Talk:Linguicide

Huh?

I don't know that this term needs a separate entry. I've never heard the term, and it seems silly. I think it should be deleted, with maybe a mention of the term put in to language death article. There really isn't any content here that isn't in language death already.

Unvarnished Bias

Added an NPOV tag because the article is chalk full of political bias & rhetoric with few facts. In addition to giving a free pass to languages such as historical Japanese, Russian, and French language impositions in East Asia, the former Soviet Union, former French Africa, and modern day Quebec, the author makes accusations without citation.

A few of the worst examples:

"ban on the language that is to be annihilated (e.g., Hawaiian in Hawaii by the USA after its annexation; German in the USA after the World Wars, German in Italy after WWII, Ainu in Hokkaido)"

Absurd statement - there was an intent to annihilate a language?! German banned in the USA and Italy?? Citations please!

"glottopolitics and linguistic warfare"

Rhetoric without explanation

"refusal to teach children through their native tongue, e.g. Scottish Gaelic Welsh and Irish Gaelic within the British state."

Citation Please!

"imposition of another language (e.g., by declaring it official, English-only movement)"

We obviously have an English bias here. A more accurate example would be almost any other country where their language is the official language. For example, in Norway, Norwegian is the official language, High fluency Norwegian is imposed as a condition of citizenship and the government does not provide essential services (such as voting information & ballots) in other languages. Another example would be French Canada where French is imposed and English is restricted in education and commercial enterprises.

New Guinea. Wetman 00:07, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

merge with Language death?

can this be merged with the Language death article? — ishwar (SPEAK) 17:43, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)

I took out the edits by 66.207.220.152 in relation to the linguicide of Macedonian in Greece for two reasons. I wasn't sure if it was true - I couldn't find any reference to it in a quick search of Google. I'll be happy to withdraw this objection if some proper references can be found. Also I wasn't sure if it would technically qualify as linguicide anyway, since Macedonian is spoken in other countries (Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and so on.) The information would therefore belong in a different article. Although having said that, I'm fairly confident everything in this article belongs in Language death anyway. --Cherry blossom tree 21:19, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The next thing you know is wikipedia will allow edits in articles on Native Americans to describe the decline of American Indian languages to "linguicide", and other continents' indigenous peoples (tribes, cultures and ways of life) are victims of linguicide by adapting their countries' official languages (i.e. a tribe in the Congo decided to abandon their native tongue for French or influenced by pop culture American English). In a world we live in: globalization vs. balkanization, multiculturalism vs. homogenity, and human rights vs. conformity, we read and hear more on linguicide in the same manner many people view racial discrimination and religious intolerance are violations of ones' cultural identity of "being free to be me". To become an English-speaker in a country where English is the majority language isn't linguicide, but most families whose parents or grandparents speak a second language has preserved the right to speak/read that language in the privacy of their homes or in ethnic communities/neighborhoods (mainly the elderly would use their native language between each other, since they were raised in the language as the sole mean of communication). In isolated tribal areas of the world are more likely to use, educated and conduct their tribal language, unless the government enacts a cruel oppressive policy to eradicate tribal languages, like force public schools to only teach the "official" language under penalty of law. I disagree on laws banning languages for the way it's said or spelled, and fears of illiteracy or stereotyping of other language speakers are "dumb", these comments smack of prejudice and totalitarianism. I don't mind an ethnic group or tribal community keeps their original language while at the same time master a skill of bilingualism. + Mike D 26 06:58, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The language policies of the US (and to a smaller extend the Canadian) government towards native languages can clearly be described as linguicide. Until the 70's, children were separated from their community where they would have acquired the language and sent to boarding schools where they were literally beaten up and abused if they spoke their language. The fact that many native families also decided that their children would be better off speaking English and the fact that nowadays few people bother to learn their ancestral language even when they have the chance, doesn't change this. The language policies of France and Britain until the 60's/70's are another example of this. --Chlämens 19:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

linguistic competition (e.g. English vs. French in scientific publications)

Pardon me, but how exactly does this cause language death? It may damage one language's prestige, but come now. Neither French nor English is anywhere near 'endangered.'--KobaVanDerLubbe 02:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]