The Impact of Language Policy on Endangered Languages

Abstract

Over the past 10 000 years various forces such as the spread of agriculture, European colonization, the industrial revolution and now globalization have propelled some few languages – all Eurasian in origin – to expand. Fewer than 4 per cent of the world's languages have any kind of official status in the countries where they are spoken. Many language-policy statements are reactive ad hoc declarations lacking a planning element. The Native American Languages Act (NALA) of 1990 is one of the most explicit statements on language ever issued by the United States Congress, yet it is a classic example of a policy with no planning dimension. In the interests of justice, it is incumbent on liberal democracies to accommodate cultural and linguistic diversity to the fullest extent possible. Although survival cannot depend on legislation as its main support, legal provisions may allow speakers of endangered languages to claim some public space for their languages and cultures.

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