Authors: Norman Berdichevsky
ISBN-13: 9780786417100, ISBN-10: 0786417102
Format: Paperback
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Date Published: February 2004
Edition: New Edition
This study evaluates the importance of language in achieving a sense of national solidarity, considering factors such as territory, religion, race, historical continuity, and memory. It investigates the historical experiences of countries and ethnic or regional minorities according to how their political leadership, intellectual elite, or independence movements answered the question, "Who are we?" The Americans, British, and Australians all speak English, just as the French, Haitians, and French-Canadians all speak French, sharing common historical origin, vocabulary and usage-but each nationality's use of its language differs. So does language transform a citizenry into a community / or is a "national language" the product of idealogy?
This work presents 26 case studies and raises three questions: whether the people of independent countries consider language the most important factor in creating their sense of nationality; whether the people living in multi-ethnic states or as regional minorities are most loyal to the community with which they share a language or the community with which they share citizenship; and whether people in countries with civil strife find a common language enough to create a sense of political solidarity. The study also covers hybrid languages, language revivals, the difference between dialects and languages, government efforts to promote or avoid bilingualism, the manipulation of spelling and alphabet reform. Illustrations include postage stamps, banknotes, flags, and posters illustrating language controversies.
Professional translator and cultural geographer Norman Berdichevsky lives in Murcia, Spain. He has published many articles, on language controversy, in several languages.
Acknowledgments | ||
Preface and Dedication | 1 | |
Introduction | 3 | |
Pt. I | Countries with Competing Candidates for the National Language | |
1 | Hebrew versus Yiddish: The Case of Israel | 13 |
2 | The Attempt to Revive Irish: A Nation Once Again | 44 |
3 | Norway's Schizophrenia: New Norse (Nynorsk) versus Dano-Norwegian (Bokmal/Riksmal) | 55 |
4 | Maltese: "The Curse of the Country and Fit Only for the Kitchen" | 66 |
Pt. II | Multiethnic Countries with Bilingualism and Multilingualism | |
5 | Belgium: The Classic "Buffer State" | 77 |
6 | Switzerland | 92 |
7 | Spain: Five Official Languages, or Is It Only Four and Two-Thirds? | 103 |
8 | Canada | 116 |
9 | India | 124 |
10 | South Africa | 129 |
Pt. III | The Celtic "Pygmy" Revivals of Welsh and Scots | |
11 | Wales, Welsh and Plaid Cymru | 139 |
12 | Scotland, Scots and the Threatened Demise of Scottish Gaelic | 146 |
Pt. IV | Dialects or Languages? | |
13 | Italian Dialects | 157 |
14 | Scandinavian Languages: Unification Tried and Rejected | 160 |
Pt. V | The Quarreling Cousins | |
15 | Serbian and Croatian (Serbo-Croatian) or "A Common Language Does Not a Nation Make" | 165 |
16 | Czech and Slovak | 171 |
17 | Romanian and Moldavian | 174 |
Pt. VI | Ethnic or Regional Minorities: Bilingual or Using the "Wrong Language"? | |
18 | The Romanian-Speaking Hungarians | 181 |
19 | Alsace-Lorraine: German Speakers Who Identify with France | 187 |
20 | The German-Speaking Danish Minority in South Schleswig | 191 |
21 | The Swedish-Speaking Finlanders | 199 |
22 | Israel's Hebrew-Speaking Arab Citizens | 205 |
Pt. VII | Spanish versus Portuguese in Uruguay: The Case of Determined Government Planning to Avoid Bilingualism | |
23 | Uruguay: The Origins of the Buffer State | 215 |
Pt. VIII | The Struggle with the Chains of the Past (Greek, Arabic and Turkish) | |
24 | The Greek Dilemma: Ancient (Attic) versus Demotike versus Katharevousa | 225 |
25 | Arabic: The Koran versus Modern Standard versus the Local Vernaculars | 232 |
26 | Turkish Identity Frees Itself from the Islamic/Arabic Yoke | 241 |
Conclusion | 245 | |
Chapter Notes | 259 | |
Bibliography | 267 | |
Index | 275 |