Talk:Language policy

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Japanese and Chinese characters[edit]

In Japan the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (originally just called the Ministry of Education) regulates which Chinese characters are taught in schools, and which characters can be registered with the government in names. An in China the government decreed that the characters were to be simplified, and so the mainland characters are different from the characters used in Hong Kong and Taiwan (and in Japan, which itself simplifed characters in a different way). I'm not sure if this is "language regulation."

Early unsectioned discussion[edit]

Why is Vermont listed among the countries? Is this vandalism, or does Vermont have some kind of special state policy? If it belongs here, I think it needs to be clarified. joye 22:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why was this page created? It provides nothing except make it appear that language laws are common without showing examples. They are not. Angelique 21:03, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

We meet again. The majority of States have language policies. The reason the page is still empty is because I am in discussion with a linguist on how to include some of the data of his copyrighted site. The site in question is:

This site is a goldmine. It presents the situation of languages in all parts of the world. Also very good on the same subject, and in english this time:

Have fun reading! Mathieugp 22:49, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

USA supremacy over English??[edit]

"An internationalization policy is one whereby a State exercises supremacy on the linguistic code beyond its borders."

Why is the USA under this category? What language policies in the USA lead to its being placed here?


I saw the same thing and had the same response. The US doesn't even have an official body regulating how to speak English within the US, let alone beyond its borders. Deepblue9000 (talk) 10:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why the US is here, there's no official Academy of American English, or anything, and as far as I know, the only language promotion the Feds do is funding ESL classes for recent immigrants. Katana0182 (talk) 16:43, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As such, I'm going to tag the assertion as needing references.Katana0182 (talk) 16:44, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have discussed the question of the United States in this talk page already, below, under the section titled "United States".
First, the source for placing the United States under this category is here: http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/monde/polinternationalisation.htm
The same site has a full section on the USA here: http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/amnord/usaacc.htm
I still very much regret that no equivalent English-language source appears to be online at the moment (to my knowledge). Since the interrogation this time concerns the internationalization of English, I will summarize what the article says on this, under section 6 of the page on the federal language policies[1]:
Section 6 states the fact that the USA does not have a formal written policy concerning the promotion of English world wide, contrary to France or Portugal. The USA's policy is nevertheless observable and pursued likewise by federal and state government agencies, universities, scientific committees, and American multinationals. Under pressure of the US federal State, English was promoted as an official language in all airports of the world through the International Civil Aviation Organization shortly after its creation in December 1944. English was promoted as an international language in several international and European organizations and after it was achieved, the Americans, often with the help of the British, worked to make the other official languages nothing more than languages of translation from English. In the 1960s, English was promoted as the sole language of scientific articles. The section mentions several other areas where English only is promoted world wide, such as new technologies, the military, bi-lateral cooperation programs, etc., and gives examples of propaganda in the media. The section invites people to read more on this topic in the special article on the Sociolinguistic History of the United States: http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/amnord/usa_6-8histoire.htm
If people are interested, I can translate these two articles fully to English. -- Mathieugp (talk) 23:15, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Je parle un peu de Français. J'ai lu les articles et le site web. I appreciate your perspective, and I thank you for responding to this question, but I'm having a little trouble with this article.
Here's the thing: I think that your source fails to distinguish between official policy and the expression of individual opinions; it fails to distinguish between the operation of the phenomenon of supply and demand and government mandates. "Universities, scientific committees, and American multinationals" are not the US Government, they are private entities, they don't make official policy. US states have the right to declare English their official language, but it really doesn't have much of a meaning, beyond, well, making them look unwelcoming to foreigners, which isn't polite. I don't see any attempts by the US Federal Government to promote English as a language aside from the ICAO episode mentioned above (which was due to air safety, which takes precedence over linguistic nationalism, e.g. it's better to have planes not crash than air traffic controllers attempt to speak the language of the pilot flying the plane), or the requirement that contractors for the American government submit documents in English, or that US troops in other countries have TV provided for them by the US military in English and are given US newspapers rather than foreign language newspapers.
I do see that the British Council - a body funded by the United Kingdom, not the United States - promotes the use of English abroad - but the US isn't Great Britain.
Further, the cartoons of Uncle Sam gripping the globe with a megalomaniacal grin locked on his face and statements from the source like "De toute façon, les Américains ne les liront pas!" (In any case, the Americans do not read!) suggests that the source may be less than completely reliable.
What's your perspective? Katana0182 (talk) 04:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article (and in fact several other articles in the site), despite its relying on solid sources (texts of laws, statistics, scholarly works) contains some assertions that are purely matters of opinion and also items that I personally consider anecdotal and almost irrelevant. The author is a French-speaking linguist apparently writing for a public already convinced of what he is writing about. This in my opinion is unfortunate because it doesn't really add anything (it's not even funny) and is surely not necessary to the otherwise good description of the situation of languages in the USA. However, that being said, beyond the sometimes unencyclopedic tone of the author's comments, there is the good bibliography[2] on which he relies, the full list of language legislations of the USA[3] being analyzed, and as far as I can tell an accurate account of the language demographics of the country. Therefore, I do consider it to be a reliable source.
That the US federal state has no officially written policy concerning language is not a matter of opinion: it is a fact. A fact that is stated very clearly at the beginning of the article. Is also stated the fact that in practice, English is as much the official language of the US federal State as French is the official language of the French Republic: all major public documents are written in that language (Congress, courts, administration, etc.) and have been so for centuries. Documents written in other languages are few and are invariably just translations from English.
Lack of an explicit language policy is in fact a policy, the policy to chose to let the current state of affairs subsist, to let the social movement pursue its course. This is made abundantly clear in the analysis of the language policies of several countries that you can read in the site.
Concerning the promotion of English abroad, the author relies on Robert Phillipson, David Crystal and others (mostly French linguists) to assert that the USA has deliberately favoured the expansion of English after WWII. Because it was the Cold War, because France and Germany were left rather weak, the countries of the West have complacently let it happened or even collaborated to it.
I have a copy of Robert Phillipson's book Linguistic Imperialism which mentions American initiatives and US-British collaboration. This is in chapter 6, p. 137-172. -- Mathieugp (talk) 05:52, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Big Master Plan[edit]

I propose that each of the country/state link in Language policy be gradually turned into a link to 'Language policy/ies in (country/state name)'. We are already working on Language policies in Canada.

If you know anything about the language policy of your home country/state, let yourself loose. If you read French, then visit 'L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde' at http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/, you will surely find all you need there. -- Mathieugp 14:09, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

misclassification of Belgium[edit]

Belgium is, imho, misclassified; despite what the legal texts may say, the rights are actually territorialized, as the communities have territorial limits to their competences. Only the territory of the Brussels region-State is shared between Dutch-speaking and French-speaking policies with linguistic rights being personal, but outside of Brussels the rule is for unilingual territorial policies (even if some places at the borders may have complex rules with more or less recognition of a second language).

Indeed, the site L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde classifies the policy of the federal state of Belgium as territorialized and the policy that applies to Brussels as one based on personal and non-territorialized rights. I haven't touched this article for some time. I just noticed I hadn't even finished adding states in the last three categories! -- Mathieugp 03:07, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

United States[edit]

The United States (i.e., the federal government) does not belong under any of these classifications. It has never formally adopted any language standards (though some individual states have done so). There is a current movement called "U.S. English" (not to be confused with American English) that seeks to adopt English as the official national language, but its political support is unclear. Funnyhat 21:02, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

English is the de facto language used by the federal state[edit]

Indeed, English was never made the official language of the USA in the constitution, but constitutional officialization is not the only way to promote the usage of a language. However, with over 80% of the people of the USA speaking English and often exclusively English, English is the de facto language of the USA.

The webpage at this address ( http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/amnord/usa_2pol-federale.htm ) details the policy of the federal state regarding language since the adoption of the American constitution. As this page is in French only, it would be very good to find an equivalent or better online source in English. In any case, here is what can be read on the site of the Laval University:

...linguiste D. F. Marshall déclarait, en 1986, dans un article du International Journal of the Sociology of Language, ce qui suit:

"Il ressort de notre analyse de l'histoire américaine que le fait de ne pas avoir de langue officielle n'est pas dû à un oubli de la part des auteurs de la Constitution, mais résulte d'une volonté délibérée de planification linguistique.

Which translates to:

...linguist D. F. Marshall stated, in 1986, in an article of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, what follows:

"It comes out of our analysis of American history that the fact that we do not have an official language is not due to a lapse of memory on behalf of the authors of the Constitution, but is the result of a deliberate will of linguistic planning."

In point 1, the article goes on to explain that the federal state has always used English only in the administration, at the Congress and the in the justice system etc. with only very few exceptions. According to a report of the General Accounting Office, from 1990 to 1994 less than 1% of the documents of the federal government were produced in languges other than English.

In point 2, a description of the rare uses of languages other than English by the federal government is given.

Point 3 gives a report of language policies passed by the federal state, including laws regarding bilingual schools.

Point 4 deals with language policies regarding Native Americans

Point 5 speaks of the currently ongoing efforts to officialize English as the de jure language of the USA.

Point 6 speaks of the internalization of English.

-- Mathieugp 18:28, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Catalonia and the Basque Countries[edit]

Shouldn't Catalonia and the (Spanish) Basque countries be included in the list of jurisdictions with "differentiated legal status policies" ?

Brazil: assimilationist policy or a policy that favors the official language ?[edit]

I believe the second category would be more appropriate than the first one to describe Brazil's language policy. Of course, a policy that favors the official language, especially one that requires its compulsory use in public schools, is necessarily simultaneously assimilationist in nature. Mbruno 15:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Greece and Cyprus[edit]

I've removed Greece and Cyprus from the first section. The names of these two countries were originally added long ago in an effort to add material in that section. However, the inclusion of these two states is wrong, since both of them have functioning laws that protect minority languages: there are schools teaching Turkish in Western Thrace, for the local Muslim minority, as well as current efforts for the establishment of schools teaching Pomak (for a part of the same minority); also, magazines published in Bulgarian, Slavic are not uncommon. With money from the Greek state, turkish is also taught in the minority schools of the Dodecanese (see [[Turks of the Dodecanese). In Cyprus, where Turkish is co-official, is freely used by the Turkish Cypriots who have remained in the south. In addition, the Armenian and Maronite communities of the Republic, maintain their own schools, where Armenian and Arabic is taught. The Armenian community of Greece (as well as the Jewish) also have schools and magazines and newspapers in Armenian and Ladino are freely published. Thus, these two states do not belong in that section. Hectorian 19:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quebec[edit]

Opening a big can of worms here, but despite the original Université Laval (incidently in Quebec) text wikified here, is Quebec properly categorized?

The "Assimilation policy" mentions goals of "downsizing of one or more linguistic minority group(s)". Whether this is a goal of Bill 101 or not is HIGHLY debatable, but it has been an effect. Furthermore:

The ultimate goal of such policies is to foster national unity inside a state (based on the idea that a single language in the country will favor that end)

pretty much fits to a T the motivation behind La Charte. The final sentence applies too:

It is based on the belief that every person in a given society should be able to function in the dominant language regardless of which language that person speaks.

whereas La Charte insists on French as the only acceptable language of business in the province, for communication and documentation.

On the other hand, the current categorization of Quebc under "Differentiated legal status policies" makes some sense too:

the majority has all its linguistic rights secured and sometimes promoted while the minority or minorities are given special protection for their language.

There are indeed some provisions to defend rights of English speakers: Laws are published in English and French, a court may be addressed in English or French, court judgements can be in either language, and 'la Charte does not apply in Indian Reserves.

In essence, I'm rightly confused. Quebec seems to fit in both, but would perhaps be more accurately placed in the Assimilation category, if only for the protectionist attitude of Bill 101, and the focus on national unity. It's open for debate, and again, it's a can of worms. My appologies, it had to be open.

Arasaka 17:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Its good that you ask here. Here is my answer.
First, the Charter of the French language exists because inside Canada, the inadequate measures of the federal language policy (and historical lack of a policy) encourages the assimilation of all language groups towards English. The Charter of the French language is an instrument that fights the assimilation of the majority of Quebecers to English. The Charter therefore aims to accomplish what is naturally happening in Ontario, Alberta, BC, i.e, that those who do not speak the language of the majority in these provinces become bilingual because these societies function primarily in that language. An assimilation policy does not aim to have people who do not speak the official language merely become bilingual, it aims to downsize other linguistic groups, typically not immigrant groups (who tend to want to assimilate unless they are refugees and generally people who did not wish to move out of their country but were forced to it by circumstances, often political) but national minorities.
To let Quebec be as French-speaking as it wants to be (no more and no less than Ontario is English-speaking) all the while giving the out-of-Quebec French-Canadian minorities and the Acadian people the same kind of legal protection which English speakers have always had in Quebec was the central objective of the plan that came out of the B & B commission. The commissioners André Laurendeau and Davidson Dunton believed that only this could resolve the national crisis in the Dominion and quell separatism in Quebec.
If you can hear French, you can verify the truthfulness (and not the truthiness ;-) of my assertion concerning the B & B commission directly from the mouth of Davidson Dunton on Radio-Canada: http://archives.radio-canada.ca/IDC-0-17-592-3077/politique_economie/bilinguisme_biculturalisme/clip8
The Trudeau government ignored the conclusion of the report on the language issues and specifically rejected the territoriality principle. The failure of Ottawa to understand that of the two official language communities in Canada, only one is a real linguistic minority has had dramatic effects and lead Quebec to adopt its own legislation in 1977.
If Canada had a differentiated legal status policies, whereby it would be understood 1) that Canada is made of two main language communities and 2) that Quebec being the sole province with a majority of speakers of French, the language of two national minorities inside Canada (Franco-Quebecers and Acadians) globally, than it would be easy to have all citizens of Canada accept that French, and not English, is the language of Quebec. The result would be that those who do not speak French would willingly become bilingual and contribute to create the environment which would allow French to be secured, once and for all, in one corner of North America.
Right now, competition between English and French rages on in Montreal, and French is disadvantaged, even with a strong provincial legislation favouring French in many sectors of public life.
All these considerations are of course excepting the Aboriginal groups who suffered long-lasting assimilation from both English speakers and French speakers and of all people on Earth are the ones who need less to be made more bilingual than they already are if we care to see their languages continue to live (for those that are still spoken as mother tongue). That is why the Charter of the French language does not apply to the 11 aboriginal nations officially recognized by the Quebec Parliament. Needless to say that justice for the majority only or one or more minorities only is not justice, it is the definition of oppression.
So, in conclusion, it is important to understand that Quebec's language policy tries to restore a balance between the majority and the minority, but only because the majority-minority balance is offset by the inequality of the English and French languages inside Canada.
If Quebec was not inside Canada and therefore if French was not a minority language but a real majority language and if the Charter did not provide legal protections to what would become a real English-speaking minority and instead aimed to downsize it by taking away its institutions or trying to prevent their development and proportional growth, then Quebec's language policy would be assimilationist. But then Canada would be Quebec and Quebec Canada. The roles would be reversed and people would rightfully be decrying Quebec's language policy. I would be the first to do it.
-- Mathieugp 22:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, good points, if I may say so. Still, Canada might not be as evil now as it was before. All federal publications must be in both languages, all product packaging is in both languages, instructions too. Sure, if a francophone was arrested in the middle of BC for speeding, good luck getting that ticket in French! But the general rule and policy today, as far as I know, in Canada, is not towards assimilation into English. Arasaka 02:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are right. The public policy does not say this. It says it wants to promote knowledge of both official languages. But the facts are that outside Quebec, language shifts go to English in the same manner than in the USA. Inside Quebec, language shifts are split between English and French. In BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario, the rate of assimilation of francophone minorities has accelerated since the adoption of the Official Languages Act. In New Brunswick, it seems that the Acadian population has recently been stabilized and they are no longer being downsized. But that's more the result of the provincial laws and the invincible spirit of the Acadians that the federal policy. As for Canadians being more bilingual English-French (or French-English), well other than in Quebec it is no happening. Quantity of parents sent their children to French immersion in Alberta, BC etc. They learned basic French. Once school was over, they had nobody to speak French to in their environment. That is the personal story of a colleague of mine. She is far from being the only one. -- Mathieugp 14:02, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Romania[edit]

Romania is currently listed both under Differentiated legal status policies and Valorization of the official language policies. This is quite confusing, I think a choice should be made for either one or the other. My guess is Romanian legislation is more in the lines of Differentiated legal status policies with the Romanian majority having all its linguistic rights secured and sometimes promoted. Minority languages can be used both in administrative and judicial affairs in jurisdictions where more than 20% of the population is of a certain ethnicity. Further more, state funded education in minority languages exists on all levels (although complaints have been made about insufficient or inadequate university level education in Hungarian). On the other hand Romanian is the official language. Plinul cel tanar 09:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Philippines[edit]

Transferred Philippines from Differentiated legal status policies to Valorization of the official language policies since it fits better the Philippine description, as can be seen in Sec. 6 - 9 of the 1987 Constitution.[4] --Bentong Isles 08:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another source?[edit]

Valorisation[edit]

I assume that the word "valorisation" arose from a straightforward Anglicisation of that word in the French report. Moreover, it seems to be Quebecois rather than French French, which makes it hard to find a translation. (In French French it seems to have the same crudely economic sense as Wiktionary gives it in English). In context it seems that "promotion" is probably the best translation, and I will be bold and substitute on that basis. HenryAyoola (talk) 21:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"To give value or prestige to something" is the intended meaning. While the word is at least in one English dictionary[5], it probably is quite rarely used. I have no objection to replacing it with the word "promotion" if it can make things clearer. :-) -- Mathieugp (talk) 14:40, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Slovakia[edit]

I think Slovakia promotes the official language (they call it the "state language") and should be colored yellow on the map. See Language law of Slovakia. Qorilla (talk) 18:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Language laws[edit]

I came here looking for that which trumps man-made language laws and Google helped me find it: Language change. I'm adding it as "see also." --Pawyilee (talk) 05:14, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PS I was really looking for Grimm's law, but language laws redirected me here. --Pawyilee (talk) 05:39, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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