#official languages

(for context, i live in Aotearoa (New Zealand))

the only reason you would make a language official if it’s 1. important to the people of the country and 2. it’s going to be lost if it isn’t legally protected.

English doesn’t need the protection, we all speak english, we all know english, people aren’t denied opportunities because they only know english. Te Reo Māori needs the legal standing it has been granted to prevent it from nearing extinction, again. Making Te Reo Māori an official language means that Māori people have better chances to be represented accurately in court, hospitals, schools, and everywhere else. Te Reo Māori needed to be protected.

New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) needed to be made an official language as the deaf people of Aotearoa didn’t have access to the country’s resources outside the deaf community. Making NZSL an offical language means that deaf new zealanders get to have a translator in court, in the medical sector, in schools. it gives them a fairer chance to succeed in a hearing dominated world. NZSL needed to be protected.

English didn’t. English doesn’t. you can go ANYWHERE and speak english, and get what you want, you don’t have to jump through hoops if you are a native english speaker of aotearoa. exams are, by default, in english, you don’t need to request a translator, or translated copy. you can understand everything without a middle man in a legal setting. the doctor can tell you directly what is wrong with you. English stands to gain absolutely nothing by making it an official language. it wouldn’t change anything. it’s not necessary, and it would lower the importance of being an offical language. in the public eye, Te Reo and NZSL got a boost up, climbing their way up to be seen as a proper language, not a “primitive” language, as they have both been described. English doesn’t need the boost.

Aotearoa only needs the two official languages.

Te Reo Māori (made official in 1987)

Lingthusiasm Episode 67: What it means for a language to be official

The Rosetta Stone is famous as an inscription that let us read Egyptian hieroglyphs again, but it was created in the first place as part of a long history of signage as performative multilingualism in public places. Choosing between languages is both very personal but it’s not only personal -- it’s also a reflection of the way that the societies we live in constrain our choices.  

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about language policy and how organizations and nation-states make language decisions that affect people’s everyday lives. We also talk about the excellent recent lingcomm book Memory Speaks by Julie Sedivy, the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (currently ongoing!), and many ways of unpacking the classic quote about a language being a dialect with an army and a navy.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we’re getting enthusiastic about word games and puzzles with Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer of Spectacular Vernacular! We talk about patron questions, including lots of Wordle content: what Ben and Nicole learned from interviewing the creator of Wordle, our favourite Wordle variants such as IPA Wordle and Semantle, and comparing our Wordle solving strategies with a demo game on air. Join us on Patreon to listen to this and 60+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can play and discuss word games and puzzles with other language nerds! Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

Wikipedia entry for Rosetta Stone

Wikipedia entry for Demotic

Wikipedia entry for Ptolemy V

Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act 2017

Australia’s first trilingual statute

Memory Speaks - On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self by Julie Sedivy

Stan Carey’s review of Memory Speaks

Wikipedia entry for the Bengali Language Movement

Wikipedia entry for International Mother Language Day

Official International Mother Language Day website

United Nations Decade of Indigenous Languages

International Decade of Indigenous Languages Twitter account

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening. To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm advertising-free by supporting our Patreon. Being a patron gives you access to bonus content, our Discord server, and other perks.

Lingthusiasm is on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

What we need to do:

Stop calling our native languages regional languages. Many of these languages that the Indian government considers 'regional' are spoken or/and are official in countries outside India, thus making them 'international' (Bengali, Tamil, Punjabi etc)

Hindi is a 'regional' language too. It's from the Hindi belt. The Hindi belt is a region. Hindi is regional.

Boycott the term 'Hindustani'. It's misleading. We Bengalis, prior to national movement and even during the national movement, never called ourselves Hindustani. It was a term reserved for the North Indian (Hindi speaking) people. Even writers like Tagore and Sarat Chandra used the term that way, did they not consider themselves Indian?

We are Indians, Bharatiya (Bharotiyo), not Hindustani. Hind is not Hindustan. Bharat is not Hindustan. We don't need to love Hindi to be Indian. What's the point of independence and democracy if I need to lose my culture and language to another, just to call myself Indian. Wake up people... It's high time.

Happy English Language Day!

On April 23rd, the day of the birth and death of William Shakespeare, the United Nations celebrates the English Language. UN celebrates also its other five official languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish.

When I was around 8 or 9 years old my mother put me into a French school in Toronto. Her logic was simple: “This is Canada. You should know how to speak both official languages. It will create opportunities for you in the future.”

But I hated it. I couldn’t speak a word of French at the time and so I would come home from school complaining that I couldn’t understand anything the teacher was saying. How was I supposed to learn anything? 

I begged her to put me back into an English school.

To her credit, my mother remained absolutely steadfast. She would say to me: “Trust me. You’re going to thank me for this later.”

Not surprisingly, I learned French. I was put into a special “intro” stream and so when my classmates were off learning a third language (German), I was given introductory classes designed to bring me up to their French level.

I still remember the sense of accomplishment I felt when I could finally carry on an actual conversation in French.

Sadly, at this point in my life, my French is fairly rusty. I really should work on that. But it’s decent enough that people in Montréal -- which is where I am right now -- will say to me: “You’re from Toronto. How is it that you speak French?” 

In fact, somebody said to me last night that in Montréal they typically encounter more French speakers from the U.S. than they do from Ontario. That surprised me. As a country, about 10 million Canadians report being able to speak French (2011 number).

Every time I visit Montréal, I marvel at the display of bilingualism that seems omnipresent in this city. And, if you grew up in an immigrant household, you may also speak a third language -- the one your parents spoke to you in. I think that’s wonderful.

The Philippines, an archipelago of over 7,000 islands, is a melting pot of cultures and, consequently, languages. This linguistic diversity is a testament to the country’s rich history and complex social fabric. Official Languages: Filipino and English The Philippine Constitution designates two official languages: Filipino and English. Filipino is the national language, serving as a unifying…