Language death is natural: Why bother preserving it?

… death and language maintenance: theoretical, practical …, 2003

A language policy for multilingualism must aim at maintaining a functional network of languages from which follows the maintenance of individual languages. The distribution of functions to languages includes both public and private domains. Given that the domains are not equal in power and status, the equilibrium that sustains the network is the principle that no language disadvantages the person speaking it. This principle must underlie a multilingual policy. The policy must recognize the limitations and special interests orientation of the government as the prime agent of language policy and allow agency to communities and individuals to shape the policy through negotiation with the government to accommodate their language policy as exhibited in their language behavior. The community needs to be sensitized to see the negative consequences to the public good of adopting a language behavior dictated by the market forces. The conflict that arises between the language behavior preferred by the community to express solidarity and the one forced by the market to acquire power will be reduced if the government and the market are localized. KEY WORDS: language behavior, language domains, language planning, language policy, language network, multilingualism UNIVERSAL MULTILINGUALISM The countries in the world are necessarily multilingual demographically given the universal historical facts that people migrate to new lands and the states annex new lands. Both migration, voluntary and forced, and annexation , by war and other means, give rise to a population in a country that speaks more than one language. The oft-cited instance of Japan as a mono-lingual country ignores the demographic existence of other languages (Ainu and Korean) in that county, which are politically invisible (Maher & Yashiro, 1995). The difference between countries lies in the nature of multilingualism, whether it is subtractive or additive, neither of which is indicative of a static linguistic situation. In subtractive multilingualism, the languages existing or entering the population of a country may lose out to its dominant language. Nevertheless, new languages will keep coming or the lost languages may revive (Fishman, 2001) keeping the country demograph

Evaluation of the potential and actual impact of language policy on endangered languages is complicated by lack of straightforward causal connections between types of policy and language maintenance and shift, as well as by confusion of policy and planning. Language policy is not an autonomous factor and what appears to be ostensibly the "same" policy may lead to different outcomes, depending on the situation in which it operates. Weak linkages between policy and planning render many policies ineffective. Conventions and treaties adopted by international organisations and agencies recommending the use of minority languages in education usually lack power to reinforce them. Furthermore, policies have negligible impact on home use, which is essential for continued natural transmission of endangered languages. Although survival cannot depend on legislation as its main support, legal provisions may allow speakers of endangered languages to claim some public space for their languages and cultures.

Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 2003

International Social Science Journal, 2010

Coupland/The Handbook of Language and Globalization, 2010

Over the past decades, problems related to linguistic minorities and their well-being, as well as to minority languages and their maintenance, have developed as an independent branch of minority studies. Studies of language in society and sociolinguistics, strategies of minority language survival and the empowerment of their speakers have produced a considerable output of case studies and theoretical writings (to mention some of the most notable writings: Fishman

The Politics of English: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific, 2013

Discussing a number of examples of language practices in different Asian contexts from a job advertisement for English teachers in Vietnam, to injunctions to speak good English in Singapore, from mission statements on a Philippine convent wall, to an article about temple elephants in India this paper argues that it is not so much language as language ideology that is the object of language policy. While ostensibly dealing with the distribution and regulation of languages, language policies are generally about something else entirely, be it educational, ideological or cultural regulation. Local language practices, meanwhile, may appear to be subject to language policies, but since language policies are always about a different understanding of language, it is this understanding rather than the practices themselves, that are at stake. By insisting on the plannability of language, state authorities insist that a sterile and state-serving view of language is the language ideology we should adhere to. State language policies, therefore, have more to do with the regulation of language ideologies than with the regulation of local language practices, which, despite attempts to contain them, always exceed confinement.