Language Conflict. Official Languages

Language use has frequently generated political conflict. In modern society, governmental institutions are charged with resolving differences between cultures anxious to ensure the survival of their languages. Language conflict often focuses on education, for it is through formal education that knowledge of languages is passed on to future generations.

Throughout history, languages have diffused following military conquest. Expanding empires imposed their languages on conquered populations. Latin was originally spoken only by inhabitants of the central Italian peninsula, and as the Roman Empire expanded in territory, power, and influence. Roman conquerors required their captives to learn Latin. Eventually. Latin was spoken throughout much of Europe. Southwest Asia, and North Africa. Today, the influence of Latin on the Romance languages of the Mediterranean countries endures.

More recently, the expansion of the world economy by European colonizers expedited the worldwide diffusion and dominance of Indo-European languages. British. Spanish. French, and other European colonizers imposed their languages on their colonies. Language was associated with the exercise of political and economic power. Some colonizing countries imposed sanctions on use of the conquered country's language. Japan prohibited the teaching of Korean in the schools of that country after taking control of the Korean peninsula in 1910. Not until 1945. after the Japanese empire was dismembered following Japan's defeat in World War II, was Korean once again taught in Korean schools.

Official Languages. Language conflict often hinges on the designation of one or more languages as official. An official language is one that is recognized within a country as the appropriate language for the conduct of government business. Education is generally conducted in a country's official language as well.

Some countries recognize only one official language, while others recognize two or more as official. In Switzerland, four Indo-European languages—French. German. Italian, and Romansch—enjoy equal legal status (Figure 4-12).

Figure 4-12. The Official Languages of Switzerland. Switzerland recognizes four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansch. Despite this linguistic diversity, the rights of each language group are explicitly recognized and guaranteed, and conflict between them over language-related issues is minimal

India has been the scene of considerable conflict concerning language. The states of India are delineated on the basis of language, with state boundaries separating people who speak different languages. The dominant language of each state became its official language. Throughout the country, fourteen indigenous languages along with English are recognized as official by one or more of India's states.

At the national level, however, an ongoing controversy surrounding which languages should be official has yet to be resolved. Hindi, which is in the Indo-European family, is the most widely spoken indigenous language in India but is spoken by only a third of the population. Proposals to pass legislation making Hindi the national language were strongly resisted by speakers of other languages, notably Dravidian-speakers from the south. Many people argued for the use of English as a national language on the grounds that English was known throughout India. Opponents countered by pointing to English as the language of the colonial oppressors of the Indian subcontinent. These considerations have stymied agreement on an official language in India, and the controversy continues.