History of European Ideas, Vol. 13, No. I/Z, PP. l-4, 1991 Printed in Great Britain

0191-6599/91 $3.00+0.00 D 1991 Pergamon Press pk.

INTRODUCTION

C.M.B. BRANN*

Some explanation is due for the late appearance of this issue, which was first planned in 1987, as the result of the ISSEI Newsletter from the Editors of History of European Ideas. The somewhat ambitious proposal included no less than 30 topics, which would have been too heavy even for a double issue. Instead, some dozen topics are here presented in the form of articles and review articles, in the hope that they may serve discussions at the September 1990 conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI) at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. A list of the original topics is given in appendixI, as it may yet serve further studies.

However, the present collection gives a good introduction to the various problems, conceptual, diachronic and synchronic, concerning the ‘Rise and development of European national languages’. By rise we have meant the diachronic dimension, which has been addressed in the articles on Slavic languages by Drs Goglewski and Lawandowska and on Scandinavian languages by Professor Haugen, as well as by Dr Gold on the Jewish national languages of Europe. This immediately raises the question as to what are ‘national’ languages, to be discussed below. Further historical perspectives are contained in Professor Balibar’s on the French Revolution and the national language question, which the issue editor has taken as a point of comparison with current aspirations in Africa-the (step?-) daughter of Europe. Further concepts of ethnicity-tribe/ nation-are discussed in the article by Professor Connor, and in the review by Professor Lyman of Joshua Fishman’s important book. The synchronic aspect of language development is addressed by Professor Mackey with regard to language policy and by Professor Ammon in relation to the emerging national standards of German. The interpretation of ‘Europe’ has clearly been that of the fully extended sub-continent (of Asia), including the states heirs to the Eastern, as well as to the Western Roman Empire, with their respective centres in Eastern (Slavic) and Western (Celto-Romance-Germanic) representatives.

Yet a glance at the table of contents will show the extent to which the perception of ‘national’ in ‘national languages’ differs: it means quite different levels in the Jewish ‘national’ languages, the ‘national’ varieties of German in the germanophone states of Europe; in the ‘francais national’ of the Revolution and in the ‘dossier’ on ‘national languages’ in the European Community’s issue of the Courier.

As Dr Gold kindly mentioned in his articles, this issue editor has discussed the four main levels of ‘national’ languages in various publications over the last decade, beginning with a summary, included in the International Sociological Abstracts a decade ago, of which a latter formulation is here reproduced in

*Department of Languages and Linguistics, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria.

I

2 C.M.B. Brann

appendix ZZ. This four-fold distinction is considered necessary for a proper conceptuahsation of ‘The national language question’, which is quite different at various times of European History, as well as in different countries. The national or nationality languages of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are different in concept from the ‘national’ languages of Western Europe, which have de- veloped since the Renaissance and Reformation. Perhaps the ‘European language question’ in its ‘nationality’ aspect is, in fact, closer to that of the U.S.S.R. than to the post (French) Revolutionary language-nation-state. Indeed, we should have liked to close the present special issue with a discussion of the ‘national’ languages of the European Community-since it is the European Cultural Foundation that is funding the ISSEI-but a promised contribution on this issue was not ready in time. The four meanings of ‘national’ in the collection ‘national languages’ are further more discussed in Brann 1985 and 1989, as well as in his reviews of the above ‘dossier’ and of Florian Coulmas 1988: Perhaps these distinctions will, one day, be accepted by historians, linguists and sociologists-with or without the neologisms (chthonolect, choralect, demolect or politolect).

The advantage of such a written symposium as this one is that it invites inter- disciplinary discussion on a central theme-the treatment of which is surely unending. All that the present issue can hope for is to have provided that forum and to have succeeded in presenting some elements of conceptualisation, fact- finding and interpretation of that evergreen.

Maiduguri, Nigeria Conrad Max Benedict Brann

BIBLIOGRAPHY

C.M.B. Brann, Official & national languages in Africa: Complementarity or conflict (Quebec, Intern. Centre for Research on Bilingualism, 1985).

-, ‘Lingua franca, minor & nationalists’ In: Ulrich Ammon (ed.), Statusandfunction of languages and language varieties (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1989X pp. 372-384.

Florian Coulmas, With forked tongues: what are national languages goodfor? (Koroma, Ann Arbor, 1988) (reviewed in this issue).

APPENDIX I

The Rise & ~eve~o~rnen~ of the National European Languages Outline for a special/double issue of:

History of European Ideas (Oxford, Pergamon Press)

1. From tribe/peopie to nations/nationality in Europe. 2. Graphization/lexication of European languages under the Christian

missions (Gothic, Slavic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian).

3. Emergence of the vernaculars from Latin in public domains. 4. Standardisation of national languages in the Renaissance (gen.).

Introduction 3

5. The emergence of Portuguese in the 14th Century. 6. Centralisation of power and standardisation of Spanish, French and English

in Renaissance and Reformation (political and economic factors). 7. Reformation and the creation of national languages (religious factor). 8. Standardisation of German: its spread in Germany since Luther. 9. The spread of European natiolangs into public domains: 16th Century

(educational, legislative, judiciary, religious, urban etc). 10. The colonial experience and the expansion of European natiolangs:

Portugal, Spain, England, France, Netherlands, Germany, Italy. 11. The French Revolution and the spread of French in France. 12. Rise and development of Scandinavian national languages. 13. Linguistic nationalism of the 19th Century: Greece, Slavonic nations, Baltic

nations, Germanic nations, Celtic nations, Italy. 14. The projection of the national image abroad through the national language:

foreign language policy 1880-1980. 15. Turkish as a modern European natiolang since the Turkish Revolution. 16. National diglossia in Switzerland, Greece, Norway. 17. The rise, persistence and development of minor nationality languages:

Basque, Breton, Catalan, Irish, Frisian, Provencal etc. 18. Yiddish and Judezmo as Jewish ‘national’ languages. 19. The development of national bilingualism in Belgium, Ireland, Czecho-

Slovakia, Finland, Yougoslavia. 20. The differentiation of German as the natiolang of Switzerland, Austria,

F.R.G., G.D.R.; same for French in France, Belgium, Switzerland.

21. From national to European LL: Italian 16th Century, Spanish 17th Century, French 18th Century, German 19th Century and English 20th Century.

22. The naturalisation and nationalisation of Eurolangs in oversea settlements: Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America; French in Canada, English in U.S.A., Dutch in South Africa etc.

23. The nationalisation of Eurolangs in non-settler colonies: Commonwealth and Francophonie and the emergence of national standards.

24. Creoles of Eurolangs as neo-national LL: Cap Verde, Guinea Bissau (Port.), Haiti (Fr.), Jamaica (Eng.), Mauritius (Fr.), etc.

25. European exolects and national endolects: complementarity or conflict? 26. The rise and decline of the European language-nation-state. 27. German as a minority language in Europe. 28. The historical north-south polarity of European language communities. 29. Functions of the national languages in the European Community. 30. Legal status of European languages since the French Revolution.

APPENDIX II

Four definitions of National Languages in Africa, C.M.B. Brann

The term ‘national languages’, ‘languages nationales’, ‘linguas nacionais’ covers four distinct concepts, the confusion of which renders difficult an under-

4 C.M.B. Brann

standing of the current language (L) situation in Africa, and hence language planning (LP). 1. Over the past decade, some Afro-Roman polities have attributed the term to

ALL languages (LL) of their respective territory, as in Angola, Benin etc. The underlying concept includes both ‘ethnos’-people, implying common ancestry/blood/kinship (jus sanguinis) and ‘chton’-soil (jus soli), marking boundaries. To this primordial acceptation of ‘national’ is given the term chthonolect (L of the soil) since the similar term ‘vernacular’ has been held by some to carry a derogatory meaning. In LP, this stage needs identl~~at~on and definition of existing LL within a given polity, followed by codification etc. Perforce, the outreach of many of these LL is local.

2. In other African Constitutions, some/few LL have been selected, correspond- ing either to the majority peoples, or to common LL (lingua francas), in toto representative of the country. This group, paralleled by the biblical Greek ‘laos’, has here been given the term c~~r~~ec?, or regional L. Examples are found in Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Nigeria. In LP, this stage is related to L zoning

for areas, or L allocation for distinct domains, e.g. the former for the Nigerian North, West, East (the three ‘major’ LL of the 1979 C); the latter for the zairois ‘force publique’. This is a category of LL which is fast growing in s/s, multi- lingual Africa, and is a step towards linguistic unification. Intra-regional communication is much simplified, though inter-regional contacts require an

overarching L. 3. In a third step, an entire people identifies with one/some L, whether on ethnic

grounds as in Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Madagascar, Swaziland: on cultural grounds as in Ethiopia, Morocco; or on supra-ethnic, communica- tional grounds, as in Tanzania, Central Africa Republic. The symbol of this state is the ‘demos’, or entire people of the territory, the L being held to have been elected by the people (where it has not been imposed)-hence the term demolect is applied to this tertiary stage. The LP process concerned with this stage is diffusion or spread. Communication is now possible over the entire territory in one L.

4. The final step is the eZevat~o~a~~ointment/consecratio~ of the demolect to

the statutory position of ‘official’ L, as has been the case with Amharic in Ethiopia, Swahili in Tanzania, Somali in Somalia, Malagasy in Madagascar,

Tswana and sesotho in Botswana and Lesotho. The symbol for this stage is the ‘polis’ or political identification of the L with the state: hence the term politolect is used here for this type of national L become official. The LP process concerned with this stage is L management or control, in the form of standardisation of usage, modernisation, specialisation and enrichment.

5. Against each of these four stages of the socio-political development of African endolects, the exolect(s) are seen as standing in complementary distribution/function in the various public domains (administration, judiciary, legislature, education, trade commerce, media), as sole official, associate-official, or no longer official link language or mctaiect.