National Languages and Languages of Wider Communication in the Developing Nations 1

Abstract

This chapter reviews six factors or dimensions to be heuristically useful in differentiating between the language policies and accompanying developments that tend to obtain where three different directions or clusters of cumulative decisions have been reached. Nationism—as distinguished from nationalism—is primarily concerned not with ethnic authenticity but with operational efficiency. Only the Language of Wider Communication is seen as fulfilling nationwide purposes on a permanent basis, or as being linked to the developing national goals, national symbols, national rituals, national holidays, and national identifications that such nations—just as do all nations—need and create. In view of their wholehearted reliance on a Language of Wider Communication, nations in which Type A decisions are preferred needs to engage in only limited language planning activities. The clearly preponderant Great Tradition available to nations in which Type B decisions prevail points to the selection of a single indigenous language to serve as national language.

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