Survival and Development of Language Communities

Prospects and Challenges

F. Xavier Vila Moreno, F. Xavier Vila

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781847698377
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Sociolinguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Too small to be big, but also too big to be really small, medium-sized language communities (MSLCs) face their own challenges in a rapidly globalising world where multilingualism and mobility seem to be eroding the old securities that the monolingual nation states provided. The questions to be answered are numerous: What are the main areas in which the position of these languages is actually threatened? How do these societies manage their diversity (both old and new)? Has state machinery really become as irrelevant in terms of language policy as their portrayals often suggest? This book explores the responses to these and other challenges by seven relatively successful MSLCs, so that their lessons can be applied more generally to other languages striving for long term survival.

1 The Analysis of
Medium-Sized Language Communities

F. Xavier Vila and Vanessa Bretxa

Looking at Languages in Between

It may come as a surprise to many that sociolinguistics, understood in a broad sense as the discipline that studies the relation between language and society, has so far been unable to agree on a basic typology of linguistic communities. More than half a century ago, Ferguson’s Diglossia (1959) established the outlines of what was expected to be the first step towards a more general classification (Ferguson, 1991). However, in spite of the paper’s huge success, and also the calls made by other authors in this direction (e.g. Einar Haugen’s (1971: 25) advocacy of a ‘typology of ecological classification’, as well as Gumperz, 1962, or Kloss, 1966), the truth is that the efforts to establish a clear, systematic and comprehensive sociolinguistic classification of languages and linguistic communities around the world have been relatively unsuccessful. In other words, sociolinguistics has still not produced a typology that classifies language communities and/or their linguistic ecologies according to a widely accepted set of features. Also, to put it in in Peter Mühlhäusler’s terms, ‘To understand why so many individual languages are disappearing requires an understanding of the ecological conditions that sustain complex language ecologies’ (Martí et al., 2005: 45).

One of the reasons for this failure may lie in the complex relation of sociolinguistics with the language construct, and with some of the main concepts associated with it. The main focus of research of sociolinguistics as a discipline is linguistic diversity (Coulmas, 2005), and most introductions to the field make clear from the very beginning that the notion of language itself is polysemic, ambiguous, difficult to define and even ‘a fallacy’ (Simpson, 2001: 31). It is indeed commonplace that every introductory course to sociolinguistics reminds the novice that language borders are often impossible to delineate in purely linguistic terms; that languages show very disparate degrees of internal structural difference; that mutual intelligibility is not a safe indicator of the ‘language’ versus ‘dialect’ divide; and that, in actual terms, the distinction between a language and a dialect is a contingent sociohistorical compromise rather than an immutable structural fact, to the extent that some scholars propose rejecting the notion of language altogether (Blommaert, 2010).

In such a context, it is not surprising that many of the existing typologies of linguistic situations have not adopted languages or language communities as their analytical frame, but rather polities, and especially sovereign states (cf. Bastardas & Boix, 1994; Laitin, 2000; Spolsky, 2004). These typologies attempt to classify polities according to the number of languages spoken in each country and the official status and function of each, and thus have a strong legal, politological approach to the analysis of sociolinguistic situations. Indeed, one does not have to subscribe whole-heartedly to the oft-quoted saying that ‘a language is a dialect with an army and a navy’ to consider that (sovereign) states constitute one of the main factors to be taken into account when analysing any given sociolinguistic ecosystem. In fact, states play such a central, decisive role in language policy in contemporary times that any classification that ignores their existence and impact is doomed to failure. Besides this, empirical quantitative analyses are often impossible across state borders, for the basic statistical data crucially needed for sociolinguistic analysis are usually provided by public administrations, and therefore depend strongly on existing political and administrative borders. Consider Europe, for instance. Comparative analysis of the sociolinguistic reality of the European languages has become much easier since the Union – a sui generis political entity, but a polity at the end of the day – decided to take on the task of obtaining comparable data in all of its Member States by means of the Eurobarometers. Before then, sociolinguistic comparisons across countries had to deal with the arduous task of putting side by side the results from disparate data-collecting methods based on vastly different premises (cf. Extra & Gorter, 2008). It is no coincidence that the root of the term ‘statistics’ is ‘state’.

Important as they undoubtedly are, politologically oriented classifications of languages and language groups and situations do not in themselves exhaust the possibilities of classifying languages and linguistic situations. On the one hand, they do not necessarily capture some crucial aspects of a particular language community such as the degree of intergenerational transmission, language use in socioeconomic spheres, cultural production and consumption, and the ideological positioning of its speakers vis-à-vis other languages. On the other hand, almost by definition, research structured on the basis of political borders finds it difficult to deal with phenomena that go beyond them, and languages do go beyond borders at least in three different senses. First, the borders of the almost 200 independent states in the world do not coincide with those of the 5000 to 6000 languages (still) spoken. Second, even if nation states have striven to make their citizens linguistically homogeneous, people move around and take their linguistic repertoires with them. Finally, people communicate more and more across borders. A glance at Fischer’s (2011) map of the world language communities of Twitter should suffice to convince the reluctant that next to the politologically oriented classifications, we need more refined sociolinguistically oriented comparative analyses, that is, analyses that pay attention not only to sovereign states, but also to people(s) and communities.

In fact, there are a number of classifications that are more community oriented, and therefore link themselves, in a more or less ambiguous way, with the historical meaning of language community mentioned above. Most of these classifications (although not all – think of the concept of ethnolinguistic vitality; Ehala, 2010; Giles et al., 1977; Harwood et al., 1994) tend to focus on one of the ends of an imaginary ‘majority–minority’ continuum, basically understood in demographic terms. Several among them focus on the weakest extreme of this continuum, analyse in detail the challenges and prospects of weak and weakened languages, and provide refined analyses and classifications of more or less severely endangered language communities (cf. Edwards, 1992, 2010; Euromosaic; Fishman, 1991; Grenoble & Whaley, 1998; Moseley, 2010). Others, in contrast, such as those produced by de Swaan (2001), Calvet (1999) or Graddol (2006), focus particularly on the most spoken languages of the world, and pay little attention to the rest, packing 98% of them together in the lowest, clearly undifferentiated category of ‘peripheral’ languages. Thanks to these and many other initiatives, sociolinguistics has made remarkable progress in understanding the dynamics at both ends of the continuum. However, between these two extremes the situation is rather different. Languages in ‘intermediate’ positions, those that can be regarded simultaneously as the head of a dog and the tail of a lion, are less often taken as the explicit object of comparative analyses. Indeed, there is much to be learned from comparing the communities placed between the big ones (i.e. those with many millions of speakers) and the small ones (i.e. those with only a few thousand).

Certainly, the languages included in this intermediate group are far from homogeneous. They range from fully standardized languages, with a long record of written literature, to varieties that have rarely transcended the status of oral vernaculars and tend to be regarded as dialects of other languages. Many of these languages enjoy some sort of official status in one or more countries and even in supranational institutions, while others have no legal protection at all. Some are widely used on the internet and for software facilities; others have only a marginal presence in the virtual world. Some of these communities are universally literate in their language, whereas in others literacy is universally provided in a different language. Others are far away from literacy in any language at all. Many of these languages are used as a means of instruction in higher education; others do not even enter kindergartens. Some of these languages are hegemonic in their communities’ press, radio and television, but others only rarely enter these domains. In general terms, the majority of these languages are not considered to be in immediate danger of extinction, thanks to their demography and the advantages it provides, but some are severely at risk. In fact, it would be erroneous to think that all these languages lead a placid life. Debates about the long-term sustainability of many of these languages, even those that enjoy full support from developed nation states, are not rare, although the continuation of such strongly endangered languages may often be regarded as unrealistic by specialists and speakers alike. Nevertheless, in spite of all these debates, many of these languages, especially but not only those that have gained the status of nation state official language, constitute vivid examples of linguistic sustainability in virtually all domains of social life. This makes them appropriate subjects for analysis in order to make progress in the field of language policy.

It is within this framework that, in 2007, the University Centre for Sociolinguistics and Communication at the University of Barcelona (CUSC–UB)¹ launched a project sponsored by Linguamón (House of Languages),² focusing on what could provisionally be described as ‘medium-sized language communities’ (MSLCs). Both institutions shared a concern about the sustainability of linguistic diversity, as well as the conviction that language management theory in general would benefit from also paying attention to the many linguistic communities in a demographically intermediate position between the really big languages and the smaller ones. The main research questions addressed by the project were the following. What was to be learnt from comparing the sociolinguistic ecologies of MSLCs, especially those that were doing relatively well in the 21st century? Were these MSLCs facing particular challenges? Were these challenges different from those experienced by smaller languages, but also different from those experienced in the major linguistic communities? What lessons could be learnt from their experiences in order to help other language communities to progress towards a situation of viability in the 21st century? This approach was felt to be of major interest, initially, to the MSLCs themselves. It was thought that a cross-comparative view might help speakers and language managers of these languages to understand their position, individually and collectively, in the language system of an increasingly globalized world. Learning from others may give a clear sense of what is viable and what is not in comparable cases. In this respect, it was felt that many language communities, especially in postcolonial scenarios, might benefit from a comparison with fully developed languages. This was the starting point of the project ‘The Sustainability of Medium-Sized Language Communities (MSLC) in the age of globalization: new trends, new solutions?’³

The Medium-Sized Language Communities Project: Some Methodological Decisions

Among the first decisions that had to be taken were those that defined the methodology to be used and the object of the research. Current sociolinguistics seems uneasy with the notion of a ‘language (linguistic or speech) community’, understood as ‘(…) those who use a given language for part, most or all of their daily existence’ (Baker & Jones, 1998: 96). This term, which parallels the German Sprachgemeinschaft, the Dutch Taalgemeenschap or the Spanish comunidad lingüística, did enjoy some currency in English, particularly a few decades ago (cf. Bloomfield, 1933: 42; Kloss, 1966). However, the success of the alternative ‘speech community’ notion in the 1970s displaced it in at least two different senses. On the one hand, the term ‘language community’ became (at best) a less favoured synonym for speech community (e.g. Baker & Jones, 1998; Kachru, 2001; Madera, 1996; Trudgill, 2003). At the same time, the very meaning of the term speech community was thoroughly modified after the objections of Labov (1972) and Hymes (1974). Indeed, today, in most specialized contexts, this term has lost its original connection with the totality of speakers of one given language, and has become understood basically as a (smaller) group of individuals in habitual contact with each other, with shared norms of speaking and interpretation of speaking performance, and/or shared attitudes and values, irrespective of the monolingual or multilingual composition of their linguistic repertoire (cf. Kachru, 2001; Swann et al., 2004).

It should be noticed that this process of conceptual replacement and reduction was not necessarily followed by all authors. In fact, the use of ‘language community’ to include all customary speakers of a given language pops up from time to time in the literature. It also may well be that the term is more commonly used in sociolinguistic traditions other than the anglophone one (see Moreno Fernández (1998), Mollà (2002) or Berruto (2003) for three introductions to sociolinguistics in Spanish, Catalan and Italian, respectively). Both the 1996 Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights⁴ and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-supported World Languages Review (Martí et al., 2005) used the concept as a cornerstone. In fact, this wide understanding of language community even enjoys some legislative translation. The current Belgian constitution enshrines the existence of three linguistic communities (Dutch-speaking, French-speaking and German-speaking) made up by the totality of their respective speakers living in Belgium. In any case, the conceptual merger of the two sorts of communities is an unfortunate development, for it leaves both the specialist and the layperson without a term for the whole set of speakers of a language. Irrespective of the many problems of practical operationalization – already identified by Bloomfield (1933) or, mutatis mutandi, Dorian (1982) or Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1985) – a term is needed to refer to those groups formed by individuals who speak French, Portuguese, Arabic, Kiswahili, but also Albanian, Quechua, Tamazight and so on, and who are scattered across several independent countries, in different continents even. Indeed, some of them have their own name, such as la francophonie or la lusofonia. In other words, because we need a social correlate of the term ‘language’ to analyse linguistic situations, in this book we will be using the term ‘language community’ in this sense.

Given the exploratory nature of this project, it was agreed that a number of specialists from different language communities would be invited to present the situation and the main challenges that, in their opinion, the MSLCs they were familiar with would have to face in the increasingly globalized world of the 21st century, and to discuss them with both international and local colleagues in a round of workshops held in Barcelona in late 2009.⁵ The drawback of this approach was that the visions of each particular linguistic community might be biased in some way by the personal (although obviously legitimate) perspective of each individual researcher. Nevertheless, this procedure offered an invaluable advantage: it would make accessible to a wider audience a bulk of data, research results and even academic discussions that would otherwise have been available only to those proficient in each of the languages involved in the research. Furthermore, the workshop format would allow the participants to discuss their points of view, establishing comparisons and challenging preconceptions when needed. The presentations and discussions that ensued form the basis of the current volume.

Given that resources were limited and only a small number of communities would be analysed, it became essential to establish a number of theoretical and practical criteria that could guide the selection of cases. First, the very notion of MSLCs had to be narrowed down to make it operational. As noted above, the organizers used the term ‘language community’ to refer to the social correlate of language, that is, a human group defined by the primary use and intergenerational transmission of a set of varieties usually identified as the same language. Although the declared goal of the project was to compare the situation of linguistic communities ranked between the biggest and the smallest, the precise definitions of this intermediate space were virtually infinite, and no definitive theoretical arguments could be advanced in favour of one solution or another. Nevertheless, it was obvious that some sort of tentative demographic limits were needed in order to select the cases. Accordingly, after some discussion, a bracket for the category was provisionally set on the basis of both theoretical and practical criteria, with a lower limit of one million s...