Introduction
“Language planning is an attempt to
interfere deliberately with a language or one of its varieties: it is human
intervention into natural processes of language change, diffusion, and
erosion.” Stated Wardhugh (2006, p.
357). This is to say that Language planning is a deliberate effort to influence
the function, structure or acquisition of language or language variety within a
speech community.
During the process of planning a
language there are winner and losers. And, given that winners and losers are
noticed, the present assignment, thus, aims at bringing about a reflection on
Winners and Losers in Language Planning. Here, some aspects concerning winners
and others concerning losers in Language planning will be pointed out.
We live in a world of more than 6
billion people and by the most generous estimate 6,000 languages. Many of these
are endangered or even dying. Dixon estimates that there may be actually as few
as 4,000 languages spoken today with that number steadily decreasing. Each
language encapsulates the world-view of its speakers: how they think, what they
value, what they believe in, how they classify the world around them, how they
order their lives. Once a language dies, a part of human culture is lost, forever.
These are some of the facts about languages in general.
Additionally, Nettle and Romaine
(2000), quoted by (Wardhaugh, 2006), voice a very similar view, say that as
many as 60 percent of all languages are already endangered, and go so far as to
claim that some of the endangered languages have much to tell us about the
natural world, e.g., invaluable information about ecological matters, and even
perhaps about the nature of reality. It has already been said that each
language is a way of coming to grips with the external world and developing a
symbolism to represent it so that it can be talked and thought about. Crystal
(2000), quoted by (Wardhaugh, 2006), also deplores the reduction of language
diversity brought about by language death.
Estimates of language loss go as
high as 95 percent within the new century if nothing is done to stop the
decline. It is for just such a reason that the Linguistic Society of America
has gone on record as deploring language loss and established a Committee on
Endangered Languages and their Preservation to help arrest it. However, we
should note that not all linguists agree that they should be out in the field
trying to describe – and possibly preserve – threatened languages. Mühlhäusler
(1996) goes so far as to argue that linguists are sometimes part of the problem
rather than part of the solution. However, no matter what happens the number of
languages spoken in the world will almost certainly continue to decline.
Furthermore, in marked contrast to
such decline, a few languages thrive, e.g., the Mandarin variety of Chinese,
Hindi, Arabic, and Spanish (with its enormous growth potential in South
America), and one, English, has spread everywhere in the world (see Wardhaugh,
1987, and Crystal, 2003b, 2004). Languages like French (even when promoted by La
Francophonie), Russian, German, and Japanese, on the other hand, do not
thrive in the same way: they win few converts and, as the world’s population
grows, they decrease proportionally. As Crystal has pointed out, English spread
initially through conquest and then by being in the right place at the right
time for use in international relations, the worldwide media, international
travel, education, and now communications. He estimates that one-quarter of the
world’s population has some kind of fluency in the language. Its major appeal
is as a lingua franca, a common second language with a certain amount of
internal diversity. In December 2004, a British Council report estimated that 2
billion more people would begin learning English within a decade and by 2050
there would be over 3 billion speakers of English in the world. The main
motivation to learn English would continue to be an economic one and an
important consequence would be a great increase in bilingualism/multilingualism
in English and one or more other languages. According to this report, Chinese,
Arabic, and Spanish would also become increasingly important languages.
In its spread English has
differentiated; there are New Englishes, and English is not just a single
language any more. It also lacks a dominant center; English is pluricentric and
is used to express various national identities (Schneider, 2003) quoted by (Wardhaugh,
2006).
Mühlhäusler (1996) quoted by
(Wardhaugh, 2006), for example, regards languages like English and others like
Bahasa Indonesia and Mandarin Chinese as ‘killer languages’ because as national
languages of modernization, education, and development they stifle and
eventually kill local languages. Dorian (1998, p. 9) states the case
unequivocally: ‘Europeans who come from polities with a history of
standardizing and promoting just one high-prestige form carried their “ideology
of contempt” for subordinate languages with them when they conquered far-flung
territories to the serious detriment of indigenous languages.’
House (2003), quoted by (Wardhaugh,
2006), draws a different conclusion concerning the spread of English in the
European Union. There, English is spreading because it is an effective lingua
franca and she says that this spread may actually strengthen local languages as
people seek to maintain local identities. The European Union shows how such a
compromise has occurred. Wright (2004, p. 14), quoted by (Wardhaugh, 2006),
comes to a similar conclusion but one not limited to the European Union: ‘it is
not inconceivable that as intergroup communication happens increasingly in
English, speakers from the smaller language groups will move from being
bilingual in their own language and the national language to being bilingual in
their own language and English. This latter bilingualism might be more stable
than the former.’
Conclusion
We end up realizing that is
calculated that language loss goes as high as 95 percent within the new century
if nothing is done to stop the decline. The languages usually win few converts
and, as the world’s population grows, they decrease proportionally. English,
for example, is not just a single language any more. It also lacks a dominant
center; it is nowadays pluricentric and is used to express various national
identities.
To finish, it is not inconceivable
that as intergroup communication happens increasingly in a language, speakers
from the smaller language groups will move from being bilingual in their own
language and the national language to being bilingual in their own language and
that language. This latter bilingualism might be more stable than the former.
Bibliography
Wardhaugh, R. (2006). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Blackwell
Publishing. 5th edition.
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