Power and Language Policies in Tamil Nadu

Children, childhoods and bilingualism: Exploring experiences, perspectives and policies

The preservation of linguistic diversity has recently become a major concern to many researchers, politicians and leaders of linguistic communities in Europe. The issue of linguistic minorities has taken on a particular urgency because of the increasing recognition of the threat of extinction faced by many minority languages. The need for immediate action has become obvious. Europe has slowly but steadily started to come up with responses to how to keep the most vulnerable languages from extinction and guarantee rights to speakers of such languages at the same time. Today we can talk about the emergence of a European minimum standard of protection of language rights as it has developed since the 1990s in the European conventions and their monitoring activities. There is general understanding that three areas of the use of languages – education, administrative affairs and the media – are determinant for the survival of minority languages. The present article focuses on one of such areas, which has revealed to be particularly contentious and a source of ever-increasing concern. It investigates the guarantees provided in the Council of Europe's instruments pertaining to the use of minority languages before public authorities, the practical difficulties and ways of their overcoming in the implementation of the rights enshrined in European treaties.

My five Tibetan individuals’ stories of their journeys towards becoming bilingual indicate that their bilingual development was related to changing policy. The frequently changing policies of treasuring minority languages, banning the use of minority languages and then again restoring minority languages in educational institutes in China fundamentally affected the development of their identity, indicating that the person is always situated in history. In addition, because of the socio-political history and the different personal circumstances each of my five participants found themselves in, their abilities in two languages are diverse. Their differing contexts and the role of education in promoting or impairing bilingualism also affected their personal bilingual proficiency. Their use of language shift showed that my five Tibetan individuals live with two languages.

We shift our attention in this chapter to another key area of concern within the study of languages and, arguably, one that is gaining even more traction in academic, policy and public debate; namely, how one can understand patterns of language use and utilise this understanding as a way of devising interventions that can promote the use of minority languages such as Welsh. We begin by critically examining the way in which the Welsh language is understood as a community language in studies conducted by the Welsh Government, Mentrau Iaith (the language initiatives located in different parts of Wales), as well as other allied bodies. We also discuss the way in which the notion of a community language is viewed as being a normative goal for the Welsh language, and the various interventions that seek to achieve this goal. The discussion then proceeds to examine the geographies that are implicated in language use at the level of individuals. As part of this we elaborate on efforts that have been made to understand the impact of the environment—broadly defined—on the language choices made by individual Welsh speakers. The conclusion draws together the main arguments advanced during the chapter and poses a series of questions for policy makers and language activists, both in Wales and also further afield, to consider as they plan future interventions aimed at promoting greater use of minority languages.

This monograph examines the language planning situation in South Africa, where language has been instrumental in the country's transition from colonialism to apartheid to democracy. In particular, it addresses, diachronically and synchronically, the issues of language spread and use, language policy and planning, and language maintenance and shift. The monograph is divided into four parts. The first part presents the language profile of South Africa to provide the background against which the aforementioned issues will be discussed. The second part discusses language spread and use, with a focus on language-in-education and the media. The third section looks at language policy and planning, with a focus on South Africa's new language policy and on attempts currently being made to implement it. It shows that there is a mismatch between the language policy and language practices, with the former promoting additive multilingualism, and the latter showing a trend towards unilingualism in English in virtually all the higher domains of language use. The implications of this trend for the current language policy and for language maintenance and shift are discussed in the final part, with special reference to the country's official languages.

Language policy is an essential part of the state national policy. It is focused on regulating public relations in three main directions: the use of the languages of the peoples of Russia in order to ensure their preservation and development, the formation of a set of measures that promote the use of the state language of the Russian Federation in official spheres of communication and expand its use in interpersonal informal communication (which is not regulated by law), ensuring guarantees for the study of the native language by its native speakers and popularization of the use of the national (native) language in the fields of education, creativity, and science. The implementation of language policy involves taking into account the plurality of identity, including cultural identity, linguistic identity, which can be considered, under certain conditions, not independently, but as elements of civic identity. The article examines the main directions of language policy, taking into account the combination of individual and collective interests in the fields of language and culture, which contributes to the development of both national languages and cultures and all-Russian symbols — the state language and all-Russian culture. The heterogeneous nature of the legislation of the subjects of the Russian Federation in the field of language policy implementation is emphasized. The directions of improving legislative regulation in order to ensure ethnocultural and linguistic diversity, the development of guarantees for the protection of national languages, and the improvement of the mechanism for the use of languages with different legal status are proposed. The dialectical method of scientific cognition aimed at the study of legal phenomena and processes in their interrelation and systemic unity, and other general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, generalization) are used. Conclusion. Language policy in the interests of maintaining the cultural and national identity of Russian citizens requires taking into account at least two factors in its formation: the need to preserve and protect national culture and language as the basis for the formation of national identity, and strengthening the all-Russian civic identity, which allows a Russian citizen to recognize himself as a Russian. Its principles include the protection of the rights of Russian citizens in the field of culture and language, the promotion and preservation of national languages and cultures of each people of Russia, the adaptation of migrants to the language and culture of the host community, the protection of the linguistic rights of compatriots abroad, the protection of the state language as the main element of the all-Russian civil identity.

Three Models of Minority Media Participation A Brief Analysis of Language Related Prescriptions in National Media Laws

The work on the draft bill started at the beginning of 2002 by the project of the National and Ethnic Minority Committee of the Sejm. During the first reading the deputies of the Law and Justice and the Polish Families League made a proposal to reject the draft. After the rejection of this proposal, the further work was carried out mainly in the extraordinary subcommittee, which prepared a report in spring 2004.The final work on the Act took place in National and Ethnic Minority Committee. During the third reading in the Sejm, also other motions to reject the draft or to limit its scope were proposed. These proposals came from right-wing and Catholic-national parties. In the Act in comparison to the original project there were extended rules on the use of minority language as an auxiliary, as well as for the use of this language as additional for assigning the names to towns and villages. A new solution was to introduce the notion of a regional language and giving this status to the Kashubian language. Also a solid base for the contacts of the government with national and ethnic minorities was established.

Aragón is an autonomous community located in the north-eastern part of Spain. Like many other Spanish regions, it possesses its own linguistic identity, with Aragonese and Catalan traditionally spoken in certain areas. In recent years, the situation of Aragón's minority languages has become the focus of significant legal and political debate. In 2023, legal reforms introduced by the coalition of the People's Party (PP) and Vox dramatically altered the region's approach to minority languages. These reforms eliminated the explicit recognition of Catalan and Aragonese as part of the region's cultural heritage, replacing them with generic labels referring to "eastern" and "Pyrenean" language varieties. This move marked a return to the policies of 2013, which had significantly restricted the legal protection and cultural recognition of the Catalan and Aragonese languages. The reforms have sparked considerable social and political opposition. Supporters argue that the law recognises Aragón's linguistic diversity without imposing a rigid framework that privileges Catalan or Aragonese over other regional dialects. However, civil organisations and cultural movements accuse the government of undermining the protection and use of minority languages, in contradiction with the commitments made under the Spanish Constitution and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Terminological trends towards a concept of “language conflict” are to some extent underexplored in Ukrainian sociolinguistics and sociology. This article looks into modern approaches to the language conflict research and ways of terminologization of the “language conflict” concept. The data collected from a recent sociological survey show that there are no grounds for the analysis of the phenomenon of social interaction regarding the use of languages in Ukraine, as seen through the prism of “social conflict”. However, by confirming that in the collective consciousness, the language is treated as an annoying issue associated with a certain social tension, the findings show that social practices related to the language use in Ukraine are appropriate to be investigated with respect to the concept of “social tension”, that is, frequent domestic disputes about languages and examples of manipulation of the language issue in mass media. In this paper, language conflict is described as one of the parameters of language situations, out of which the defining features are as: 1) redistribution of functional spheres of languages in a certain territory and in various socio-political formations or spheres of language use; 2) a change in the demographic power of languages accompanied by changes in the legislative support of the language functioning or in the deliberate delay of relevant laws adoption. Yet with a destructive language policy, language conflict can acquire the features of a social conflict. The features of language conflict in Ukraine are deformations of language situations leading to the discrepancy between the real state of Ukrainian and its status as the official language. This prevents balanced interaction between Ukrainian and other languages used in Ukraine needed for ensuring the language rights of all citizens. Keywords: language conflict, language situation, language policy, official language, minority languages, language rights.

This article shares helpful, research-backed ways that parents can support minority languages in their children's lives. Many parents around the world face language struggles, including losing heritage languages to the community language or trying to support a foreign language to increase future opportunities. For example, parents in Mexico may want to encourage their children to speak Nahuatl with older family members, but the children prefer Spanish due to its widespread use and status in the community. This same family may encourage their children to study English in order to increase future employment and travel opportunities. However, asking children to become bi- or even trilingual can feel like a time-intensive, stressful, and expensive task. It doesn't have to be a negative experience, though! This article provides tips and strategies, both theoretical and practical, for encouraging minority language study and use in the household, touching on aspects of bilingualism such as literacy, inter-sibling language use, technology, and cost-cutting measures. Families from all over the globe and of any size can utilize this information to encourage bilingualism or multilingualism in their families.

Crafting and implementing language policies that address the needs of language minority students have always been challenging. The major challenges include addressing such concerns as: How do we address the language needs of minority students, while keeping the academic standards high? Should the role of minority langue be cultural maintenance or the facilitation of instruction through the mother tongue? To what extent does the use of minority language prepare the child for the global world? Through comparative analysis of practices in the United States and Ethiopia, this paper explores the background, approaches, and challenges/controversies in implementing polices that cater for language minority children in the two countries.

It is intended that this annotated bibliography be used as a stand-alone resource or in tandem with the related literature review about Language Planning and Policy: Factors that Impact on Successful Language Planning and Policy. A variety of literary sources, such as research reports and journal articles, are consulted in the bibliography. In order to give a summary of the main ideas and shared comprehension of the elements that influence successful language planning and policy, especially in relation to the revitalization of Indigenous and minority languages also upkeep. The goal was to find more modern works of literature, created about approaches and materials on language policy and planning (LPP). Although the literatures were based on the review’s body of work was expanded to include foundational works that addressed the major

In this paper, a comparative perspective is given on the position of ethnic minority languages vs. Frisian in Dutch primary schools. The rationale for such a comparison steins from the rather long history and high status of Frisian as a school subject and a medium of instruction in the Netherlands, and from remarkable similarities and differences in experiences and trends on both sides. First, there is a presentation of basic sociodemographic data on ethnic minority groups in the Netherlands, and arguments in favour of bilingual education in various contexts in which children's home language is dominated by a different school language. Apart from some similarities between Frisian and ethnic minority languages in Dutch primary schools, there is a number of noteworthy differences with respect to preferred arguments, legislation and educational models for minority language instruction (MLI), the actual use of minority languages, the attitudes of parents, teachers and children towards MLI, the pressu...

The loss of a language is often phrased in catastrophic terms despite the evolution of languages being a quite natural process. Here we discuss language loss and language use in the digital domain. We note that while English still dominates cyberspace, other languages are growing rapidly, so it seems likely that the future will not be monolingual but multilingual. We show that efforts to mandate the use of minority languages are unlikely to be successful and can backfire. The question therefore arises of how best to handle minority languages in the digital domain. This article argues that the best, and maybe the only, solution is high-quality machine translation.