Читать книгу The Languages of Smaller Populations: Risks and Possibilities. Lectures from the Tallinn Conference, 16–17 March 2012 - Urmas Bereczki - Страница 10

Whether we realise it or not, the topic of today’s conference calls to mind the existentiality of language. This is a thought to be reflected on unhurriedly, without creating illusions or falling into despondency.

Relationships between a state and its people can be diverse. The population of some countries, such as Iceland, is homogeneous – the overwhelming majority of people are of the same ethnicity and their mother tongue enjoys the status of the national language. There are multi-ethnic countries with several official languages, such as Switzerland and Finland. There are peoples divided between different countries, such as the Basques in Spain and France or the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq. There are also regions where one ethnic group is cut in two by a political border, such as today’s Korea and the once-divided Germany.

Most countries of the world are home to multiple ethnicities; in such countries, the language of one ethnic group enjoys the status of an official language, while the languages of other ethnic groups are used to a different extent and for different functions. Whatever the official status of these other languages, the need to have a commonly understood medium of communication, which is crucial for the proper functioning of a state, inevitably leads to the exclusion of other languages. One such country is, for example, Russia where Finno-Ugric languages enjoy the status of official languages but the opportunities to actually use them (e.g. in education, in government offices, in everyday business or health care) are very scarce, limited to village communities and virtually non-existent in cities.

Estonia, having Estonian as the only official language, is also one of the countries in that group. The best way to preserve the language of a small nation is a nation state with only one official language; after all, one purpose, perhaps the primary purpose, of a nation state is to ensure the survival of the language of its people.

In today’s world, characterised by globalisation and the mobility of people, there are no clean-cut types of relationship between the state and the people: all countries are becoming linguistically more diverse and even those languages that have an official status relinquish part of their functions to more widely used languages, e.g. to English, which is the case in Estonia.

How the current linguistic situation was formed in the past is not, from the point of view of the future of languages, the most important aspect. Romantic recollections of the great deeds of the past are not much of a defence against the reality. What is more important is how the government will address language policy issues and what level the language (I am referring, in particular, to terminology) and its usage have reached (Estonian reached an appreciable level by the end of the 1930s).

Because a certain number of people are required to cover all domains necessary for the functioning of a state, languages with a larger number of speakers have better outlooks, for both economic and political reasons. In order to compensate for the numerical disproportion of speakers, the state has to support the languages of small nations, while big languages evolve simply by satisfying the requirements of the market.

The state has to ensure a legal space for the language, i.e. to define the status of the language. Section 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia provides unequivocally: “The official language of Estonia is Estonian”. It is welcomed that the provision has been reinforced by the preamble of the Constitution, which states that one of the primary duties of the state is to guarantee the preservation of the Estonian language through the ages. Recent statements calling for political discussions on the number of official languages are proof that such a declaration may come in handy. Drawing on the Constitution, the Language Act defines the duties of the state in ensuring the use and development of Estonian. The Language Act, in turn, underpins dozens of pieces of legislation adopted to enforce the status of Estonian.

The role of the state has been kept proportionate: while the use and development of Estonian is endorsed, the use and development of other languages, within reasonable and economically realistic limits, is not prevented. Not all problems are easy to solve with regard to Estonian either; it is, for example, difficult to improve the quality of the language of the press without coming into conflict with freedom of speech, which is taken for granted.

State supervision over certain aspects of public life as a part of ensuring the legal space is carried out by the Language Inspectorate. The state must ensure the advancement of and research into Estonian through the Institute of the Estonian Language, the Estonian Literary Museum and Estonian universities; the State has an obligation to record, preserve and promote the cultural heritage related to the Estonian language. An excellent example is the permanent exhibition on Estonian language and culture at the Estonian National Museum.

A language in use is a language that meets the requirements of today and tomorrow. Similar to Nordic countries, Estonia has adopted a national development plan for the Estonian language (the first development plan concerned the period between 2004 and 2010; the current was adopted for 2011–2017). The 13 actions under the current development plan cover virtually all areas of Estonian usage along with calculations of costs to be covered from the state budget. A development plan in itself is not the answer; what is crucial is the implementation of the plan. The implementation should be ensured with constant monitoring by the Ministry of Education and the Estonian Language Council, by regular reporting to the Government of the Republic on the language situation and by discussing language matters in Parliament as an issue of national importance.

Among the actions of the development plan, I would like to highlight Action 3: “The development of language technology support for Estonian”. A language technology that focuses on our own language is one of the most important prerequisites for preserving our language, similar to the introduction of printing technology several hundred years ago. Estonia already has a second language technology programme under which language resources are created and software is developed. The future benefits of the programme, albeit smaller than the cost, will contribute to the survival of our mother tongue. The state’s duty is to cover the difference between the cost and the benefits. It is worth mentioning that the current and previous ministers for education and research nominated “Speech recognition applications for smartphones” as the language act of the year in 2011.

The key factor in ensuring the development of language is education. Teaching colloquial language for a few hours a week at school or university is not enough to preserve a language. An important condition for the survival of a language is the provision of secondary and higher education in that language, enabling school leavers and graduates to form a national intelligentsia who are able to develop the national literary language further. General and higher education are a two-horse team hitched up to the wagon of language preservation. Naturally, a language will not immediately cease to exist if there is no generally used, standardised literary language, but its prospects would look grim.

Higher education in Estonian is not possible without secondary education in Estonian. Without the prospect of obtaining tertiary education in Estonian, secondary education in Estonian would soon become extinct. Estonia ensures general education, including pre-school education, to all children whose mother tongue is Estonian. As regards higher education, the situation is more complicated. We have to find a reasonable compromise between the international level of science and studying and conducting research in Estonian. It is the duty of the State to ensure that Estonian terminology is developed in all fields of science and that learning materials containing the basic terminology in Estonian are developed, published and used at universities. Using Estonian should be acknowledged at competitions, in the evaluation process, etc.

For that purpose, we have national programmes for the development of terminology and university textbooks in Estonian (follow-up programmes are being developed) and 51 terminology commissions. The latest examples of university textbooks in Estonian include textbooks on chemistry, engineering mechanics, pathoanatomy, soil science, metrology, genetics, etc. I would like to emphasise that we need to be aware of and keep pace with technical progress: a couple of days ago, it was announced that Encyclopaedia Britannica, published for 244 years, would end publication of its printed editions and continue with digital versions available online. We need to develop a network of e-books in Estonian; otherwise, the achievements of world science will reach us through foreign languages. The follow-up programme of university textbooks in Estonian will take that aspect into account.

We must pursue the goal of maintaining higher education in Estonian at both the bachelor’s and master’s degree levels; at doctoral level, the parallel usage of both Estonian and English should be ensured. A pilot support programme, financed by the government, was recently launched to support the translation of summaries of doctoral theses (written in foreign languages) into Estonian. A relevant recommendation has been in force for some time. The first five beneficiaries of the grant have been already selected. The aim of the system is to ensure the development of terminology and that public discussions concerning scientific research that has been carried out and reported on in a foreign language are conducted in a language understandable to Estonian taxpayers.

What has been said does not mean that we do not have any problems. It was pointed out during a recent discussion concerning the 2012 research grants that virtually all documents were in English. An often used and especially dangerous justification for the situation is that it is more difficult or even impossible to express certain content in Estonian. No, it’s not! Such practice will result in dividing people into a foreign-speaking elite and Estonian-speaking commoners, which is contrary to the principles of democracy.

This takes us to attitudes and to cultivating an attitude. It goes without saying that in the case of a language of a small nation, the state’s responsibilities are greater than in the case of a language that has a vast number of speakers; in the latter’s case, it is the market that does most of the work. The state is responsible for distributing information about language-related achievements (demonstrating that our language has functional capability), supporting the development of such achievements (speech recognition applications, translation literature, etc.), recognising the work of noted linguists (The Wiedemann language award has evolved from a private initiative to a national award and, as such, created new opportunities for private initiatives (the Wiedemann Fund for support of Estonian language learning and national education)), involving people (public voting to select a language act of the year; the e-dictation competition on Estonian Language Day with 3,700 participants); the national values programme focuses on the appreciation of Estonian, on the one hand, and on promoting linguistic tolerance (the principle that placing a high value on our mother tongue may not lead to looking down upon other languages and dialects (keelepesä)), on the other hand.

It is also very important to be internationally visible (either individually or within the framework of international cooperation). Being just a beneficiary will not do; those who offer ideas to the international community that are worth implementing also receive support more easily (and we have the possibility to do that because the overwhelming majority of languages are ‘lesser used languages’ compared to the major languages). Large projects, such as a report prepared by Katrin Saks on the situation of Finno-Ugric peoples, are very important. The Estonian language profile, prepared in cooperation between specialists from Estonia and from the Council of Europe, is a similar project.

There are other examples of cooperation: both the first and second Estonian language development plan were prepared in collaboration with international specialists, in particular those from Finland; translations into English, Russian, Finnish and Hungarian provide an opportunity to use the principles of the development plan when ensuring the preservation of other languages (“The Estonian language development plan 2011–2017” was translated into Russian at the request of the international Finno-Ugric conference; recently, our Kazakh counterparts expressed their interest in the plan). Estonia takes part in the work of EFNIL and several other international language organisations (in the fields of terminology, language technology, language teaching). Diplomatic activities focus on promoting the use of Estonian in EU discussions whenever possible; it involves introducing our language-related measures and activities and defending our positions, as well as responding to criticism, if necessary.

It is important that small nations, whether they have a nation state or not, solve their language issues together. Moreover, small-nation states benefit from supporting stateless small nations. Good examples are world congresses of Finno-Ugric peoples and the exchange of information about kindred languages (Estonia is in the process of compiling a textbook on kindred nations and languages for upper secondary schools). The Estonian language development plan includes, inter alia, a recommendation for international cooperation in the field of native language terminology.

Language learning activities outside Estonia can only be developed with support from the state budget. In Estonia, such activities are twofold: 1) supporting Estonian cultural societies, Sunday schools and other schools as well as the Estonian-language press in other countries; 2) promoting Estonian language-learning and Estonian culture in other countries, thereby creating an international context favourable for the Estonian language and its usage.

The state’s role in preventing language-related risks and creating opportunities for language usage is not limited to purely linguistic activities. Losing a million speakers of a big language will go unnoticed but for a small language it would mean extinction. A large number of speakers do not, however, guarantee the preservation of a language, and vice versa. There are many other factors. Nevertheless, a certain minimum number of speakers is required to ensure the survival and development of a language. Therefore, all measures to increase the birth rate (e.g. the so-called ‘mother’s salary’ in Estonia), to support young families and to improve the living environment and public health are aimed at preserving language (the world congresses of Finno-Ugric peoples have had discussion panels on health and nature preservation).

It is within the state’s power to improve economic conditions or, for example, traffic safety; a well-developed language and favourable conditions for its usage are not enough if a considerable number of the population (in particular, young people) leave the country to pursue a better life, or perish in traffic or other accidents (all measures from childbirth allowance to the requirements to fasten seatbelts and have a smoke detector installed can be looked at as countermeasures). Losing a million speakers of a big language will go unnoticed but for us it would mean the extinction of the Estonian language.

Beside materialistic considerations, the general cultural environment and patriotism are very important factors. The state has a very important role here and can do a lot through the education system, including the above-mentioned values programme.

Although the same measures are essentially required to preserve both big and small languages (ensuring language development, conditions for and uniformity of usage), small languages are disadvantaged in comparison to big languages:

A small ‘revenue base’ (population), which makes preserving a language more expensive (for example, the translation of one document is 100 times more expensive for a nation that has one million taxpayers than for a nation with 100 million taxpayers).

Lack of competitiveness arising from the limited scope of usage of a language, which in turn reduces the incentive to learn the language. It is for the state to create such conditions that people have an incentive to learn and use a language. Proficiency in Estonian must be economically beneficial (this could be ensured e.g. by supporting the acquisition of Estonian-language software).

On the other hand, being a small nation has its advantages. A small nation does not necessarily have to be poor or a large nation very wealthy. It is important to use the resources available and small countries have an advantage here: measures can be implemented quickly throughout the country and it is easier to reach every citizen.

Back to the beginning: we do not know in which position world languages will be in 100 or even in 50 years. However, when political, technical and economic obstacles to the development of small languages have disappeared, these languages will have to have been preserved. We will have to make an effort to ensure that.

Nowadays, no language can exist without state support and regulative activity. This is especially true for small languages. At the end of the day, it is the citizen, the user and developer of the language who is the most important.