Some Remarks on the Minority Languages Question

The recent posts on minority languages have elicited some interesting comments. Commenting on The Record of Communist Language Policy, silver, a Serb, notes:

In Eastern Europe, a similar thing occurred with the fall of the Communist regimes. In general, nationalist regimes took their place and quickly began attacking minorities and minority tongues. This has been most pronounced in the former Yugoslavia.

I'm not aware of Serbian nationalists attempting to suppress Hungarian or Albanian. Even throughout the supposedly nationalist Milosevic era I think Hungarians were able to graduate university in Hungarian (and, of course, Albanian in Kosovo). I'm pretty sure Albanian has fared better in Macedonia under independence than during Yugoslavia; little-known Vlach certainly has.

A new poster, A Jew Coming to Get You, who will be tolerated as long as he behaves, notes:

A relevant book discussing Soviet nationality policy is called Affirmative Action Empire. Regarding the Chinese dialects, dialect speakers don't consider themselves members of a separate nation, hence there is no demand for linguistic autonomy. In Taiwan the issue is politicized, maybe it will become so in China if ever it becomes a Democracy.

In Tibet (and in Xinjiang) you have a colonial situation which differs substantially with the relationship between Mandarin and the smaller Chinese dialects.

It's nice to hear that Milosevic's repression did not extend to national languages. He kept the Tito position (that I had never heard of) that allowed even Hungarians and Albanians to have all of their education in their native tongue, all the way through university. Impressive! A

And in Macedonia, while there have been serious problems, the regime has tried very hard to accommodate the often-difficult demands of local Albanians. And it's nice to hear that there is support even for little-known Vlach.

I would not really call the Macedonian government an ultra-nationalist regime, though. It's well-mixed with Macedonians and Albanians. Allowing national minorities to have education their native tongue seems shocking in a US context, but it's fairly common in Europe. Some tongues even get to take university courses in their native language, though that's not very common.

That book, Affirmative Action Empire, seems very interesting. The now-dominant line that the USSR was uniformly hostile to all non-Russian tongues was shown to be a lie. Nationalism for all of the non-Russian nationalities was encouraged by Lenin to make them less hostile to a revolutionary movement led by Russians.

Until World War, Russian nationalism, and not just Great Russian chauvinism, was not only not promoted, but was actively discouraged. Each large nationality was given its own republic, and many smaller ones were given their own autonomous republics.

In many cities, the local nationality was not even the most common nationality. In Tbilisi, Armenians were a majority for many years. In Kiev and Minsk, it was Russians and Jews. Prague had a German majority. Yerevan often had a Muslim majority.

The Soviets attempted to rectify this situation in their nation by moving members of the national ethnic group into the cities to make them a majority in their own cities. Amazing. These Communists could be seen as champions of ethnic nationalism.

Alphabets, grammars, school texts, etc. were created for nearly every tongue in the USSR. These were often the first attempts at literacy for these languages. At the same time, national minorities were expected to become proficient in Russian.

Attempts by local minorities to "become Russian" were actively discouraged! Ukrainian nationalists will be loath to admit this, but for years, a Ukrainization policy was actively encouraged. It is interesting that this attempt was not very successful. Most Ukrainians were not interested. They wanted a dual Russian-Ukrainian culture rather than a Ukrainian one.

In terms of the Chinese minorities, most still live in places where they form the majority. I think they all have a right to education in their native tongue and I think most of these small languages are still in very good shape.

The case with Mandarin and the other Chinese lects is different. Although these are full languages and not dialects, the fact that they are all Chinese is probably seen as evidence that they are competing with Mandarin. Hence, it is true that they are discouraged, but they all still have many speakers.

It is certainly true that Xinjiang and Tibet are colonial situations.

The aboriginal languages of Taiwan are not in good shape at all. Most young people are speakers, but not very good speakers. They speak aboriginal languages mostly with their grandparents, who are not very proficient in Mandarin. The kids' education has been in Mandarin, and this is the language they are most able to speak. I'm afraid that in 60 years, they might be history.

There are a few classes offered in aboriginal languages, but it only boils down to 1-2 hours a week, and it's not really working. Taiwan has no mother tongue education policy and for decades, aboriginal tongues were suppressed by the Nationalists (fascists). What else is new?

References

Lee, Hui-chi. 2004. A Survey of Language Ability, Language Use and Language Attitudes of Young Aborigines in Taiwan. In Hoffmann, Charlotte & Jehannes Ytsma (Eds.) Trilingualism in Family, School, and Community pp.101-117. Clevedon, Buffalo: Multilingual Matters.

The Record of Communist Language Policy

A commenter posting on the Cool Neo-Latin Websites post critiques what he sees as a disconnect in my views:

That's funny 4you support preserving small languages, because most communists do not and prefer centralization and one mass-language for everyone.

For instance, the communists in the USSR did much to stamp out local languages by forcing all people living within its boundaries to learn Russian first and foremost in state schools (which they were forced to attend).

They did somewhat try to preserve local languages in the so called "autonomous regions" within the Soviet empire, but still many local languages were lost in the forced shuffle from locally-based economies to the centralized/state-run economy where Russian reigned supreme.

In China a similar situation is taking place...many languages and dialects have been lost and are continuing to be lost as the communists there forcibly centralize everything in sight and institute Mandarin over all else.

I respond: First of all, I would like to point out that as a linguist, of course I support minority languages. Most linguists do. I would be hard-pressed to think of one that doesn't. So my support for minority languages comes first from being a linguist, and then, if at all, from being a Leftist.

Also, most linguists are liberal to leftwing types - it's just their nature, and most folks on the Left support language rights. I would gather that even Centrist to conservative (assuming they exist) linguists would still support minority tongues. So in a way this support by linguists is independent of politics.

This is not true at all. No one has supported the preservation of small languages and cultures better than the Left. First of all, the USSR was the first country on Earth to set a standard for a nationalities policy. The policy called for linguistic and cultural autonomy for all USSR nationalities. Grammars, texts, books and alphabets were developed for all sorts of small languages.

It's true that Stalin pretty much turned a lot of this around in the 1930's, but even by the 1950's, the USSR was still very progressive on the language question. Also, all nationalities were given the right to secede.

China also gave all nationalities the right to use their language and cultural autonomy. They also had the right, similar to the USSR, to education in their native language. China's language policy is very progressive by world standards. It's true that they have not been so good with the Tibetans and especially the Uighurs, but the language policy for the Tibetans is still pretty good.

Eastern Europe had a great language policy for minority tongues. You must understand that as internationalists, no one opposes the nationalist oppression of minority tongues more than the Communists. It was only due to decades to internationalism that Czechoslovakia was able to split up with no bloodshed.

The USSR also broke up relatively painlessly. The only modern states that have allowed succession at all have typically been seeped in decades of Communist internationalism. Even Vietnam has an excellent language and nationalities policy.

There was a need for a national language in the USSR and that was Russian. Before, in most of the USSR, there were no schools period. The Soviets brought culture, written language, education, modern medicine and civilization to many backwards groups, and for this, nationalist boneheads condemn them.

You ignore that many of these groups were allowed instruction in their native tongues as a medium of instruction. It is true that everyone had to take Russian every year in school from K-12. This was necessary in order to have a national language.

Due to the progressive Soviet language policy, many minority languages in the USSR were still in superb shape even in 1990 with the breakup of the USSR. 70 years of capitalism in the USSR would have been devastating to minority tongues.

The line you are citing above is from fanatical anti-Communists, typically Baltics. These are Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians, and most of them are fascists . That's interesting because most of these Baltic Nazis support fascism, and no one has been harder on minority tongues than nationalist regimes, particularly the fascists.

With the fall of the USSR, nationalist regimes took over in most of the new states. In most cases, one nation and culture was promoted over all others (a national consolidation project) and minorities and minority tongues were attacked. This definitely occurred in the very Baltic states that were leading the charge against the horrors of Russification for minority tongues.

In Eastern Europe, a similar thing occurred with the fall of the Communist regimes. In general, nationalist regimes took their place and quickly began attacking minorities and minority tongues. This has been most pronounced in the former Yugoslavia, but has also been quite notable in Romania, Hungary and especially Czechoslovakia. We saw this even in Germany. The Sorbs fared well in East German, less well under unification.

The locally-based economies of the USSR were backwards and non-productive. There was a need to bring the state into the modern era and these small groups had to participate in the national economy. After all, they were getting so many benefits from the state, should they not have to contribute something to the economy rather than run around hunting reindeer all the time?

The language policy of China continues to be very progressive for an Asian nation. Sure Mandarin is emphasized, but you need a national tongue. Most minority languages in China are still in surprisingly good shape. The one area where they have been lax is in the Chinese "dialects".

These are actually separate languages, but due to Chinese nationalism, Chinese nationalists refuse to admit this, and say they are all just Chinese. These are languages such as Min, Cantonese, etc. Actually though, most of them still have lots of speakers.

China and the USSR had shortcomings in language policy where they have deviated from internationalism. Stalin did institute Russification, and his successors were even worse. And the Chinese regime has not been immune to Chinese nationalism. It is nationalism, not Communism, that is deadly to small minority tongues. Anti-Communists, almost always nationalists, ought to put that in their pipes and smoke it.

Support For the Uighurs

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated August 23:

Since it seems like virtually no one outside Muslims supports the Uighur battle for independence, I will support it. I realize that this is a tough time for China and that imperialism, particularly US imperialism, would love to use a new Uighur state to plant bases in it and surround China, but still I believe that something can be worked out.

A major stumbling block for the self-determination of nations, long a Left hallmark for which we Leftists can all be proud, is the cynical abuse of this right by hypocritical imperialist and Realpolitik-dealing large states.

Imperialist states, as I argued in a previous post, have no consistent values at all. They will support secessionism to further imperial goals or weaken enemies and oppose it everywhere else. An imperialist nation has the morals of a hardened criminal -> no legitimate morals at all.

If you follow this article, it seems like the vast majority Uighurs support the armed groups, which is how they are able to function at all in the locked-down police state of China. China has seeded East Turkestan with settler-colonists, as it has despicably done in Tibet. It treats the Uighurs like shit.

Almost no one seems to support Uighur secessionism. I'm sure that Muslims do, but Muslims do not have a very consistent basis for supporting secessionism. Most Muslims I have run into only support secessionism when it involves Muslims separating from non-Muslim states.

In all other cases, I guess they don't support it! In particular, most oppose the liberation struggle of the Kurds, who have as good a case for a state of their own as anyone does.

In the comments section of the South Ossetia post, Dragon Horse, a very smart commenter, made the case for the territorial integrity of borders.

He made several arguments: First, why should we be creating brand new mono-ethnic states? Second, that what I was arguing for was radical devolution. Third, that when the OAS was formed, the member states agreed on the territorial integrity of even colonial borders that made little sense in order to avoid endless secessionist wars. Hence, that in Africa, the principle of territorial integrity had a good record.

Fourth, that I was arguing for a world full of 100's to 1000's of Luxemborgs or Leichtensteins. Fifth, that in an integrating globalized world, the last thing we needed was to move in the opposite direction.

My response is as follows:

The truth is that most nations on Earth simply do not wish to break away from the states of which they are a part of.

Legitimate secessionist movements are actual nations embedded with states that have a valid case for secession. I may evaluate that case in a later post.

In Latin America, I can think of no legitimate secessionist movement.

There are not many secessionist movements even in Africa, which you mention as the horrorshow of secessionist theory. The rebels in Darfur and South Sudan can leave Sudan for all I care. Sudan has forfeited its right to exist as a state. They can break it up into pieces for all I care. Somalia has no right to exist either. When a state is so failed that it cannot even govern its own citizens, it's time to say goodbye.

In the Arab World, we have only the Kurds and that is all. Who have a most powerful case for independence.

I do not think that independence movements are trying to make monoethnic states, but even if they were, it would be more logical than multicultural states, which do not seem to work very well in praxis.

Your logic, in opposing all secessionist movements, leads to endless bloody wars for the bullshit cause of "territorial integrity of states".

Tell me, why did Georgia, instantly birthed as a state in 1991, suddenly have any territorial integrity at all? Let us note that this territorial integrity became immediately sacrosanct the very hour that Georgia became a new state! Brand new states with no history behind them at least have to ask their citizens if they want to be part of this baby state. Those who wish to leave are certainly entitled to do so.

The world is not going to break up into hundreds or thousands of Luxemborgs because tiny states are not viable in the modern era either economically or militarily. There are advantages to being part of a large state in terms of both economics and military.

Even a world of small states could function well. Europe has an increasingly integrated military and economy in the OECD and NATO despite being made up of numerous mostly not very large states. Self-determination and regional integration are not contradictions.

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