K4: Why People Preserve Languages
Nicole Barton & Seoyeon Kim
Vocabulary
Pidgin Language: A group that learns English or another lingua franca, may learn a simplified form, called a pidgin language
Nigeria
- Distinctive languages used in Nigeria
- None of the languages have widespread use.
- English official language but only 2% of Nigerians speak it
- Cultural diversity (language diversity) packed into small region leads to problems
- southern Ibos wanted to secede from Nigeria during the 1960s
- Northerners claimed that Yorubas discriminate against them
- Later government moved capital from Lagos, Yoruba( southwest) to Abuja in the center of Nigeria.
- Illustrates importance of language in identifying cultural groups at local scale.
Celtic
- major language in the British Isles before invasion of Germanic Angles, Jutes, and Saxons
survived only in remote parts of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and on the Brittany peninsula of France
- Celtic divides into Goidelic(gaelic) and Brythonic
- 2 Goidelic languages survive: Irish and Scottish Gaelic
- Irish Gaelic one of two official language in Ireland (English and Irish Gaelic) only 75000 people use Irish gaelic exclusively
- 2% of Scottish people(80000) speak Scottish Gaelic
- Brythonic speakers fled to Wales, Cornwall, Brittany peninsula of France.
- Survival of language depends on the political/military strength of its speakers.
- Britain's 1988 Education Act made Welsh language a compulsory subject in all schools in Wales.
- Singers perform in Irish Gaelic, Irish language TV broadcasting
- Cornish language revived in 1920s and taught in grade schools
Belgium
-Country in multilingual state
- Southern Belgians(Walloons) speak French while Northern Belgians(Flemings) speak Flemish (dialect of the Germanic language of Dutch)
- Language sharply divides country in 2 (Wallonia and Flanders)and aggravated economic and political differences
- Walloons dominant in economy and politics
- Official language is French
- In 1980s Jose Happart, mayor of Voeren in Flanders sent to jail when he refused to speak Flemish which was required by law
- French speaking members quit coalition governing the country forcing the prime minister to resign