linguistic protectionism

Linguistic protectionism is any state policy introduced to protect a given language from the expansion of a "stronger" language (usually a language with a much greater number of speakers). The expansion of the "stronger" language may take two forms: (1) people switching to the "stronger" language and (2) people using words from the "stronger" language in the context of the "weaker" one (i. e. using loanwords excessively). The opposition to the latter form of language expansion is known as purism. Possible forms of linguistic protectionism are (from milder to harsher):

providing subsidies for learning the "weaker" language and for publishing and broadcasting in it
making the "weaker" language an obligatory school subject
requiring that all state employees have a degree of proficiency in the "weaker" language
requiring that all education is in the "weaker" language
forbidding the use of the "stronger" language in some or all spheres

Cognate languages

A common case is when the "weaker" and the "stronger" languages are very closely related. It usual for the speakers of the "stronger" language to suggest that the "weaker" language is "just a dialect". In their turn, the speakers of the "weaker" language vigorously deny such claims, and go to great lengths to prove that their language is quite separate. For instance, in the 19th century it was common to consider Ukrainian and Belarusian languages to be dialects of Russian (this point of view was reflected in 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica). Today, however, many Ukrainians and Belarusians will take this as a personal insult. Yiddish also has been subject to allegation that it is just a dialect of German.

Writing systems

Closely related languages often tend to mix up. To prevent this, people impose different writing systems on them, or, if the same script is used, they use different spelling. The extreme case was with Moldovan and Romanian languages, which are virtually identical in all respects, except that Moldovan used Cyrillic script, and Romanian used Latin script. Other example is Yiddish, which is very close to German, but uses Jewish script instead of Latin letters, and so keeps its separateness. The next example is Hindi and Urdu, which are kept separate by using Devanagari and Arabic script, respectively. Serbian and Croatian languages also differ mainly in using Cyrillic and Latin scripts, respectively (and formerly they were considered to be just variants of one language, Serbo-Croatian).

Linguistic Protectionism

Cognate languages

Writing systems

See also