French Language Policies and the Revitalisation of Regional Languages in the 21st Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-113
Author(s):  
Ami Upadhyay ◽  
Dushyant Nimavat

The devotional literature we find in India's regional languages is sometimes referred to as Bhakti's literature. Since the poets from Bhakti Panth are more social and cultural, they are more thinkers and more social than literary figures. The translation of classics is particularly meaningful when a native language is translated into English. The classics are introduced to the world. In contemporary Shri Aurobindo and Dilp Chitre did, what Hsuan-tsang did for Sanskrit scripts. A. K. Ramanujan has also made a strong flow of translation in the post-colonial literature and Bhakti has been one of these literatures. This article explores the devotional poems of Narsinh Mehta that are important even in the 21st century.


1981 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 60-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Braj B. Kachru

In the political divisions within South Asia there has traditionally been no organized effort for language policies.1 Language was essentially related to one's caste, village, district, and state. Beyond this, one identified with languages associated with religion (Sanskrit or Arabic), or learned and literary texts (mainly Sanskrit and Persian). At the time of Indian independence (1947), one task of the new government was to unravel the status and position of almost 560 sovereign states which were ruled by an array of mahārājās, nawābs, and lesser luminaries, depending on the size and the revenue of each state and subdivision. Each state state was a kindgom unto itself, and such political divisions did not foster a national language policy. In India, the largest country in South Asia, four languages were used for wider communication as bazār languages or languages of literature and intranational communication: Hindi (and its varieties, Hindustani and Urdu), Sanskrit, Persian, and later, English (cf., for Sanskrit, Kachru and Sridhar 1978; Sharma 1976; for English, Kachru 1969; 1982a). The Hindus tended to send their children to a pāṭhśālā (traditional Hindu school mainly for scriptural education) for the study of the scriptures and some basic knowledge of the śāastras (Sanskrit instructional texts, treatise), and the Muslims tended to send their children to a maktab (traditional school for Koranic instruction). The denominational schools (vidyāZaya) provided liberal arts instruction in Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi, Arabic, or in the regional languages.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien Hall ◽  
Jonathan R. Kasstan ◽  
David Hornsby

This Special Issue of the Journal of French Language Studies celebrates a recent surge in enthusiasm for sociolinguistic studies involving the regional languages of France. Taking our cue from the contributions to the volume, which we introduce here, we argue that a changing twenty-first century landscape offers an exciting new agenda for these regional languages (and minority languages more widely), and set out what we see as six key directions for contemporary research.


2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter G. Riddell

The rendering of the Qur’anic text into other languages is a matter of considerable sensitivity and debate, given the status of the text among the community of faithful as divine speech. This article considers this issue in the context of the Malay-Indonesian world, where Islam has been firmly established since the beginning of the 14th century. Discussion initially focuses upon surviving evidence of Qur’anic materials from the early Islamic period in Southeast Asia. Attention then turns to the rendering of the Qurʾān into the Malay/Indonesian language, according to three periods up to the 21st century. The article concludes with a discussion of translation of the Qurʾān into the regional languages of Indonesia.


LingVaria ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld

Language Policy in Poland in the Context of the Impact of English on Polish The paper examines the way and the extent to which language policies have affected the development of the Polish language. However, the purpose of the present paper is to highlight the change in attitude towards the increasing impact of English on Polish. The influence of English became more prominent in Poland after the change in the political system in 1989, and has for the most part been in the area of lexical borrowings. However, the influence of English is not only restricted to the inflow of English loanwords, but also extends to their relatively high frequency of usage. In addition, there is evidence of other types of influence that are non-lexical. However, the impact of English on Polish has not been as extensive as is claimed by some Polish linguists who since the early 1990s have lamented over the decline of the Polish language caused by the ”flood” of British and American English borrowings. Indeed, the status of English as a lingua franca was considered itself to be a threat to Polish, with even the possibility of the extinction of the tongue. This concern about language purity led to the creation of the Polish Language Council in 1996, whose aim has been to advise on and describe (rather than prescribe) linguistic behaviours among Polish language users. This legislative body was behind the Polish Language Act passed in 1999. Its purpose, however, has been to protect Polish rather than to purify it and to minimize the foreign influences (which mainly refer to English) rather than to eradicate them. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Polish linguists’ attitude towards the ”Anglicization” of the Polish language has changed dramatically and it is now believed that the influence of English makes Polish richer and more globalized.


2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-143
Author(s):  
Michel Lebel

In this article, the author gives a historical account of the different laws enacted by the National Assembly in order to enhance the status of the French language at administrative levels as well as among the province's résidants themselves. The schools, being vehicles of social and cultural influence, were included. Laws 63 and 22 were little more than tentative, hesitant sallies into the linguistic battle confronting the province and its minority groups. Law 101 provided a more coherent line of reasoning in deciding Quebec's language policies. Nevertheless, it is contested by some groups on constitutional grounds.


Author(s):  
Rukmini Bhaya Nair

<strong><strong></strong></strong><p align="LEFT">E<span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">nglish in India has had an extended and elite colonial history. It was the </span></span>dominant language of governance in the 19<span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: xx-small;">th </span></span><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">and 20</span></span><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: xx-small;">th </span></span><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">centuries till India became </span></span>independent and a new set of language policies came into being. This paper traces the narrative of English on the Indian subcontinent from its genesis as a foreign and imperial tongue to its acceptance and ‘democratization’ as one amongst the many languages of India. It is emphasized that English in India has always existed in a vibrant multilingual environment and that the emergence of Indian English as a ‘world’ variety owes much to this fact. A detailed analysis of the lexicon, grammar and pragmatics of the English spoken today in urban India especially by India’s youth who comprise over <span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">65% of India’s population is undertaken in the paper with </span></span>a view to demonstrating that radical and striking shifts in attitudes toward English in India have occurred over the last few decades of economic liberalization and technological growth. Yet, the timeline created in this paper also shows that many of the paradoxes and dilemmas that attended English from its inception in India have not quite been banished. Rather, they have taken on new, acutely self-reflexive and challenging forms that will require a radical reassessment in the 21st century.</p>


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