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Minority languages and language revitalisation 79 This is because language and culture are linked indexically, symbolically and in partwhole fashion: indexically in that the language ‘most historically and intimately associated with a given culture’ is best attuned to ‘express the artefacts and concerns of that culture’ (Fishman 1991: 22); symbolically in that a community’s language and culture come ‘to stand for each other in the minds of insiders and outsiders’ (1991: 24); in part-whole fashion in that parts of any culture (e.g. its songs, proverbs, blessings and curses) are ‘verbally constituted’. It follows, then, that loss of a language may indeed produce cultural dislocation. A not dissimilar point is made by May (2000: 373), who, adhering to a constructivist view of identity, nonetheless points out that ‘in theory, language may well be just one of many markers of identity … in practice, it is often more than that’. A few lines later, he adds: a detached scientific view of the link between language and identity may fail to capture the degree to which language is experienced as vital by those who speak it. This leads us to a further, less commonly articulated, liberal reason for caring about the loss of languages, which is that if individuals take pride in the language of their community, if its fate matters deeply to them, then concern for the survival of that language, and for the possibility of its transmission to the next generation, is part of respecting what those individuals consider to be meaningful and worthwhile (see Boran 2003). 4.2.1.3 Assessing the arguments Turning now to a brief assessment of these arguments, we can immediately concede that they are, in their totality, persuasive in putting across the view that the diminishment of global linguistic diversity is indeed a very serious matter requiring urgent action (see Crystal 2000: 166). This does not mean, however, that we need remain uncritical of particular arguments, or of how they hang together. We may note straight away, therefore, that they have very different bases – some urging the preservation of linguistic diversity on instrumental or prudential grounds, others on grounds of the intrinsic value of particular languages or languages in general. Some treat global linguistic diversity as a ‘public good’, something of benefit to all mankind; others give more emphasis to the particular welfare of the speakers of endangered languages. This last set, we believe, are the most persuasive, for they go to the heart of one of the greatest challenges to language revitalisation; namely, the choice made by some communities, or some of their members, to transmit only the dominant language because they see this as offering greater opportunities and greater social mobility to their offspring. It is often pointed out, however (by Crystal 2000, May 2001, for example), that this ‘choice’ is not in fact freely made but is inflected rather by histories of discrimination, leaving speakers with feelings of inadequacy or shame, and by unjust institutional structures imposed by the nation state. Furthermore, as Crystal (2000:
80 Language Planning and Education 109) points out, speakers of endangered languages are often not well-informed about the consequences of their abandoning their community language, and they may be insufficiently aware that learning the dominant language and maintaining the minority language need not necessarily be conflicting aspirations. Indeed, in much of the world people cope very happily with using two or more languages in their daily lives. 6 These arguments are plausible, up to a certain point. It is probable that many, perhaps most, endangered languages become endangered precisely because of some injustice, historical or current, and there is a case in principle, therefore, for acting to protect these languages until such time as individual language choices can be assumed to be autonomous rather than the reflex of an internalised stigmatisation. That said, restitution of historic injustices may well not obliterate current disparities of opportunities available in the dominant and declining languages, which may be so marked as to lead some speakers to conclude that it is not in the best interest of their children for them to acquire the ancestral minority language. Another reason for preferring arguments focusing on the welfare of speakers of endangered languages over those that highlight the ‘public good’ aspect of linguistic diversity is that the latter may, as Patten and Kymlicka (2003) suggest, overburden the speakers of endangered languages with unwanted responsibilities to maintain their languages for the sake of preserving linguistic diversity. It would be an unhappy situation, for example, if speakers of a small, threatened language, in the Amazon felt pressured against their inclinations to maintain their language in order to sustain a ‘public good’, whose benefits might mostly be enjoyed by populations in Europe, North America and Japan. The environmentalist case for preserving linguistic diversity may also, Boran (2003: 108) argues, lead one to condone the coercive pressures that a minority group bent on language maintenance might apply to dissenting members for whom the language holds a different, lower identity value. The outcome could be a form of ‘ethnic incarceration’, a denial of a right that many liberal thinkers would wish to uphold – that of exit from one’s ethnic group. Space permits only two final observations here. The first is that, while the case for preserving global linguistic diversity is strong, it is not so well formulated as to render further conceptual and empirical work unnecessary. The second is that, as argued above, the most persuasive reasons for preserving linguistic diversity are to be found not in the environmentalist, prudential set of arguments but in those that give a central place to the interests and dispositions of speakers of endangered languages, many of whom for good reason will wish to maintain the language of their community, and should be helped to do so. Others, however, for varied reasons, may not, and though we may wish that they thought differently, we cannot and should not, if we wish to avoid the infringement of important liberal precepts, impose on them a duty to maintain the language for the sake of global linguistic diversity. In short, the preservation of global linguistic diversity is certainly a worthy goal, but it is not obvious that it should be pursued in circumstances where ‘it goes against the choices and preferences of significant numbers of people in the vulnerable
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Language Planning and Education GIB
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