Language Policy

 Language policy is what a government does either officially through legislation, court
decisions or policy to determine how languages are used.
 Designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular (set of) language.
 Many countries now have policies designed to protect and promote regional and ethnic
language whose viability is threatened.

Official Language Policies in Africa

I. Introduction

Africa today is characterized by a multiplicity of policies and attitudes concerning its

indigenous languages. And this appears largely to be a direct result of its relatively recent
history of colonization by external powers. With the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, all
the countries of Africa today were under colonial rule

II. Colonial Language Policies

The external powers that colonized the different African countries came from different parts
of Europe, and as their origins differed, so, too, did their language policies. They of course
all imposed their respective official languages on the different territories controlled by them.

English displayed linguistic tolerance to the extent of permitting suitable indigenous African
languages to be used as media of instruction for the first three to four years of grade school
and then taught thereafter as a school subject if so desired but French, the Portuguese, and the
Spanish did not tolerate the use of any indigenous African languages at all in the public
domain.

Policy of total assimilation, their aim was to turn each and every one of their subjects in
Africa into a perfect linguistic and cultural replica of the corresponding citizen in their
respective home countries in Europe.

Anyone caught conversing during school hours in any indigenous language (pejoratively
termed a ‘vernacular’) was liable to a fine, corporal punishment, or some other form of
punishment such as being made to write out in longhand a hundred or two hundred tokens of
the promise, “I shall never again speak in the vernacular in school.”

III. Language Choices at Independence

At independence, each newly emerged country in Africa had to decide, in line with practice
elsewhere in the world, what language or languages it would use for its nationalist and
nationalistic needs. The choices made then or shortly thereafter are as shown in Table 1.
 Country Official National Pseudo-National
Language Language Language
Algeria Arabic Arabic / Tamazight ----
Egypt Arabic Arabic ----
Libya Arabic Arabic ----
Morocco Arabic Arabic ----
Adja, Fon,
Benin Republic French ---- Batonu/Bariba,
Dendi, Yoruba,
Ditamari
Burundi French Kirundi/ Swahili
Fula, Kissi, Kpelle,
Guinea Conakry French ---- Malinke, Sousou,
Toma
Hausa, Zerma,
Niger Republic French ---- Songhai, Tubu,
Tamajeq, Fulfulde,
Kanuri, Gurma
Angola Portuguese ---- ----
Nigeria English/ French Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba ----
Botswana English Setswana ----
Akan, Dagbane, Ga,
Ghana English ---- Gonja, Ewe,
Adangbe, Kasem,
Nzema Dagaare
Venda, Xhosa, Zulu,
South Africa English/ Afrikaans Tswana, Sesotho, ----
Pedi, Tsonga, Swazi,
Ndebele
Liberia English ---- ----

The official languages in Table 1 above are the languages actually used for high school and
college education as well as for legislation, commerce and industry, and external affairs in
the countries concerned. With the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, the countries that opted
for English as their official language did so apparently out of necessity – they had no
indigenous languages of their own that could effectively fill that role; similarly for the
countries that chose French, Portuguese, and Spanish as their official languages.

Countries to the north of the Sahara overwhelmingly chose to drop colonial languages at
independence, the ones to the south all chose, instead, to retain them.
What are called national languages in Table 1 are indigenous African languages that have
been specifically designated as such either in the constitutions of the countries concerned or
in some other kinds of official documents put out by such countries. The Nigerian
constitution, for example, makes very clear provisions for Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba (the three
major languages in that country) to be used (along with English) for conducting legislative
business at the federal level.

The term “pseudo-national languages” is used in the same Table 1 in reference to

indigenous languages that are officially recognized, as it would seem, merely to make the
peoples speaking them feel good at being recognized and acknowledged by no less than their
own governments! Such languages tend to be almost any and every significant indigenous
language present in the country concerned.

There are countries in Table 1 that have nothing at all entered for them whether under
national languages or under pseudo-national languages. Most such countries were under
French, Portuguese, or Spanish colonial rule, and as said before, those three external powers
neither recognized any indigenous African languages nor assigned them any official role at
all under them in Africa. Their colonial policy of not acknowledging the existence of
indigenous African languages outlived their stay in Africa and carried over with little or no
change into the post-independence era in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

It turns out crucially in this connection that the languages that successfully edged out colonial
languages as official languages in North Africa and South-east Asia had, and still have, one
thing in common, a thing which languages in Africa south of the Sahara (and in Oceania and
the Americas also) virtually all lack. Those indigenous languages of North Africa and South-
east Asia were, and still are, all languages that each has a long and glorious tradition of
written and highly treasured secular and religious literature in all the known genres.

The lesson from this for the countries of Africa south of the Sahara is that they all need to
take their indigenous languages much more seriously than hitherto. They have a lot more
work to do on those languages than they appear generally to realize. The work requires them
to zealously develop both the linguistic and literary potentials of at least the major ones
among such languages up to or even beyond the levels of those of the ‘H’ languages of
South-east Asia at independence.

Language Policy and Planning in Asia

The Asia and Pacific region is characterized by rich ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity.
At the same time, however, this diversity makes educating children from different
backgrounds a major challenge. At the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, one of the
main agreed goals was “to ensure that by 2015 all children, particularly girls and children
from ethnic minorities have access to complete free and compulsory primary education of
good quality”. Unfortunately, in many countries in this region, the true panorama of
 languages found in a nation’s population is rarely reflected in their education systems, and
large numbers of learners are confronted with either a foreign medium of instruction or a
language that is different from their mother tongue.

More than 1200 languages are spoken and all major world religions are practiced by the
Southeast Asian population of over 600million (Lewisetal., 2016) Traditionally, Southeast
Asian language policies have emphasized the respective official and national languages.
However, over the past two decades, a movement towards multilingual education (MLE) has
arisen in the region.

 Cambodia
Estimated 27 languages are spoken in Cambodia. The Khmer are by far the largest and most
dominant. The Khmer make up approximately 90 percent of the population
(Kosonen,2013,2017a;Lewisetal.,2016).

The Constitution of 1993 stipulates Khmer as the official language until the late 1990s, when
bilingual education programmes were first initiated in some minority areas.

The Education Law of 2007 gave local authorities the right to choose the language(s) of
instruction in certain minority areas. The “Guidelines on implementation of bilingual
education programs for indigenous children in highland provinces” was released in 2010
(Frewer,2014;Kosonen,2013;Ton&Noorlander,2016).

In 2013, the Bilingual Education Decree further strengthened the position of non-dominant
languages in education. In 2014, the “Multilingual Education National Action Plan”
(MENAP) was adopted in 2015 (ibid). The MENAP is a detailed four-year plan on MLE
implementation increasing the role of the government in the delivery of multilingual education.

 Myanmar

Estimated that 117 languages are spoken in the Union of Myanmar (Lewisetal.,2016). The
majority of the population belong to the Bamar ethnicity (also called Burmese or Myanmar).

It is estimated that some 30 percent of children do not speak Myanmar at the entry to formal
education (Aye&Sercombe,2014;Kirkpatrick,2012;Kosonen,2017b;Martin,2011).

The National Education Law of 2014 acknowledges linguistic diversity, yet stipulates only
English as a LOI along with Myanmar. The Law supports the teaching of non-dominant
languages as subjects, and allows local languages to be used orally as auxiliary languages to help
non-Myanmar speakers understand the curriculum.

 Thailand

Estimated 72 languages are spoken in the Kingdom of Thailand (Lewisetal.,2016)

Standard Thai is the de facto official and national language of Thailand, and the medium of
instruction at all levels of education.
Thailand’s first National Language Policy (NLP) was approved by two different governments
in 2010 and 2012, respectively. The NLP also deals with non-dominant languages and their use
in education. The NLP calls for the use of learners’ first languages as the basis for cognitive
development.
 Timor-Leste

An estimated 20 languages are spoken. According to the Constitution of 2002, Tetun and
Portuguese are the official languages. Over a half of the Timorese do not speak either of the
official languages as their first language, and Tetun has many distinct varieties.
2002, Portuguese dominated as the language of instruction, even though most Timorese teachers
had limited proficiency in it and Tetun was used as an oral auxiliary language. The Basic
Education Act of 2008 mandated both a standardized version of Tetun and Portuguese as the
LOIs and languages of literacy in formal education. The national policy on mother tongue-
based multilingual education was adopted in 2010 for students grade 4 below, with the
gradual introduction of Tetun and Portuguese–as subjects as well as LOIs. Indonesian and
English would be taught later as foreign languages.
 Viet Nam

Estimated that 108 languages are spoken. Constitution of 1992, the national and official language
is Vietnamese. Vietnamese remains to be the main LOI at all levels of education, wherea some
NDLs are taught as subjects.

 Brunei Darussalam

It is estimated that 15 languages are spoken. Constitution of 1959 stipulates Standard Malay as
the official language. However, Brunei Malay, the first language of most Bruneians, is the main
language for oral communication (Lewisetal.,2016;Sercombe,2014). The national education
system is using Standard Malay and English as the languages of instruction. Educational policy
and practice ignore all non-dominant languages, including Brunei Malay.

 Indonesia

With 707 spoken languages. Linguistically the most diverse country in Asia (Lewisetal.,2016).
Constitution of 1945 stipulates Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) as the official language.
Indonesian is also the language of instruction and language of literacy at all levels of education.
Only an estimated 10-20 percent of the population speaks Indonesian as their first language.
Some regional languages, such as Javanese, Madurese, and Sundanese, are spoken by tens of
millions of people, and many other languages have millions of speakers. Law No.20 of 2003
states that other mother tongues than Indonesian can be used in the early stages of education.
Nonetheless, in practice Indonesian is the exclusive LOI throughout the nation.

 Lao People’s Democratic Republic

The estimated number of languages spoken is 84. According to the Constitution of 1991, Lao is
the official language. The Education Law of 2007 stipulates Lao as the language in education,
and the government has been reluctant to allow non-dominant languages in education. Yet, only
about a half of the Lao population speaks Lao as their first language (Lewisetal.,2016).

 Malaysia

It is estimated that about 134 languages are spoken. The Constitution of 1957 stipulates Standard
Malay (Bahasa Malaysia) as the official and national language. From 2003 to 2012 Malaysia
used English as the LOI for mathematics and science, but the experiment discontinued as many
teachers and students in rural areas had difficulties using English for teaching and learning.

 Singapore

Lewisetal., (2016) list 24 languages. Ethnic Chinese, who make up much of the population, have
traditionally spoken different varieties of Chinese. The rest of the population comprises Malays,
Tamils and other ethno linguistic groups.

The Constitution of 1965 stipulates four official languages: Malay, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil,
and English. The Constitution also guarantees the use, teaching, and learning of other languages.
English is the sole language of instruction in education. All students also study one of the official
“mother tongue languages, ”i.e. Malay, Mandarin, or Tamil, even though this language may not
be spoken at home.

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000259576/PDF/259576eng.pdf.multi?
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file:///C:/Users/NEC/Downloads/orca_share_media1581175666427%20(2).pdf

http://www.lingref.com/cpp/acal/43/paper2956.pdf?
fbclid=IwAR2z8yRgHspqvfgDizx9PW0ELOuYA9ZU1ZfynUzQaelq5YQbkAwNz5qi-D0

Kosonen K. (2017) Language Policy and Education in Southeast Asia. In: McCarty T., May S. (eds) Language Policy
and Political Issues in Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education (3rd ed.). Springer, Cham. Accessed 2
Feb 2020.

Prepared by:

Fostanes