11.2 lanjutan

In Central Asia, in pre-Soviet times, the use of the Arabic alphabet had facilitated the borrowing of Persian and Arabic words among Turkik speakers and encouraged multilingual scholarship. The Arabic alphabet tended to obscure differences among dialects because vowels wore not written. Turkik speakers hus, could learn fairly easily to read writings in other dialects and Turkic languages including Ottoman. The Arabic alphabet was the symbol of religious and cultural ties with the larger Islamic world (Bacon 1966:190).
Around 1923, that is, after the Russian Revolution, an improved Arabic alphabet was introduced for Uzbek, Kazakh, and Kirghiz. The Soviet government, however, was finding that it was having to impose its rule by force and began to see the danger inherent in the continued use of an alphabet that separated the Central Asians from the Russians and maintained a common mode of expression with Muslims outside of the Soviet Union, some of whom had voiced Pan-Turkic sympathies. Therefore, a unified Latin alphabet was officially introduced in 1928 for use in writing Central Asian languages. As a matter of fact, in the late twenties there were even powerful spokesmen for the idea of Latinizing Russians itself. But this radically cosmopolitan idea died out with the rebirth of Russian nationalism in the 1930s (Weinreich 1953b). Central Asian scholars did not strongly oppose the move, because it provided a common script for all Turkic speakers, was better adapted to the Turkic phonetic system than was the Arabic alphabet, and turned out to be almost identical to the Latin alphabet adopted in November 1928 in Turkey under Ataturk. Tadjik scholars were less pleased because the Latin script emphasized dialectal differences between Tadjik and standard Persian. Linguistic considerations were not uppermost, for, in the Soviet view, “Every script is not only technique of writing but also its ideology (Weinreich 1953b:48). By 1930, all the languages of Central Asia had been provided with Latin alphabet and attract the central Asian peoples toward Turkey and away from Russia. Therefore, in 1940, the Latin alphabet for the Central Asian languages was replaced by a series of modified Cyrillic alphabets (not a single unified alphabet this time), which emphasized grammatical and phonological defferences by creating certain special letters for each of them. The purges of 1932-1938 had liquidated many of the scholars who would have opposed this second transition.
Minorities speaking related languages are thus hindered in reading each other’s newspapers and books because of alphabets that they have been forced to use which deliberately contrive to exaggerate small differences among the languages. For example, they may represent the same sound in two different but closely related languages by two different alphabetic characters. In the more liberal atmosphere of the 1970s, some Soviet scholars have come out in favor of reform and unification of the different Cyrillic alphabets used for writing the various Turkic languages. However, after three decades of using these writing systems, the people are quite used to them, and reform would, therefore probably prove to be very difficult, even if Soviet authorities should approve of the effort (Henze 1977).
Soviet policy has been not only to establish Russian as a second native language throughout the non-Russian areas, but also to transform tribal and community languages into developed national languages with a rich modern vocabulary. These aims may prove to be contradictory since, in fact, Russian is considered a superior language; therefore it is doubtful if any of the local languages will ever become completely adequate as educational media. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that Soviet policy differs from Czarist, in that dozens of languages not permitted by the Czarist regime are used today in education and publishing, although some languages have been banned: Arabic, Hebrew, Chechen, Ingush, Kalmyk, German, and virtually Yiddish as well. In the Soviet Union, the school work in more than 70 languages of instruction, and literature and textbooks are published in all of them (Serdyuchenko 1962:23).
The Soviets rather than excluding the minority languages for certain function have been Russifying them. Central Asian scholars have been accustomed to translate concepts introduced by the Russians into more familiar Turkic, Persia, or Arabic words. This practice has been discouraged and virtually overcome by constant reiteration of the Russian terms in school, speeches, and newspapers. At the same time, the of Cyrillic script has facilitated the direct adoption of Russian words. Another advantage of the Cyrillic alphabet for the non-Russian languages is that the children do not have to learn two alphabets, since they will study Russian, in any case.
Linguistic research and publishing in the Soviet Union is carried out on a scalae unequalled in any other country. Its object is to bring the various languages of the country into line with Soviet political, technical, and cultural requirements, especially by “enriching” and “developing” exiting languages, particularly by means of massive infusing of elements of the Russian language.
In addition to the massive infussion of Russian words into the minority languages, the Russian language has penetrated the minority languages in two other ways, namely by the actual movement of Russian populations into minority areas and by the substitution of Russian for national languages among large numbers of people because of its usefulness as a lingua franca.
Despite a high level of forced, planned, and voluntary migration from European to Asian regions of the U.S.S.R, people of the latter regions have been able to achieve a high degree of language maintenance, especially in the rural areas. This has been in the face of the ideological movement toward the “merging” of the nations and their cultural traditions. Ethnic groups of one nationality maw be separated from their conationals and administered with groups of another nationality with whom they have little ethnic or linguistic affinity, with adverse effect on language maintenance (Lewis 1972a:316-317).
In contrast to the Soviet Union, in Yugoslavia current government policy emphasizes economic decentralization, regional, and national autonomy. This policy has helped to promote the autonomy of languages and language variants, which, in turn, however, may provide a linguistic cover for interethnic disputes. Thus, the Serbs believe that the desire of the Croats to maintain and renforce their variant of Serbo –Croationis parochial and potentially separatists, while Croats see Serbian efforts to promote their variant as arrogant. The Croats are fewer but better organized, and their Latin aphabet more widely used, for example, in all telephone books and neon signs throughout Yugoslavian. In the army, the Latin alphabet is used exclusively (Magner 1967)
With the overthrow of the military dictatorship in Greece in 1975, the new government of Constantine Karamanlis instituted sweeping reforms to introduce dhimotikli as the sole language of education, up to the university level and of government administration, and by 1980, it was to have become the language of university education, as well (on. Greek diglossia see also section 7.3). In 1928, dhimotiki had been introduced as a subject into the first four grades, but katharevousa was used in all higher grades, except Greek literature classes, since most of the twentieth century Greek writers have written in dhimotiki. Only a handful of highly educated Greeks ever mastered the complex orthography and grammar of katharevousa. Many educated in it continue to use it, but it will die off as the older generation does (karanikolas 1979). At the same time that the diglossic struggle has been going on between the partisans of the two varieties of Greek, Greeks have shown little concern for the sociolinguistic situation of their Slavic-speaking minority, although their Turkish-speaking minority has received special consideration. While Macedonian has been elevated to the status of a full fledged language in Yugoslavia, its very existence has been denied in Greece. As Lunt explains, “The Greeks violently object to having any Slav referred to as a Macedonian, on the grounds that by historical right only a Greek can be a Macedonian. They ignore the overwhlering evidence that the countryside right down to Salonika was almost completely Slavicized by the eighth century” (Lunt 1959:25,n.2)
The policy of the French government has always been to teach the national language in the schools, which everyone was expected to understand and speak, but to allow linguistic freedom for the entire population and to grant, for example, freedom to religious practitioners to preach and teach religion in whichever language they choose. Above all, the government’s policy is not to discriminate against populations which speak some other language or dialect. The French have not considered instituting bilingual education, for none of the indigenous minority languages (except for German, which is taught in Alsace-Lorraine) have attained a cultivated, literary form (Dauzat 1940:118). This policy ignores the needs of the children of immigrant workers from Italy, Turkey and other countries, as well as native Basque and Breton speakers.
King Juan Carlo’s Decree of November 15, 1957. Legalized the regional languages of Spain and gave Basques, catalans, Galicians, and Valencians (about one-third of the country’s population) the right to use their native languages for the first time since Fraco’s ascension to power in 1938. The languages can now be used in official and other public events and taught in the public schools. In his first message to Parliament, King Juan Carlos had said, “a just order, equal for all, permits recognition of regional characteristics, the expression of the varied nature of the peoples which make up the sacred reality a Spain. Within the unity of the realm and the state, the king wishes to be the king of every citizen, each in his own culture, history and tradition” (Leslie 1975)
Although almost the entire population of Somalia speaks Somali as their first language, there is no officially sanctioned orthography, so that Italian, English, and Arabic are used as written languages by shopkeepers, policemen, and members of Parliament, although shopkeepers and policemen dewal with the public in Somali, and parliamenteary debates are carried on in Somali. Only a small proportion of the population has mastered any of the three written languages (Heine 1970)
 In India, the Hindi eke, which wields strong influence in literature, publishing, and government, has interpreted language reform and development to mean classification, that is, the adoption of words from Sanskrit in place of popular words of foreign origin, that is, Persian, Urdu, or English This policy has resulted in a widening of the gap between literary Hindi end the spoken language of the masses, and an advantage in the education system for the middle and upper classes. This conception of language planning is aimed more expressing the “genius" of Hindi than at mobilization of the masses. Thus, expressive rather than instrumental values are served (Gumperz 1971:134-143). 
 Seemingly, .of all social institutions, the one which is most intimately connected with and related to the questions dealt with in the sociology of language is education (see also section 9.4). Next to toe family, where one's first language is learned, the school is of central importance in the use of and teach¬ing about language, with vast implications for and impact on the rest of society. As noted above, one of the major reasons for the recent emergence of our field of study has been the confrontation in school systems of language-related, educa¬tional questions, particularly those related to minority groups. Elite education had few problems to contend with. In modern mass education, on the other hand, the great sociocultural and linguistic heterogeneity of the students has led to massive failure in the teaching of reading and other language –based skills (Spolsky 1974 : 2028)
 The vernacular language is the child's own, which he has acquired in informal ways in school he acquires a standard and/or a classical language. Paradoxically, there are no real problems connected with the acquisition of classical languages, for they are normally either taught to select elites or taught in the context of a flourishing religious system Both teachers and students accept the fact that learning a classical language is not simple, for it is a new language for the student; but in the case of standard languages, there has been an unawareness of the relationship between the students vernacular the standard language taught in the school Teachers assume that everyone speaks the standard language or dialect, or that he will soon pick it up easily. Those who do not conform to these assumptions may be classified as stupid when they fail intelligence tests given in a language they don't know or continue to speak a dialect which differs from the standard. The resolution of the problem of the "on¬ standard speaking child can go to. at least, two extremes. One is the elimination of nonstandard speech : the other (perhaps utopian) is to promote society –wide appreciation for nonstandard dialects, so they will be acceptable in all contexts. A middle-of-the-road policy favored by many linguists is bidialectalism. featuring context-relevant code switching. In any case, solution of the problem must take into account the functions of language, not just for communication but also as a symbol of group identity and solidarity. Bidialectalism may, of course, lead in time to monodialectalism.
  Whereas in tradition societies teachers may be considered elite guardians of an esoteric body of knowledge and a secret language; teachers in the mass education systems of modem societies are usually members of the upwardly mobile, lower middle class. They see as one of their most important tasks to teach the linguistic and other social mannerisms to be acquired by those who wish to move upwardly socially (Labov 1969). The teachers may be native speakers either of the child's language or of the school language, which will affect what methods they choose and how effective they are. 
 In some countries, the Ministry of Education resolves linguistic problems by issuing decisions which the schools controlled by the ministry must accept, such as lexical, grammatical and spelling questions. Such decisions, of course, have an effect far beyond the confines of the schools themselves. Other countries, notably France, have language academies whose decisions are widely accepted. Interestingly enough, there has never been any such official or semiofficial authority in either Great Britain or the United States, and P.O ministry or department of education intervenes in such matters. 
 A much more controversial and emotionally-charged issue concerns the matter of the-language of instruction to be used in the schools because of the different students Studies have: shown quite consistently that where students are taught the first year or two in their native language and then switch to the official language for instruction in the third year, or where education is bilingual from the first year, they do better scholastically, emotion¬ally, and socially than those who receive instruction in the in the official language only (John and Homer 1970). In some bilingual programs, one language is used for some purposes, the other language for other purposes, that is, there is functional separation of domains. Any such programs must take into consideration the child's situation, as well as the objectives of the community. Vernacular educa¬tion has resulted in better self-images, greater ease and spread of expression and learning, a$ well as retention of subject matter and greater creativity. But what is best for the child may not necessarily be the best for the adult or best for the society, In multilingual countries, the social cost of providing vernacular education for all may be prohibitive. No country, certainly not > In some cases, parents do not wish their children to be educated in the vernacular, For example, the Turkish minority in western Iran wishes their children to be educated in Persian, which they consider more prestigeful and useful Likewise, speakers of varieties of Creole English in the West Indies do not wish to have their children educated in the vernacular, which is symbolic of low status and poverty, They want their children schooled in standard English. which symbolizes higher status and which opens up opportunities for upward mobility.
 As far as the United States is concerned, in few of the education statutes passed in the nine century was there any mention of English as the only language of instruction (Macias 1979). But in 1868, a Federal law was passed regarding American Indians, which set the policy of taking children off the reservation and placing they in boarding schools where they would learn English (being forbidden to speak their native languages) and be assimilated into the mainstream culture. h 1891, a law was passed requiring English to be taught in New Mexico. By 1923, some 34 states had statutes stipulating English as the sole language of instruction (Stoller 1976). There are now five or fewer states with such a statute, as bilingual education has spread to more and more areas. 
 In some cases, the language of instruction in the governmental school system may be native to none, or virtually to none, of the students. (n some colonial societies, the language of the colonial administration. rather than any vernacular language of the colonialized natives, was used. Such was the general policy of the French in their colonies in all parts of the world, whereas the British attempted to develop the use of the vernacular whenever possible. American colonial likewise has generally followed the French colonial model in its colonialized or formerly colonialized territories of Puerto Rico, Hawai the Philippines. Alaska Samoa, ann Micronesia, not to speak of the internally colonialized American Indian. reservations. Now, however, Alaska and Hawaii are populated by a majority on native speakers of English, and the Indians of necessity must deal with an English-speaking society. There seemed to be much less excuse' for continu¬ing the policy of instruction in English only in Puerto Rico (up until the 1940s) where the entire population is Spanish-speaking, the Philippines where the students spoke many different languages, but where Spanish had been en¬trenched as the language of instructio:1 for three and a half centuries. The American administration. thus, replaced one colonial language with another. Although, the Philippines have been independent since 1945, the legacy of colonialism has left in its wake the use of English as the principal language of instruction from the third grade through the university level Local vernaculars are used in the first two grades, and Pilipino, the national language used on Tagalog, is taught at all levels of the school system. Although Tagalog is not spoken natively by a majority of Filipinos (although it is spoken by a majority as a second language), it is the language of the politically dominant Manila region. have it not been for the intrusion of Spanish or English, Tagalog might have become the principal language of instruction throughout the Philippine school system This would have worked to true detriment of speakers of other Philippine languages, although at least they would be using a native, rather than a colonial language. Conversely, a number of recently decolonialized peoples have chosen to retain the language of their former colonial masters, rather than one of their own languages. This step may have been taken either to avoid a choice among the languages of a number of rival and competitive ethnic groups, or else because in no local language were adequate teaching materials available, or no one had been trained to teach in any of the native languages. Therefore:, the former colony may find it easier, or more expeditious, to continue to use French or English. for example.
 Once a language of instruction has been decided on, or if there is, for all practical purposes, one language in the country or region, the variety :0 be used for instructional purposes still be chosen, Ordinarily this variety is that of educated middle class, although, incipiently, it may have been the language of a powerful elite, in some cases, the variety chosen may not be a spoken one at ail the most notable case being that of Arabic. In the Arab countries, modem written Arabic, which is essentially the classical Arabic of the Koran with a modernized lexicon, is the medium of instruction at all levels, although the vernacular is sometimes used by the students or by the teacher by way of explanation of the classical forms. 
 In a real sense, the school language is no one's vernacular. For example, in :he United States, no one quite speaks the same way outside of school as he does, inside except, of course, some of the teachers, and for this they may well be ridi¬culed. Furthermore, standards of "correctness" may be based 0:1 consideration of the written language and hence be quite irrelevant to the spoken language. These standards are enforced on the spoken language of the students while in school, only to be ignored by them once they are beyond its confines. 
 Another set of decisions relates to which foreign languages should be taught In some cases, it will be a former colonial language, like English or French in Africa, a language of religion such as Arabic in the non-Arab Islamic countries, a language of cultural prestige like French in Portugal, or a language to facilitate communication with the broader world outside, particularly its allies, as in the case of English in Israel In countries where the official language has a very small number of speakers, say Hebrew in Israel or Icelandic in Iceland, it is not economically feasible to produce textbooks and stock libraries in the national language in adequate variety for the needs of higher education. Hence. it is necessary for students to learn some language of world importance, such as French, English, Spanish, or Russian in order to pursue their education at the university level. Sometimes this situation has prolonged a colonial situation or outlived the dismemberment of multinational empires. German is still widely used in Eastern Europe and the Balkans; contrariwise, there are virtually no vestiges of the use of Turkish in territory formerly administered by the Ottomans. that is, outside of Turkey itself. This points up the very different functions of Turkish it the old Ottoman Empire, used primarily as a language of administra¬tion, whereas German in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire was used in many different spheres of life particularly education.
 Which foreign languages are taught at any particular period of a country's history are indicative of certain prevailing cultural attitudes and values, at least those of the dominant classes. Thus, in the Western world a hundred years ago, a knowledge of Greek and Latin was considered part of the intellectual equipment of every educated person. A generation ago in United States universities. French and German were the intellectuals' languages, their knowledge being an absolute prerequisite for entrance into a Ph.D. program. Thus, high schools generally offered French and German, and usually Latin as well in the more academically oriented schools. In more recent years, as a result of the Good Neighbor policy of World War II days. increasing tourism with Mexico. And increased interest in and by our Spanish speaking citizens, the teaching of Spanish has spread. and in much of the country is the most widely taught language. As a result both of the Cold War and a result of the realization of Soviet scientific and technological achievements, Russian has become increasingly popular. Ethnic languages have long been taught in either private and/or public schools where large numbers of ethnic people resided, as for example, Italian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, or Hebrew. Increasing ethnic consciousness has increased the demand for the teaching of ethnic languages, particularly Spanish for the Chicano, Cuban, and Puerto Rican population, but also Swahili for Blacks. Overall, however, foreign language enrollments in the United States have been declining. 
 The only international languages of technical and scientific cultures are French, English. Russian, and German, and any scientist who wants to keep up with what is going on in his field probably ought to know at least two of these languages. By an accident of history, two of these languages, English and French, have diffused over much of modem Africa. In terms of political utility, the inde¬pendent African states will probably find it in their interest to develop this positive aspect of their colonial legacy. A class structure seems to be emerging in Africa which is based on linguistic factors. The majority of the population speaks only African languages and has to use the mediation of an educated minority to communicate with the modem economic world. This minority is separated from the majority by its class-specific monopoly of the use of French and English. It is communication through these languages which makes possible the organiza¬tion of the entire modem sector of production and distribution of goods (Alexandre 1972:86). 
 The agencies of mass communication are concerned with language, and their policies and activities have a far-ranging impact or. language and language¬ related social phenomena Much like the educational institutions, the agencies of mass communication must establish policy, such as determining, for example, the language or languages to be used in broadcasting. In autocratic states, this will be decided by the government; in places like the United States, by private corporations; but in Great Britain or Israel by public broadcasting corporations. In any case, the decision has to be made. Considerations include the desire to emphasize or promote a particular lai1guage, as over against the size of particular populations desiring radio or television broadcasts in their own language. In capitalist countries, this is likely to be decided on the basis of the commercial returns to be expected from advertising in various languages but in the socialist countries to be decided on the basis of accepted governmental policies. 
 Not only language but language variety has to be decided upon, as well as style, for the various programs. Thus, for example, in the Arab countries classical Arabic is generally used in broadcasting, except for informal conversation, come, and soap operas. Where there are several competing ways of pronounc¬ing a language, one particular way must be chose The announcers over Israel radio, for example, use a type of pronunciation (for Hebrew) used nowhere else. They make fine distinctions of sounds found in no native speaker and ignored even in academic Hebrew.
 When we consider broadcasting in the United States, we are surprised at the hom03cneity of pronunciation to be' found throughout the country. Regional speech patterns are not ordinarily reflected by local announcers, at least at not on network stations. This situation has led to the coining of the term network English to refer to this supposedly regionless variety of American English. While radio and television "personalities" have .their own regionally-affected speech pat. terns, there is a a general lack of regionalism in the speech of announcers. 
 One is also conscious o6f the lack of ethnic accents- among broadcasters of ethnic origin. In the United States, there are now newscasters of Black, Chicano. Chinese and Japanese extraction. Their impeccable "network" English. however. shows almost without exception traces an ethnic intonation, at least to the untrained ear. The message being conveyed. in not too subtle a manner, to the minority groups, is that you, too, can become a television announcer, as long as no• one can tell from your speech what your ethnic and class background is.