Lecture 7 - Languages of Europe
7.1 Language and Nation
1. Languages of Europe / Languages in Europe
2. Language and Nation-building (Wright 2011)
- European vs. local level through the ages
- Role of linguists
- Position of minority languages
As seen on this map, there are
many colors; however, most of
those more or less match the
borders of a country. Therefore,
there is a one language one
country correspondence to be
seen in this map. There are
regional languages, and there
are minority languages but not
too many. Most of the
languages spoken in Europe or
within the territory and
continent of Europe are not
included in the map as languages in Europe.
The standard language ideology of one language in one nation is still
prevalent in European discourse and also in the European Union discourse.
However, if you look more specifically at particular countries within
Europe, this idea isn’t always a match with reality. An example can be seen
in Italy; where you have one country (Italy) with one official language
(Italian), But if you look closely at the language of variety spoken within the
territory of Italy, those are not substandard varieties of Italian or some not
even dialects of Italian, they are different varieties. During the Italian
unification in 1861, only about 3% could speak Italian.
,Therefore, there’s a difference between language ideology and language
practice.
Different ways in which a language can help create and build a nation:
- Wright says - She is interested in how the constructive nature of
national language groups comes about and what that tells us about
those groups.
- However, Gal goes one step further in her chapter and says well in
the way that we understand language and the way that we use that
term in our discourse was invented in Europe. It didn’t exist outside
of Europe in the sense that language as just a way of communicating
is very different from the way that we now talk about language in
comparison to dialect or varieties or vernaculars.
If we look at how language developed and created the environment or the
circumstance in which it could play a role in nation-building, we can have a
look at the visualization from this diagram here.
● In the late Middle Ages, Many different languages were spoken, And
people were aware there were other languages, but most people only
spoke their own local variety.
● In the 16th to 18th century, The correctness ideology arises, and more
people become interested in the right way of speaking, the norms in
their language variety, and the main differences between their variety
and further questioning why theirs is better.
● In the 18th and 19th centuries, the idea of a correct language inspires
the fact that you can use the right language as an instrument to
pursue particular political or social goals.
, ● In the 19th to 20th century, you see that the search for the one best
variety is so prominent that the standard language ideology , Which is
a derivative of this, it’s still the central ideology that we find in Europe
today.
Investigating how the organization of; Language (practice), social
organization, and political organization interacted in order to:
- Have a better understanding of the process of constructing national
language groups
- Understand the relationship between the nation-state and the
national language.
Middle Ages
Religion, war, and diplomacy required communication at a "European"
level.
- Nobility and clergy used lingua francas
- Military efforts resulted in multilingual courts
Life otherwise was organized locally, with little need to communicate
with outsiders.
Political organization Social organization
= need for communication = groups of peasants
= shared language = little (social) mobility
= lingua franca = local varieties
16th – 17th c.
A middle level arises between that local level and the European level. A new
class of administrators in the political organization in-between the people
and the crown required a language shared by all. This change in political
organization promoted linguistic standardization within the state. Printing
further accelerated this.
, Political organization
= need for communication
= shared language
= standardization
= "state language"
- From the political organization side, the people in power recognized
that a class of administrators was useful, in between the crown and
the people.
- To have that level and make use of that level it was important that
they could speak the same language as the crown on the one hand and
also as the people on the other, to make sure all information is
shared.
- This led to a shared language, and to make sure the language was
effective and efficient, standardization came into play.
- The language that was standardized was usually the language of the
capital which became the state language.
Social organization
= printing press
= vernacular varieties
= spoken and written
= standardization
- The development of the printing press and also the reformation led to
vernacular varieties, becoming written varieties
- Writing and printing a certain language is much more efficient than
having multiple different varieties - from an economic perspective it
makes more sense
18th – 19th c.
The new sovereign peoples needed to communicate with each other: having
a shared language was imperative in terms of raising political support. The
people need to be (and feel) united: a homogenous group. This sense of
belonging was found in language.
