Language Planning and Language Development
LANGUAGE PLANNING AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Language is a typically human phenomenon. In moving from the 'natural being' of animal existence to the 'cultural being' of human existence, language plays the decisive role. Language gives a sense of identity to an individual as well as a social group and, in the process, creates multiple identities. The maintenance, merger, clash and change in identities based on and reflected in the language change has prompted linguists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists to study language in its multifarious dimensions. Since economic and societal planning have to, of necessity, take into account the context of planning, there is no wonder that worldwide attention has been drawn towards language planning.
Language is an asset and a primary instrument of human communication. However, language can become a problem and a barrier to communication, sometimes symbolically so, under conditions of multiplicity of ethnic groups, languages, dialects, styles, registers and scripts. These conditions may lead to one or more of the following situations which necessitate language planning :
(i) Mutually unintelligible language, dialects or scripts competing for supremacy of dominance
(ii) Mutually intelligible languages, dialects or scripts,
(a) threatening mutual identity,
(b) with mutually unfavorable attitudes.
(iii) Existence of diglossia, triglossia or multiglossia.
(iv) Existence of languages with dominant/minority relationship with a national frontier.
(v) Social variables correlating with language use and creating communication zones.
(vi) Official action in recognising official languages, distributing patronages for development of languages which may even have the remote implication of displacing or disturbing in reality or symbolically, the existing domains of language use.
(vii) Language used by the politicised elite to retain their elitist privileges by restricting language
Language is a typically human phenomenon. In moving from the 'natural being' of animal existence to the 'cultural being' of human existence, language plays the decisive role. Language gives a sense of identity to an individual as well as a social group and, in the process, creates multiple identities. The maintenance, merger, clash and change in identities based on and reflected in the language change has prompted linguists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists to study language in its multifarious dimensions. Since economic and societal planning have to, of necessity, take into account the context of planning, there is no wonder that worldwide attention has been drawn towards language planning.
Language is an asset and a primary instrument of human communication. However, language can become a problem and a barrier to communication, sometimes symbolically so, under conditions of multiplicity of ethnic groups, languages, dialects, styles, registers and scripts. These conditions may lead to one or more of the following situations which necessitate language planning :
(i) Mutually unintelligible language, dialects or scripts competing for supremacy of dominance
(ii) Mutually intelligible languages, dialects or scripts,
(a) threatening mutual identity,
(b) with mutually unfavorable attitudes.
(iii) Existence of diglossia, triglossia or multiglossia.
(iv) Existence of languages with dominant/minority relationship with a national frontier.
(v) Social variables correlating with language use and creating communication zones.
(vi) Official action in recognising official languages, distributing patronages for development of languages which may even have the remote implication of displacing or disturbing in reality or symbolically, the existing domains of language use.
(vii) Language used by the politicised elite to retain their elitist privileges by restricting language