Language Problems and Language Planning - Volume 30, Issue 1, 2006

Language diversity and the necessity of communicating across language boundaries have almost naturally fostered a desire to learn the languages of one’s neighbors, the languages of the playground and/or the languages of the market place. This process continues to increase with internal (rural exodus) and international migration, urbanization and exogamous marriages, leading to a changing language demography, where language shift and language learning are constant and ongoing processes. A cursory look at what people have always done and do with language(s) and an epistemological approach to their language repertoire(s) suggest that individuals and communities are very active agents, whose language practices show an incredible capacity and resourcefulness in empowering themselves where and when it matters most. And yet, the concept of “linguistic identity” tries to cast a mold around individuals and speech-communities, as if they are to belong to a given language or identity to the exclusion of (an) other(s). This paper explores the concept of “linguistic identity” and asks whether it is possible to argue that we actually have one identity, whether language is intricately tied to identity or whether language itself has an identity. It concludes with some considerations about language management.

This article analyses some of the potential language policy scenarios in a democratic, integrated European Union. It examines how a functional multilingual, democratic, ecological language policy in the European Parliament may ensure equal participation in, and benefit from, democratic processes for both majority and minority language communities. How multilingualism is managed and language policy is formed will be crucial in creating the identity of a future European Union, which the author discusses through a reinterpretation of what the EU might stand for; summarised in the notions of an English Union, an Elite Union, an Equal Union or an Esperanto Union. Language policy issues are especially important with regard to education, as multilingual education could be viewed as a democratic tool safeguarding active citizen participation in an intergovernmental forum such as the EU. Based on a three-language model it is possible to sustain a secure ethnic identity or identities via teaching through the mother tongue(s), as well as by acquiring at least one lingua franca and additional languages through carefully planned and well-organised multilingual education. The article concludes, in the long term, that the optimal language policy alternative would be one employing a planned language (such as Esperanto) as lingua franca, as a relay language and as an internal working language for the EU institutions.

The history of Esperanto in China was for long periods closely linked with anarchism. This article surveys the connection in the years up to 1920, and sets out to show which groups used which arguments to agitate for Esperanto, in order to throw light on the complexity of the relationship between language and politics in China, especially in the first half of the twentieth century.