Education prioritization and language spread

Abstract

Given the importance of language for state building, many governments undertake language planning efforts to ensure their citizens can speak an – if not, the – official language. Yet the mere act of designating a language as official is not sufficient for the language to be widely spoken across the population. In this paper we ask, what explains official language spread? We argue whether citizens can speak an official language – either as a first or second language – depends on how much the government prioritizes the education ministry. Governments that allocate more resources – financial, political, and human capital – to the education ministry are more likely to spread the official language. We assess this argument first with a case study of Singapore 1965−1985. We intentionally pick a successful case to elucidate the mechanisms linking education prioritization to language spread. To demonstrate the mechanisms are not Singapore-specific, we run a second test. The statistical analysis employs original cross-national, over-time (1978–2009) measures of budget allocation ranks, minister ranks, and ministry cabinet ranks. The results suggest a strong effect between education prioritization and language spread.

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