But… what language is spoken in…? Confess it, sometime, sometime or somewhere you have heard this question. I am no exception and, furthermore, I admit that I always like to find out, because there is nothing like knowing and valuing the linguistic diversity of a place, although in my case it is probably due to professional deformation… However, share with me, for a moment , this curiosity of the linguist: if you asked someone (or yourself) about the languages spoken in France, Chile or Japan, what would they answer?
I wish the answer were “several”, not only because it is true, but also because it would show a sensitivity towards the linguistic wealth that still exists throughout the world today. However, many times, due to lack of knowledge, the answer is that in France it is French; in Chile, Spanish; and in Japan, Japanese. However, all of these countries are multilingual; In them, languages that belong to different families are spoken, such as Breton (Celtic) or Occitan (Romanesque) in France; to different phyla such as the Rapanui and the Aymara in Chile; and even isolated languages, those whose origin is not yet known, such as Basque in France, Mapudungun in Chile or Ainu in Japan.
And now comes the question for reflection: why does only one language tend to be mentioned for each territory?
One of the many reasons that can explain the relationship between a language and a territory is to equate the existence of languages with that of an “official language”. And I put it in quotes and with a hyphen, as if it were a compound, because the official status has very little to do with what a language really is, that is, the concrete manifestation of human language.
An “official language” is one that is legally recognized as belonging to a certain territory for general use and in administrative and educational contexts. This legal status is really the only criterion shared by the different “official-languages” spread across those territories where their legislation contemplates the concept of officiality; This notion, by the way, can not only receive different names (national language) and contemplate different degrees (traditional language, own language), but can be applied, in addition to different types of territories, to organizations such as, for example, the European Union or the African Union.
Contrary to what is often taken for granted, there are no homogeneous criteria to determine which languages can become an “official language” in a given place: neither the number of speakers, nor whether it is a native language, nor the distribution throughout the territory, not even the fact of being a language from a phylogenetic point of view. As they say, for tastes, the colors, because in the case of the official nature of the languages, for a variety of criteria, those of the “official language”.
Let’s put, with their legislation included, some counterexamples to these characteristics that persist in the collective imagination. Minority languages that are official compared to the majority languages: the case of Irish in Ireland (Art. 8.1, Constitution 1937). Languages that are not native, but are official: easy, you just have to choose any country outside of Europe where English, French, Portuguese, Spanish… are official languages and examples will be found. Regarding the distribution of an “official language” in a territory, there is everything. On the one hand, cases such as India, a place with more than 750 languages where there are two official languages throughout the country, Hindi in the Devanagari script and English (Official Languages Act, 1963), and twenty-two others that are in some states such as Telugu in Telangana, Marathi in Maharashtra, Bengali and Kokborok in Tripura, among others. On the other hand, there are cases such as the Miranda case in Terra de Miranda in Portugal (Law 7/99, 01/29/1997), in which the officialdom is limited to a region.
The same diversity is found in the number of “official-languages” of the territories: from those that have only one, as in the case of France (Art. 2, Constitution 1958) or Bulgaria (Art. 3 and 36, Constitution 1991 ), to those that recognize 37 languages, such as Bolivia (Art. 5, Constitution 2009), through other cases such as Zimbabwe and its 16 official languages for the entire nation (Art. 6, Constitution 2013).
And don’t leave yet, because there is still more. There are cases where a dialect variety is official, such as Luxembourgish German or Lëtzebuergeschen in Luxembourg (Art. 1, law 02/24/1984), or where a creole language, that is, one that comes from a language created by contact between cultures ( pidgin), but with native speakers, it also has official status. An example is Tok Pisin, a Melanesian Creole language based on English, which together with Hiri Motu and English are recognized as national languages in Papua New Guinea (Art. 2, Constitution 1975), the place with the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. with more than 850 languages belonging to different phyla and families.
Now that you have this list of “non-criteria”, what do you think about using the concept of “official language” to describe the languages spoken in a certain territory?
I ask you this question because often, even in specialist circles, it seems that only languages with a certain level of official status exist. Look, for example, at the map of Spain published in the Archiletters number 17 regarding the expression “I love you”. Other native languages and varieties do not appear, such as, for example, Aragonese or Catalan in Aragon, despite being recognized as “own languages and linguistic modalities” in their respective statutes and laws (Art. 7, Statute of Autonomy of Aragon 2007). ; Law 2/2016, 01/28). Nor are other “official-languages” mentioned, such as Occitan, in its Aranese variety, in the Aran Valley (Art. 6.5, Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, 2007). In fact, if you take a look at Spanish legislation, you will see that when it comes to establishing what is considered an “official language” there is a little bit of everything: minority languages, majority languages, dialect varieties, areas of official status, one or more in the same territory…
But, again, there is more. And, beyond this legal recognition, the list of languages and varieties spoken in Spain does not end with the official status. I am thinking, within the native languages, of Erromintxela, Fala or Extremadura, or Spanish sign language or Catalan sign language, but I have also not forgotten all the foreign linguistic diversity that, today, exists in Spain: Chinese [wu]berber [rifeño]Arabic [marroquí]Wolof, Fula, Mandinka, Soninké, Quechua, German, French, Romanian, Bulgarian…
And you may wonder, why do I insist so much on mentioning languages? Well, because behind a language there are always the speakers. I am lucky (although let’s not forget that it is a right) that my languages, Basque and Spanish, are official. Therefore, although we still have to overcome the, let’s call them “pseudolinguistic atrocities” that still circulate out there, at least they “exist.” But, now let’s put ourselves in the place of the speakers of those other “non-official-languages”, let’s return to that question of “what language is spoken in…?” and we feel its “nonexistence.”
I hope that, after this exercise in linguistic empathy, when we are asked about the languages of a territory, before responding hastily and assuming that there is only one, we stop to think about its people. After all, not knowing all the languages of a place can be understood; However, forgetting about your speakers and hiding them is not.
#Forgotten #languages.. #hidden #speakers
