new residents asked for a plebiscite to have the traditional standard changed. The plebiscite was held according to the new rules, and an amazing majority voted in favor of the status quo. The education committee then made two decisions: it confirmed the chosen standard and prolonged the existing exemption from it for the newly settled protesters. Before the decision there was an eager debate, not on culture but on economics. By its extension the town's boundaries had crossed a traditional borderline between areas of different school standards. It is an open secret that in some such transitional areas parents exploit the possibility of free choice of standard as a means of securing for their own children schooling in a class of more favorable numbers than would otherwise have been possible. The arrangement here outlined would seem to make due allowance for the individual citizen's rights within limits set by reasonable economic considerations. Besides, the rules are not complicated, but are fairly easily understandable and applicable. Despite the good intentions of the lawmakers and the corresponding positive qualities of the provisions in force at present, some complications connected with separate cases did, however, arise, especially in the first few years after the Act's coming into effect. I shall now briefly outline some such cases, hoping in this way to convey an impression of the Act itself and of its scope. Perhaps the fragments of information included in these reports may also contribute to a better understanding of the whole language situation in Norway. Certainly they will illuminate practical difficulties connected with the administration of public affairs, or indicate some problems inherent in the manageability of a modern bureaucracy. (Cf. Almenningen and Lien 1978 and Mäljamstelling 1980.) The first example relates to a school located in northern Norway in which Bokmäl was taught. One year a sufficiently large number of parents asked for a Nynorsk class. To avoid the inconvenience and expenditure involved in setting up a relatively small extra class at this centrally located school, the school authorities directed these children to another school situated a couple of miles away in which Nynorsk was taught. As might be expected, the parents were not immediately prepared to accept this, but their vigorous protests made no impression on departmental bureaucracy. Neither were national organizations of Nynorsk able to give any assistance, all being obliged to rest content with the answer that though the parents certainly have the right to choose the standard for their children, they are not entitled to choose both standard and school location at the same time. As a result some of the parents let their children attend

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the school where Bokmäl was taught, in order to avoid their having to travel so great a distance. This case was ultimately raised as a question in the Storting, and there the Minister answered as Ministers regularly do: he promised to inquire into the matter. The outcome of this inquiry is not known to me but what I do know is that some years after a similar case was reported from the same school district, and the procedure was repeated in full this time. Another complication was met with by some parents in Stavanger who asked for separate parallel Nynorsk classes in this town, which had only Bokmäl before. For a long time both the local and the central offices involved refused to comply and deliver lists of the parents of children enrolled as beginners. Their hesitation was motivated by the necessity to ensure that no information about any person was conveyed from official rolls, in deference to the principle of personal anonymity and integrity. Much fuss and individual effort were necessary to find a way out of this unprecedented, intricate and seemingly insoluble problem. The parents who raised the issue had to send their children to a Bokmäl class, but their perseverance at least had the desired effect, so that other parents and children have since profited by it. Complications abound, and I can report more. In some municipalities the children receive their instruction in small local schools for the first three years, and are then moved to larger, centralized schools for the remaining years of their school life. In some places this movement has caused problems in the choice of standard. In the local schools Nynorsk may be the chosen standard, whereas Bokmäl is used in the central school. The problem then arises of how to take care of the needs of the pupils from the local school when they change to the central school. The requirement of separate instruction applies to the subject of mother tongue only, not to the other school subjects, and the pupils are too few to make up appropriately large classes by themselves. Some pettifoggery had to be overcome before it was possible for a school inspector in the Gudbrandsdal valley to win departmental acceptance of his practical method of tackling this problem in the best possible way for those concerned. The official counterargument to his method, which was intended in all seriousness but was perhaps too hasty, was that the children who moved from one school to another certainly had the right to continue using the standard that was taught to them during their first three years at school, but that they did not have the right to continue receiving instruction in it. When this decision was disputed, it was admitted that a mistake had been committed by the official in charge of the case.

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In spite of this admission, dissolution of classes that for some reason or other have had their number of pupils reduced, remained a problem. In 1985 the municipality of Sandnes in Rogaland dissolved three classes for economic reasons, although this was a flagrant violation of the law, which states that classes of six pupils or more should remain intact. The procedure was also questioned by an interpellator in the Storting, and the Minister, this time a new one from a new Government, dissociated himself from the practice of the local administration. But the injustice was committed, and the classes could not be re-established. The last major case reported so far (1990) concerns the school district Voll in Trondelag. The school standard of the district is of old Nynorsk. In 1989 some parents wanted to have Bokmäl for children who were to start school that year, and at a meeting a majority of those present expressed the wish of a plebiscite in a petition which they signed. Other persons in the district who did not agree in the intention underlying the request for a plebiscite protested in another document directed to the school authorities of the district. They also pointed out that the school administration did not have to comply with the request for a plebiscite as it was not signed by so many persons of the electorate as the law required for the school administration to be bound by it. Although under no obligation the administration all the same instituted a plebiscite to be held shortly after. In the poll both standards received practically the same number of votes. At the meeting of the education committee a majority of four to three now voted for Nynorsk, a decision which was made under the observance of all the rules relevant to the case. Still some of those who wanted Bokmäl made a renewed application, and at the ensuing meeting of the education committee the matter was submitted to another discussion. The decision of the previous meeting was first annulled, and when the question was again put to the vote it resulted in a majority of four to three for Bokmäl, as one of the ordinary representatives did not attend, a deputy with another view meeting in his stead. The repeal of the first decision was of course not welcomed by the Nynorsk group. They protested, referring to the school law, which states that a new decision on school standard cannot be made within a period of five years. Their case was supported by the school authority of the county, but this local authority was overruled by an official of the Ministry, who in a telephone call just at the start of the school year informed the administration that Bokmäl should be used after all. After renewed interference from those who disputed it this decision was also changed, but at that time the children had already been in school for some months.

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In this particular case the last document but one until now was issued by the Ministry late in the autumn of 1990, i.e., when the pupils were well into their second school year. It stated that there was "no sensible doubt" about the school standard; in accordance with the first decision of the education committee it had to be Nynorsk. A proper comment on that would be that all sensible persons should have seen just that all the time, as the doubt that had for one school year occasioned the instruction in the other standard was, in the best sense of the words, not only unfounded, but even unreasonable. The introduction of the wrong standard was above all due to inconsistent and unwise treatment of the case by one particular official in the Ministry. His motives were supposedly just to satisfy those who cried most loudly and not to promote one standard unjustly. On this case, see Venäs 1991: 69.

The textbook situation One long-standing and serious problem connected with the choice of standard was of another kind, viz., the scarcity of textbooks and other educational material written in Nynorsk. In secondary more than in elementary schools this scarcity, in fact, prevented the use of Nynorsk in some subjects. The difficulties provoked considerable commotion and many protests not only by Nynorsk users, but also by users of Bokmal who realized the grievous injustice done to those choosing Nynorsk. At last it was therefore established by law that all educational books had to appear in both standards at the same time and at the same price. There is, however, a possibility of dispensation from this requirement, and having discovered that the Ministry was not unwilling to dispense with it, the publishers exploited the possibility. And even more, sometimes the parallel Nynorsk editions of books appeared after the Bokmal edition without any dispensation from the law. There were economic reasons for such breaches of the law: the Bokmal editions sell better than the Nynorsk ones. Today, this bad situation has improved, but other unfavorable circumstances still remain as actual obstacles to the use of Nynorsk: the publishers want to exempt books produced in small editions from the regulations, and some booksellers do not have the Nynorsk versions in stock. The adverse situation in the area of publishing and selling educational books is a real threat against Nynorsk today. If because of some unlucky

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circumstances Nynorsk pupils buy their books in Bokmäl this may start an evil process. The Nynorsk editions sell worse and worse, and the publishers' desire to print books in Nynorsk accordingly declines still more. The pupils who are forced to read textbooks in Bokmäl, may also begin writing Bokmäl, and after a while they may more or less look upon Bokmäl as their proper standard. Furthermore, on entering society at large they will soon discover other difficulties, such as obtaining official documents in the school standard their parents or ancestors had chosen for them: postal forms, driving licences, military papers and even certificates of marriage. The paper consumption forced on them by this will have consequences for official language statistics and for the relations between the standards in future. In the National budget the Government makes special grants to parallel editions in Nynorsk, but in times of economic strain such grants tend to be reduced. As an immediate response to such reductions or to small grants in general college students have several times gone out on strike, but with minimal effects.

Sociolinguistic conclusions Practical problems such as those briefly mentioned here have no doubt contributed to the decline of Nynorsk as a school standard, but they are only concomitants of the minority status as such. In my summing up I will revert to the lack of social prestige. Norway has in post-war years completed a change that had been in progress throughout this century, from a rural community with agriculture and fishing as her chief occupations to a country of industry and commerce, and like other welfare societies employing many people in the service sector. The greater part of the population live in towns and provincial villages. Urbanization is a striking feature of our time, and in Norway urbanization has Bokmäl as its written linguistic correlate. Demographic movements have probably contributed more to the decline in Nynorsk pupils than have lost plebiscites. During the last few decades the development of social intercourse and of mass media of various kinds has made people of all social strata communicate more than before. A broad-scale leveling of dialectal speech and increased relative strength of standardized language are other consequences of this social development. The standardized speech variety built on the speech of the middle and

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upper strata of the urban population possesses more social prestige than any other speech norms, the Nynorsk norm included. This Bokmal norm represents the idiom characteristic of the people who count in the eyes of the broad masses of society. People who are socially ambitious on behalf of themselves and their children know that this type of urban speech and the standard of writing associated with it are the safest linguistic means of securing a locus standi in society. However, this is not the whole picture. Some of the people who most consciously desire that their children should climb the social ladder by educational means have voted for Nynorsk just because of this. It is required that all pupils have a certain command of both standards. As it is easier to learn Bokmal because of its preponderance in most kinds of literature, they want their children to learn Nynorsk as their major standard at school, thereby hoping that they will secure a better mark in this subject, which is reported to cause certain problems. But generally more shortsighted considerations and the sociolinguistic atmosphere in which Norwegians live determine people's attitudes to the two written standards, and will strongly suggest to them which standard to choose when they cast their vote as parents of promising boys and girls. The equality between the standards may be guaranteed through political resolutions aimed at doing justice to all citizens and may be ensured by legislation through ingenious legal devices, but no official sense of justice and no legislative ingenuity can change the sociolinguistic environment or make a standard built on rural dialects as prestigious as the standard associated with the speech of the urban bourgeoisie. In spite of the overall trend depicted here, there are certain indications today that point in another direction. In the seventies the growth of ecological consciousness furthered other and more positive attitudes to dialectal speech, and this development influenced people's attitudes to the standards too. In some urban-like areas in western Norway, Nynorsk now seems to maintain and even strengthen its position. Even more, some parallel Nynorsk classes are set up each year in towns like Stavanger and Troms0. In the eighties the percentage of school children having Nynorsk is again on the move ahead. If only by tenths of percents, it nevertheless moves in the right direction, as viewed with Nynorsk eyes. Evidence of this kind can be mentioned to counterbalance the somewhat negative and pessimistic view of the status of Nynorsk presented here.

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References Almenningen, Olaf — Äsmund Lien 1978 Striden for nynorsk bruksmäl [The struggle for the use of Nynorsk], Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget. Firchow, Evelyn Scherabon Kaaren Grimstad — Nils Hasselmo — Wayne A. O'Neil (eds.) 1972 Studies by Einar Haugen presented on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday — April 19, 1971. The Hague —Paris: Mouton. Haugen, Einar 1966 Language conflict and language planning. The case of modern Norwegian. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. 1966 "Construction and reconstruction in language planning: Ivar Aasen's grammar", Word 21: 188-207. [1972] [Reprinted in: E. S. Firchow - K. Grimstad - N. Hasselmo - W. A. O'Neil (eds.), 461-478.] Kloss, Heinz 1951 "Über den heutigen Stand von Riksmaal und Landsmaal", Neuphilologische Zeitschrift 3: 341-343. Lundeby, Einar 1966 "Stortinget og spraksaken" [Parliament and the language issue]. In: Innstilling om spraksaken (fra Komiteen til ä vurdere spräksituationen m. v. oppnevnt ved kgl. res. 31.januar 1964) [Report on the language issue (by the committee for evaluating the language situation etc. appointed by royal decree, 31st January, 1964)], 57 — 81. Orkanger: The Ministry for Church and Education). Mäjamstelling 1980 [A survey of equality cases treated by the Norwegian Language Council. Unpublished document available to the members of the Council.] Norsk Tidend [Nynorsk periodical] Oslo. Venas, Kjell 1991 Mäl og med [Aim and mark]. Oslo: Noregs Mällag. Vestlandske mallag 1904-1954 1954 Bjorgvin [Bergen]: Vestlandske mallag.

Principles of corpus planning — as applied to the spelling reforms of Indonesia and Malaysia Lars S. Viker

Up to and including 1972, spelling was one of the "hot issues" in the language planning of Indonesia and Malaysia. The largely common standard language of the two countries, Malay, had had its orthography codified in two versions by the respective colonial masters, the Netherlands and Britain, at the beginning of the present century. In 1972, a common spelling for the two countries was agreed upon and introduced after more than two decades of lively discussions within both countries. It seems to have fulfilled its purpose so well that the question of orthography can be regarded as settled for the foreseeable future. In this article I shall view this process of spelling reform as an application of a set of general principles of language corpus planning, especially orthography planning. I shall start by giving a brief survey of these principles.

1. Principles of language corpus planning All language planning rests on a double basis: on the one hand, knowledge of data and facts concerning language use, traditions and attitudes, on the other hand certain values, goals and principles underlying the planning decisions themselves. The planning process always implies the choice between different alternatives, and this choice must of necessity be generated by such principles — or they must be formed by some compromise between different principles. In their basic character, these principles are universal. Their actualization and their realization, however, must of course be different in different societies, ages and situations. In a Norwegian-language introductory book on language planning (Vikor 1988a: 108 — 135), I have tried to enumerate a set of planning principles which was meant to be as comprehensive as possible, but which nevertheless was unavoidably

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adapted particularly to the linguistic situation and the language planning discussion in Norway. Here, I shall give this list of principles in a slightly revised form — with an eye to the spelling problems of Malay. I group the principles into four main categories, which I call respectively: 1. Internal linguistic principles; 2. Principles related to attitudes towards other languages; 3. Principles concerning the relationships between the language and its users (society); and finally: 4. Principles derived from societal ideologies.

1.1. Internal linguistic principles a. Phonemicity Every grapheme should consistently correspond to one certain phoneme. This principle is the basic one underlying alphabetic writing — although it is seldom carried out in full consistency. One problem is that most languages contain variations in pronunciation, so that some other principle has to be evoked in order to generate a decision about which pronunciation to choose. But many other considerations present themselves as modifications of the phonemicity principle. The most important of them will be mentioned in what follows here.

b. Morphophonemicity Every morpheme should be spelled in a consistent way even if its pronunciation is not consistent. A good example from English is the past tense morpheme , which is spelled like this whether it is pronounced /d/, /t/ or /id/.

c. Simplicity The argument of simplicity can be used in many different ways for instance, both a phonemic and a morphophonemic spelling can be argued to be the most "simple" But in any case, the simplicity principle would favor 1. a high degree of regularity (few exceptions to the fixed rules); and 2. a small inventory of rules and units (phonemes, graphemes and other entities). The application of this principle is of course limited by the structure of the language in question. Simplicity is also relative to

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the position of the user of the language: what is simple for the writer (i.e., less graphemes than there are phonemes in the language) may create extra difficulties for the reader (cf. the "vowellessness" of Arabic writing). d. Etymology All words should be spelled according to their origin, i.e., changes of pronunciation should not be reflected in writing, even when these changes are due to the fact that the words are borrowed from some other language. e. Invariance There should be one and only one accepted spelling of every word and form — no freedom of choice between alternatives. f. Stability The orthography should be stable; no change whatever should be allowed in it.

1.2. Principles related to attitudes towards other languages Basically, if the relations to other languages are involved in language planning at all, only two attitudes are possible: rapprochement or reaction, to minimize the differences between the languages or to maximize them. a. Rapprochement or adaptation There are two types of rapprochement: mutual and unilateral. Unilateral rapprochement is most common: The general pattern is that a less prestigious language is brought closer to a more prestigious one. A clear case in point is the rapprochement of Creole languages towards the standard languages out of which they originally developed, e.g., English or French. Also in decolonized societies with their own indigenous standard languages, one can often see tendencies to use the former colonial language as a "model" in the codification and elaboration of the new standard languages. Mutual rapprochement is more rare. It presupposes a positive climate of cooperation between language groups of more or

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less equal prestige. The linguistic cooperation between Indonesia and Malaysia is an important example of this phenomenon; another is formed by the Scandinavian countries. b. Reaction (purism) Purism too can be found in two varieties: 1. total purism, directed against all foreign influence with the aim of keeping the language in question absolutely "pure"; 2. partial purism, directed against influences from certain specific languages, generally languages which are and have been dominant and playing an oppressive role towards the language in question and its users.

1.3. Principles concerning the relationship between the language and its users a. Majority The majority principle would imply that in the choice between alternative forms or variants of any kind, one should choose the one which is used by a majority among the population. b. Liberality This principle favors the acceptance of variation in spelling and at other linguistic levels — allowing persons who speak different varieties of the language to continue speaking differently and to choose those writing forms which come closest to their own speech. It is the opposite of the principle of invariance mentioned above. c. Prestige The forms with the highest prestige in society should be favored heighten the "dignity" and hence acceptability of the language.

to

d. Counter-prestige The antithesis of the former principle — which can be evoked in times of social change when non-prestigious segments of the population struggle for a higher recognition. In Norwegian language planning, the linguistic emancipation of such non-prestigious segments (farmers and workers) has been one among several motivating forces.

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e. Usage Changes in educated usage should be reflected in official language planning. f. Estheticism The notion of beauty ("beautiful language") should be taken into account in language planning. This principle is difficult to apply, since "beauty" is a question of very subjective impressions, of "taste" — and this "taste" is to a large extent derived from socio-linguistic attitudes prevailing in the society in question. g. Rationalism The language should be as efficient, rational and economical as possible. This principle is naturally particularly dominant in the standardization of technolects, but it is also used in more general corpus planning e.g., when the traditional numerals of the structure "four-and-twenty" in Norwegian in 1951 were replaced by the structure "twenty-four" by parliamentary decree. The argument was that the latter structure was more rational than the former.

1.4. Principles derived from societal ideologies a. Nationalism Language planning should strengthen the national character of the language. A specific form of nationalism in language planning is the socalled "national historicism", where this "national character" is not only viewed in a synchronic perspective (based on contemporary usage), but where the authenticity of the language is sought in a glorious past. A prerequisite for national historicism is the existence of a classical language variety with a literary "Great Tradition" b. Traditionalism This principle favors the preservation of a linguistic/literary/cultural tradition against innovations of any kind. It is often nationalistically motivated, but not necessarily: Religious Great Traditions, for instance, like

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the Islamic and the Jewish, have motivated a strong traditionalism within the Arabic and Hebrew language communities. An emerging nationalist language movement can also be counteracted by a linguistic traditionalism attached to the prevailling non-indigenous language of the country or region. c. Democracy, egalitarianism Language planning should promote social equality for all groups and individuals, not aim at the cultivation of an exclusive elite language, whether of national or foreign brand. It should be conducted by democratic institutions where the public in general can exert influence on the decisions taken. d. Liberalism Language planning should not be conducted by official institutions or governmental bodies; rather, free development of language should be promoted. This principle must not be confused with "liberality" above: it is the linguistic equivalence of the "free market ideology", and it implies that a strong regulation of language is OK when it is supported by the forces of the market as opposed to the government. e. Modernity The language should be actively adapted to the needs of modern culture and technology even if this implies a violation of the principles of traditionalism and national historicism. f. Authority Language planning should promote strict linguistic norms and be conducted in an authoritarian way in order to strengthen discipline and unity within society.

1.5. A ranking of the principles We have lined the principles up without attempting to rank them in relation to each other. That does not mean that they are all equally important. Some of them are more basic than others — underlying and

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motivating them, so to speak. Purism is often motivated by nationalism, for instance, or by religious traditionalism. The majority principle and the liberality principle can both be ascribed to the ideology of democracy and egalitarianism. In general, we are probably right in saying that the principles in 1.4 are the most fundamental ones, and that the others are often derived from these.

1.6. The ideological fundament of Indonesian and Malaysian language planning The general ideologies underlying language planning in Indonesia and Malaysia can here be only vaguely indicated. Nationalism is of course a very potent force. In Indonesia Malay under the name of Bahasa Indonesia or "Indonesian" has succeeded very well in acquiring a supra-ethnic status, which enables it to play a "pure" national language role. In Malaysia, on the other hand, it is first and foremost regarded as the vehicle of the Malay ethnic group, although it is accepted formally as the national language also there. But this acceptance is part of the delicate balance between the ethnic groups of the country, particularly the Malays and the Chinese, where the Malays have acquired the political supremacy, the Chinese the economic. The only supra-ethnic language of Malaysia is English, but English is not a national language. The degree of dominance of Malay is therefore a matter of strife between the ethnic groups of Malaysia, while this is not at all so in Indonesia. A dominant ideological antagonism pair is traditionalism-modernity. Traditionalism is partly attached to Islam, partly to the traditional literary culture of Malay from before colonial times, partly to the Sanskritic/Old Javanese heritage of medieval Java. When European loan words are rejected, the tendency in Java-dominated Indonesia is to replace them with words from Sanskrit or Old Javanese, if not from modern regional languages of Java or other islands, while in Malaysia Arabic terms are often preferred. At any rate: modernity clearly prevails over any kind of traditionalism in practice, in both countries (see the discussion in Alisjahbana 1976). In the same way, the principle of authority is prevailing over that of liberality, in any case in the official language planning implementation, although concessions to a more liberal view of language usage are given in the form of a stylistic-functional differentiation between a strongly regulated standard language and more popular and colloquial

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kinds of usage in more informal spheres (see the discussion in Moeliono et al. 1988: 1 - 2 0 ) . These general remarks cannot be elaborated further here. We now turn to the spelling problems.

2. The application of the principles to the problems of Malay orthography 2.1. Spelling history We start with a short survey of the spelling history of Malay (a more thorough treatments is given in Vikar 1988b: 11 —28). It is well known that the language called Malay — formerly used as a leading trade language and diplomatic language over most of the Indonesian archipelago was considered the most important indigenous language of the area by both the Dutch and the British colonial masters. When they expanded elementary education among the local population, Malay became the dominant instruction language. That is the chief reason why both colonial powers standardized an official orthography of Malay around the turn of the century. The orthographies were drafted by the school inspectors of the respective areas. Therefore, we got the "Van Ophuijsen" spelling in the Dutch East Indies (1901), and the "Wilkinson spelling" in British Malaya (1904). The chief difference between these spellings was that the Wilkinson spelling was based on British conventions in the rendering of the consonant system, while Van Ophuijsen used Dutch conventions. The subsequent developments must be sketched very summarily. In 1947, during the wars of independence against the Dutch, the Republican Indonesian government issued a spelling reform which was called the Republican spelling or the Soewandi spelling after the Minister in charge of the reform. The most important change was that the vowel /u/ henceforth was to be spelled and not with the "Dutch" digraph in accordance with both the nationalistic ideology and with system-related considerations, as the grapheme until then had no place in the system except as a part of the diphthong . But the consonant system was not touched by this reform. After independence, spelling remained a controversial issue, and there were many pleas for a new reform. Increasingly, the relations between

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Indonesia and Malaya — independent in 1957 — began to play a role. In the latter country, there also developed a spelling conflict between a conservative and an "indonesianizing" faction. In 1959, experts from the two countries agreed on a draft of a common spelling, called Melindo. This spelling was however never implemented, partly for technical reasons — because it was so phonemically based, or biased — that it presupposed the creation of brand-new characters to replace certain conventionalized digraphs — and more important: there developed a situation of cold war, called "konfrontasi" or "confrontation", between the two countries in connection with the creation of the federation of Malaysia in 1963. The change of regime in Indonesia in the mid-sixties ended this confrontation, spelling cooperation was resumed and after much internal strife in both countries, particularly Indonesia it resulted in the new unified spelling of 1972.

2.2. A typology of spelling conflicts and spelling problems If we should give a general typology of spelling conflicts, we might distinguish the following types: 1. The most superfical one only concerns the graphemic representation without any consequence on the phonemic side or the graphemic/phonemic correspondence. The Danish conflict between and is an example. 2. Secondly, we have the conflicts that concern changes in the correspondence between the phonemic and the graphemic systems. The discussions of spelling reform in English is a case in point here. 3. The third type implies a more basic choice between different spelling principles. Examples: In Dutch, an important debate issue has been whether the phonemic or the morphophonemic principle should be followed, while in Faroese, the phonemic principle has competed with the etymological and lost. 4. A fourth type is exemplified by the Norwegian so-called spelling strife, where the fundamental issue has been not how a given spoken variety should be most adequately represented, but which spoken variety should be the norm to be represented in spelling. In Norway, we do not find a spelling conflict, even though Norwegians are accustomed to use this term, but a norm conflict. 5. The conflicts pertaining to the degree of integration of foreign words into the indigenous spelling system must be seen as a separate type.

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6. Finally, we may mention the conflict involving the choice of script to represent a given language. These types do not constitute discrete entities, but are more often than not intertwined in the concrete cases of conflict. This is the case in Indonesia and Malaysia. The controversial problems of Malay orthography can be grouped into three main types: 1. Problems of notation without any implication for pronunciation. Here we can distinguish two sub-types: a) The alternative spellings are equally phonemic (when we disregard the distinction single grapheme-digraph), corresponding to type 1 above. b) One of the alternative spellings is phonemic, the other not — or they imply difference in phonotactic rules or phonemic analysis. 2. Problems of fluctuations in pronunciation which cause uncertainties and wavering in spelling. This type may correspond to type 4 above, but the question here does not pertain to the choice of speech norms, only to the degree of variation to be admitted within the selected norm. 3. Problems concerning the spelling of foreign words (assimilation or retention of foreign spellings), including the problem of "loan phonemes" — type 5 above. In addition we can mention that the choice of script has also been controversial in Malaysia. The traditional use of the Arabic script has been more persistent there than in Indonesia, where this script is confined to the strictly orthodox Islamic sphere and not very much used even there. In Malaya/Malaysia, a debate about the choice of script took place in the 1950s, involving first and foremost the principles traditionalism vs. modernity, but also internal principles pertaining to phonemicity, since the Arabic script, as is well known, has a deficient vowel notation (Vikor 1988b: 2 1 - 2 2 ; Asraf and Usman Awang 1962). As late as in 1982, a book on language planning (written in Roman characters) deplores the rejection of the Arabic script, clearly because of Islamic-traditional emotions (Mukhtaruddin 1982: 6 1 - 6 2 ) . I shall now discuss the concrete problems mentioned above more in detail. But at this point, I shall find it convenient to make a delimitation to this discussion, viz. to confine myself largely to the Indonesian side. The most intense discussions on the concrete points, as far as my material goes, have taken place in Indonesia, and I shall base myself on these discussions when analyzing the argumentation and attributing it to the various principles listed in the inventarization above. If I move to the Malaysian side of the border, I shall make explicit mention of it.

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The material on which this discussion is based, is contained in Vik0r 1988b. I refer to this book for a more elaborate discussion on the problems, and for more extensive bibliographical references.

2.3. General characterization of Malay orthography The fundamental principle upon which this orthography is built is (1 a): Phonemicity. As I have already indicated, this principle is underlying all alphabetic writing, but it is usually more or less modified by the other principles I have mentioned. Another fundamental principle which is inherent in all orthographies, is (1 fy Stability. As the spoken language always changes over time, these two principles will counteract each other in established traditional orthographies, as those of English and French. The modern Malay standard language, however, is so young that this conflict has not manifested itself. Instead, another principle has been counteracting both phonemicity (to a certain extent) and stability — in the period up to 1972 viz. (2 a): Rapprochement, i.e., both towards Malaysia resp. Indonesia, and towards international usage (English, in fact). The spoken variety corresponding to written Malay is actually a "reading pronunciation" which has developed into a speech standard. It is on many points fluctuating because of the different language and dialect backgrounds of its speakers, and it is not definitely fixed how much of this fluctuation should be accepted within the frame of what one might call "standard pronunciation" We shall now examine some concrete problems according to the grouping given above.

2.3.1. Problems of notation without phonemic relevance Here we find the much-discussed question of the notation of the consonants /c/; /j/; IJI/; /η/; /χ/; /c/ and the semivowel /j/. The development can be schematically presented like this: phonemes: Malaysia: Indonesia: Melindo: 1972:

Μ



Μ

Μ

Μ

HI

Μ





















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There is something contradictory about this kind of problems: one should think that where there is no phonemically relevant difference between two notations, there should be no problem at all. But in the cited cases there was, and the main motivation for making changes in these cases has been the relations with Malaya/Malaysia. This was the major spelling difference between the two countries where Indonesia had go "give in" to Malaysia — even though the Malaysian system too had to be changed, but to a much smaller extent. It is an application of principle (2 a): Rapprochement. It is natural that this problem was much more intensely discussed in Indonesia than in Malaysia. But when one goes through the discussions on these problems in the 1950s, one finds that the relations with Malaya those years played a modest role in the argumentation. In general, a reform is argued for precisely in phonemic terms and the burning question then was the digraphs (; ; ; — and also and ). It was felt as desirable to apply the phonemic principle consistently by having only one grapheme per phoneme — and different solutions to the problem were proposed, including the adoption of completely new letters to replace and . Such letters were included in the Melindo agreement of 1959, which, as we have seen, was not implemented. Behind this policy, we can see not only the principle of phonemicity but also principle (2 b): Purism, i.e., a wish to distinguish the language from other languages as much as possible. Later on, after the end of Confrontation, rapprochement towards Malaysia came to the fore, while the phonemic principle was relegated to a more modest place in the argumentation and purism completely discarded. It was agreed upon that no new letters were to be admitted, and even no diacritics. Rapprochement towards international usage to a large extent motivated by technical and economical considerations — was an important principle behind this decision; principle (1 c): Simplicity could also be evoked. The only controversial point that remained until the final decision was reached in 1972, was and in British Malaya, and in the Dutch East Indies. But this distinction was discarded in the Soewandi spelling of 1947, a decision which was severely criticized during the 1950s — as a violation of the phonemicity principle. In Melindo, the distinction vs. was reintroduced. However, after the reactualization of the spelling question from 1966 onwards, the phonemicity principle was largely discarded also here. The final result of the deliberations was that Soewandi's regulation of 1947 was upheld, so that both /a/ and /e/ are now spelled . It seems that the avoidance of diacritics for typographical reasons was now the superior consideration. We might see principle (1 c): Simplicity operating here, and/or principle (3 e): Usage, since it seems that the accent above was largely discarded in practice. Even the principle (3 b): Liberality was brought into the discussion in 1972 liberality towards those Indonesians that in their regional accents had another distribution between /a/ and /e/ than the established one in standard Indonesian and whose pronunciation could be left at their discretion when this distinction was neglected in the orthography (Amran Halim in Djajanto and Lake 1972: 153). In the 1950s, on the other hand, an argument for the reintroduction of was precisely that /a/ and /e/ were "confused" in pronunciation, so that the spelling should state explicitly which pronunciation was the "correct" one in every word — cf. principle (1 e): Invariance. Another problem under this heading involves the phonotactic structure of the language. It has to do with the avoidance of certain consonant clusters by inserting an , representing a schwa, between them. There is a rule in traditional Malay/Indonesian grammar which says that certain consonant clusters in syllable-initial position are impossible, viz. s + plosive and plosive + 1 or r. If this rule should be consistently applied, one should always insert between these consonants in this position even if there phonetically is not much of an /a/ to be heard. Examples: