Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Are official languages inclusionary or exclusionary in other countries?

Language Log has been writing about how there are some people in the US who want to make English the official language of the country (currently it has no official languages).

This has been grating on me, and for the longest time I wasn't able to articulate why. After all, I earn my living through our official languages. I have more academic and professional knowledge of official languages policy than most people, and it's always struck me as completely benign and not especially worth worrying about. So if Canada's official languages policy seems so utterly harmless to me, why does this proposed US official languages policy give me a gut reaction of "OMG that is SO WRONG!!!!"? (Yes, I know, American policy is not my business at all, but my gut reactions aren't very good at sticking to their own jurisdiction.)

But reading Language Log's latest entry on this issue, I realized what the difference is. Official languages policy as I'm accustomed to it is a tool of inclusion. It's there so people can live in English or in French. It's in no way stopping people from doing other languages as well. Our legislation is just making sure that I can read the instructions on my cough syrup in English and do my taxes in English and get helped in English when I frantically call 1-800-O-CANADA because my wallet was stolen and I need to know how to replace all my ID. But you can still serve your deli customers in Polish, you can still provide TTC information in Tagalog, and you can still label your food products in Mandarin as long as the English and French are on there somewhere too. It's setting out a minimum standard that anyone is welcome to exceed.

But this proposed American policy would be (at least if some of the loudest people had their way) a tool of exclusion. Rather than making sure people would be able to live in English, it would be trying to prevent people from using other languages. It would be setting out a ceiling and preventing anyone from exceeding that standard.

I'm far too deeply immersed in Canada's official languages culture and in multilingualism in general to even make a nominal attempt at comparing how worthwhile these two opposing approaches are. I'm too accustomed to what I'm familiar with to evaluate it objectively. All I'm saying here is this explains why the idea seemed so viscerally wrong to me - because they would be using official languages policy to do the exact opposite of what I'm used to it doing.

This makes me wonder what the situation is like in other countries. Are other countries' official languages policies inclusionary, setting a minimum standard? Or are they exclusionary, creating a ceiling that you can't exceed?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that people here in the US don't like others not speaking English because they can't eavesdrop on the conversation then ;)

redsock. said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
impudent strumpet said...

Anon: there's a simple solution. Just look at them like you're eavesdropping, giggle quietly when they laugh, and when they look in your direction look away quickly with a "What? Who, me? I wasn't eavesdropping" expression on your face.

impudent strumpet said...

Message deleted for security reasons.

laura k said...

But reading Language Log's latest entry on this issue, I realized what the difference is. Official languages policy as I'm accustomed to it is a tool of inclusion. . . . But this proposed American policy would be (at least if some of the loudest people had their way) a tool of exclusion.

That's it. You nailed it right there.