What's this Blog About?

What's the different between a country's national language and its official language? What legal rights do people have if they don't use a majority language?

Most of us don't consider the numerous ways that alongside history, things like laws and policy affect not only how we speak, but which languages we use. This blog is here to explain in clear terms how much politics plays an active role in our linguistic landscape and what that can mean for each of us.

In addition to language policy and history, it will also go over legal position smaller languages and signed languages.

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Isan's 'Dialect' Dismissal

Think about the word 'dialect' for a moment. From a linguistic perspective, the term is pretty bland. Usually, linguist use to refer to a variety of language spoken in a particular area and/or by a particular group of people. It's worth noting that by that same definition, the standard or prescribed form a given language is also one of its dialects. Okay, that's how linguists see it, now let's think about the word dialect in the way that non-linguists use it. This is where things get a bit more hairy If you spend a lot of time with English speakers, you'll notice that there's a specific way the word is used. It's fine to talk about the different dialects of German, Thai or Arabic. Using the word to refer to varieties of English however will get you looks. Few people mention the Louisiana or Glaswegian dialects of English. Even if a given variety has a different grammar and syntax, Anglophones generally prefer the term "accent." For r...

What We Overlook Talking About Smaller Languages

When I was younger I was really fascinated to learn that Quechua was still spoken today. You might know Quechua as the language of the Incan Empire, or the French sporting goods company. It’s a fascinating language with evidentiality markers, bipersonal verb conjugations and lots of other features that are catnip for a grammar nerd like me. I could go on for days, but that would be missing the point I want to make here, which is that Quechua isn’t a language. Well that's a bit misleading. I should say that Quechua isn't a single language. In reality, Quechua is a term that people often use to refer to a whole group of related languages spoken throughout the Andes region of South America, many varieties of which are not mutually intelligible with each other. A rough sketch of where 'Quechua' is spoken A linguist much more informed than I am once explained it to me that using the term Quechua the way we do was like calling all the West Slavic languages (thi...

Belarusian and Soviet Language Policy

Most people in Russian speak Russian, while the majority of Estonians express themselves in Estonian. So what do people from Belarus speak? Belarusian, right? If you were to ask a someone from Belarus what language they grew up with or use at home, you might expect that to be the answer. Belarusian is one of the two official languages there and the traditional language of the Belarusian people. Despite this however, a majority of the Belarusian population are more like to express themselves the nation's other official language - Russian. While the use of Russian on former Soviet nations is common, it's normally in tandem with the local language. In Kazakhstan, the majority of the population speaks both Russian and Kazakh and the use of Russian is common in Moldova alongside Romanian/Moldovan. In Belarus, however, Belarusian isn't so much being spoken alongside Russian as it is being displaced by it. Surveys vary, but about 70% of Belarusians use Russian at home,...

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