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Language and Nationality

Task1:

How do you understand the concept of “national identity”? To what extend do you think language is a part of it?

Task2:

Read the text and render the context.

Language and Nationality.

Language and nationality were not always so intimately intertwined. Newer in the heyday of rule by sovereign was it a condition of employment that the King be able to speak the language of his subjects. George I spoke no English and spent much of his time away from England, attempting to use the power of his kingship to shore up his German possessions. In the Middle Ages nationalism was not even part of the picture: one owed loyalty to a lord, a prince, a ruler, a farmer, a family, a tribe, a church, a piece of land, but not to a nation and least of all to a nation as a language unit. The capital city of the Austrian Habsburg Empire was Vienna, its ruler a monarch with effective control of peoples of the most varied and incompatible ethnicities, and languages, throughout central and Eastern Europe. The official language and the lingua franca as well, was German. While it stood –and it stood for hundreds of years – the empire was an anachronistic relic of what for most of human history had been the normal relationship between country and language: none.

In 1846 Jacob Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm of fairy – tale fame but better known in the linguistic establishment as a forerunner of modern comparative and historical linguists, said that “ a nation is the totality of people who speak the same language.” After midcentury, language was invoked more than any other single criterion to define nationality. Language as a political force helped to bring about the unification of Italy and of Germany and the secession of Norway from its union with Sweden in 1905.Arnold Toynbee observed – unhappily - soon after the First World War that “the growing consciousness of Nationality had attached itself neither to traditional frontiers nor to new geographical associations but almost exclusively to mother tongues.”

And so it remains today. In much of the world, ethnic unity and cultural identification are routinely defined by language.to be Arab is to speak Arabic. Bengal identity is based on language in spite of the division of Bengali-speakers between Hindu India and Muslim Bangladesh. When eastern Pakistan seceded from greater Pakistan in 1971, it named itself Bangladesh: desa means “country”, bangla means not the Bengali people or the Bengali territory but the Bengali language.

Language is an explosive issue in the countries of the former Soviet Union. The language conflict in Estonia has been especially bitter. Ethnic Russians make up almost a third of Estonia’s population, and most of them do not speak or read Estonian, although Russians have lived in Estonia for more than a generation. Estonia has passed legislation requiring knowledge of the Estonian language as a condition of citizenship. Nationalist groups in independent Lithuania sought restrictions on the use of Polish – again, old sins, long shadows.

Unique Otherness

Is there no hope for language tolerance? Some countries manage to maintain their unity in the face of multilingualism. Examples are Finland, with a Swedish minority, and a number of African and Southeast Asian countries. Two others could not be more unlike as countries go: Switzerland and India.

German, French, Italian, and Romansh are the languages of Switzerland. The first three can be and are used for official purposes; all four are designated “national” languages. Switzerland is politically almost hyper stable. It has language problems (Romansh is losing ground), but they are never allowed to threaten national unity.

Contrary to public perception, India gets along pretty well with a host of different languages. The Indian constitution officially recognizes nineteen languages, English among them. Hindi is specified in the constitution as the national language of India, but that is a pious postcolonial fiction: outside the Hindi-speaking northern heartland of India, people don’t want to learn it. English functions more nearly than Hindi as India’s lingua franca.

From 1947, when India obtained its independence from the British, until the 1960s blood ran in the streets and people died because of language. Hindi absolutes wanted to force Hindi on the entire country, which would have split India between north and south and opened up other fracture lines as well. For as long as possible Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first Prime Minister, resisted nationalist demands to redraw the capricious state boundaries of British India according to language. By the time he capitulated, the country had gained a precious decade to prove its viability as a union.

Why is it that India preserves its unity with not just two languages to contend with, as Belgium, Canada, and Sri Lanka have, but nineteen? The answer is that India, like Switzerland, has a strong national identity. The two countries share something big and almost mystical that holds each together in a union transcending language. That something I call “unique otherness.”

(Robert D. King. Should English Be the Law?)

Task3:

Learn the vocabulary from the text. Give the Russian equivalents.

Intertwined

Subjects

Incompatible ethnicities

Rule by sovereign

The growing consciousness of nationality

Frontiers

Mother tongue

Ethnic unity

Cultural identification

Explosive issue

Restrictions

Language tolerance

Multilingualism

Politically hyper stable

National unity

Public as a nation

Task4:

There are some key words in the text that need more thorough acquaintance. Learn more about them.

1) Nationality -1.state of belonging to a particular country, because you were born there or because you have been legally accepted as belonging to it; 2.a group of people who have the same racial origins, especially when they do not have their own independent country.

Collocations

Various nationalities dual nationality

Mixed nationality foreign nationality

Minority nationality take nationality

Have nationality inherit nationality

Acquire nationality change nationality

Adopt nationality give up nationality

Assume nationality grant smb. nationality

Obtain nationality on the grounds of nationality

2)Nationalism-1.a desire for the political independence of your own nation; 2.love of your nation, which is often associated with the belief that your nation is better than any other; sometimes used showing disapproval.

Derivatives: nationalist; nationalistic.

Collocations:

Aggressive nationalism cultural nationalism

Extreme nationalism economic nationalism

Fierce nationalism political nationalism

Militant nationalism racial nationalism

Revolutionary nationalism the growth of nationalism

Popular nationalism revival of nationalism

Conservative nationalism the rise of nationalism

Radical nationalism a tide of nationalism

Task5:

Give Russian equivalents of the following

1. British nationality

2. I want him to have dual nationality

3. Discussion has taken place among scientists of different nationalities

4. The nationalities inhabiting Tsarist Russia

5. European nationalities struggling for cultural and political autonomy

6. Teams of mixed nationalities

7. A tide of militant nationalism.

8. Chauvinistic nationalism and ethic prejudice

Task 6:

Give answers to the questions on the text

1. Did all the English kings speak English? Who didn’t?

2. What does the term “linqua franca” mean?

3. How is Jacob Grimm known?

4. How does Grimm define the concept of “nation”?

5. What is the language situation in modern Estonia?

6. How many languages are spoken in Switzerland? What is the linguistic situation there?

7. How about India?

8. Why is it the fact that India preserves its unity with nineteen languages?

9. How does the author understand the concept of “unique otherness”?

Task 7: Debates

“Everybody should learn and speak their native language.” Do you agree? Give arguments and counter – arguments.

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