#language suppression

[rikaklassen]

Analyysi: Suomessa oli lukuisia kuuroja kultakauden taiteilijoita – sitten viittomakielen käytöstä alettiin rankaisemaan kepillä

Suomessa taiteen kultakautena oli myös kuurojen taiteen kultakausi. Moni ei tiedä asiasta.

CWs: eugenics, linguicism, linguicide

Today I learned there were many deaf artists in Finland until sign language became forbidden and oralism became the dominant model for education which persisted until the 1970s.

[mayapapaya33]

It's so strange to think about it but listening to Butchered Tongue it's like, oh yeah, if history was different, I might be speaking a different language right now, that's weird. As one of the palest people in the world who is sometimes called Casper (the friendly ghost), I don't generally have thoughts like that about myself. Intellectually I already knew that somewhere in the back of my mind of course, but there's something about Hozier's music that really makes you feel it. My various family members didn't leave Ireland and Scotland THAT long ago in the grand scheme of things (4-6 generations), and maybe they wouldn't have left if things were different. Obviously "what if?" is a never-ending game and the butterfly could flap its wings in a myriad of ways, but it's interesting and sad to think about nonetheless.

[linguisticalities]

(via 'English Only': The movement to limit Spanish speaking in US - BBC News)

[allthingslinguistic]

Why do so few Aussies speak an Australian language?

Australia was one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world but today, few people speak an Australian language.

An article in The Conversation about the history of language suppression, documentation, and revitalization in Australia. Excerpt: 

Linguistically speaking, Australia is special. With around 250 languages spoken when Australia was first colonised, Australia was one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world.

But few people speak our Indigenous languages. As of 2016, only 10% of Australia’s Indigenous population spoke an Indigenous language at home. Most Indigenous languages are now “asleep”, waiting to be woken up by language revivalists.

Australian languages did not simply fade away; they were actively silenced by governments, schools and missions. [...]

The few Europeans who did learn Australian languages were mostly missionaries. But their approaches were contradictory. On the one hand they directly contributed to the loss of Aboriginal languages by putting children in dormitories, English-only schools and separating families. On the other, missionaries showed a greater concern for languages than other colonisers, due to their drive to translate the Bible.

Read the whole thing. 

[linguisticalities]

Tibet boarding schools: China accused of trying to silence language

Mandarin is being taught to Tibetans as their main language, threatening the future of their culture.

[american-born-taiwanese]

India After English? by Samanth Subramanian

Narendra Modi’s victory in India's national election has coincided with a surge of confidence in the country's regional languages—one that has played out not only in politics but also in the dramatic shift occurring in India’s newspaper business.

I don't know how I feel about Modi's victory, but I like the idea that India seems to be taking the 'power' away from English as the 'superior' language, or the language of 'educated.' It gives me hope that maybe in the future something similar will happen in Taiwan, and people will speak languages other than Mandarin more often (though I doubt the British suppressed the local languages in India quite as much as the KMT did in Taiwan)