Multilingual Places

Multiple languages coexist in some countries, with varying degrees of success. In some countries, distinct cultural groups speaking different languages may occupy separate regions. In other countries, speakers of various languages intermingle. Some countries have devised strategies to promote language as a centripetal force through peaceful coexistence among speakers of different languages. Other countries face challenges among cultural groups speaking more than one language, a condition threatening to act as a centrifugal force.

Switzerland: Institutionalized Diversity

Figure 5-10 shows that the boundary between the Romance and Germanic branches runs through the middle of two small European countries, Belgium and Switzerland. Belgium has had more difficulty than Switzerland in reconciling the interests of the different language speakers.

Switzerland has four official languages: German (used by 63 percent of the population), French (23 percent), Italian (8 percent), and Romansh (1 percent). These four languages predominate in different parts of the country (Figure 5-36). Swiss voters made Romansh an official language in a 1938 referendum, despite the small percentage of people who use the language.

Language Diversity In Switzerland

Switzerland has four official languages that predominate in different regions of the country.

Switzerland peacefully exists with multiple languages. The Swiss, relatively tolerant of citizens who speak other languages, have institutionalized cultural diversity by creating a form of government that places considerable power in small communities. The key is a long tradition of decentralized government, in which local authorities hold most of the power, and decisions are frequently made by voter referenda.

Belgium: Barely Speaking

A language boundary sharply divides the small country of Belgium into two regions. Southern Belgians (known as Walloons) speak French, whereas northern Belgians (known as Flemings) speak Flemish, a dialect of the Germanic language Dutch (Figure 5-37). Brussels, the capital city, is officially bilingual, and signs there are in both French and Flemish.

Language Diversity In Belgium

Flemings in the north speak Flemish, a Dutch dialect. Walloons in the south speak French.

Antagonism between the Flemings and Walloons is aggravated by economic and political differences. Historically, the Walloons dominated Belgium’s economy and politics, and French was the official state language. But in recent years Flanders has been much more prosperous than Wallonia, and the Flemish-speaking northerners do not wish to see their taxes spent in the poorer south.

In response to pressure from Flemish speakers, Belgium has been divided into two autonomous regions, Flanders and Wallonia. Each elects an assembly that controls cultural affairs, public health, road construction, and urban development in its region. But for many in Flanders, regional autonomy is not enough. They want to see Belgium divided into two independent countries. Were that to occur, Flanders would be one of Europe’s richest countries and Wallonia one of the poorest.

Nigeria: Spatial Compromise

Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, provides an example of the tensions that can arise from the presence of many speakers of many languages. Nigeria has 529 distinct languages, according to Ethnologue, but only three (Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba) are used by more than 10 percent of the country’s population and only four others (Adamawa Fulfulde, Kanura, Nigerian Fulfulde, and Tiv) by between 1 and 10 percent of the population (Figure 5-38). Religion further divides the country; the north is predominantly Muslim, and the south is predominantly Christian.

Language Diversity In Nigeria

Groups living in different regions of Nigeria have often battled. The southern Igbo attempted to secede from Nigeria during the 1960s, and northerners have repeatedly claimed that the Yoruba discriminate against them. To reduce these regional tensions, the government has moved the capital from Lagos in the Yoruba-dominated southwest to Abuja in the center of the country, where none of the three major languages or two major religions predominates.

Pause & Reflect 5.3.5

What is the most widely used language in the same family as Hausa? What religion’s holiest book is written in that language?

Canada: Bilingual Autonomy

French is one of Canada’s two official languages, along with English. French speakers comprise one-fifth of the country’s population and are clustered in Québec, where they account for more than three-fourths of the province’s speakers (Figure 5-39). Colonized by the French in the seventeenth century, Québec was captured by the British in 1763, and in 1867 it became one of the provinces in the Confederation of Canada.

Language Diversity In Canada

Canada has two official languages. French predominates in Québec and English elsewhere.

The Québec government has made the use of French mandatory in many daily activities. Québec’s Commission de Toponymie renamed French towns, rivers, and mountains that had been given English-language names. French must be the predominant language on all commercial signs. Until the late twentieth century, Québec was one of Canada’s poorest and least-developed provinces. Its economic and political activities were dominated by an English-speaking minority, and the province suffered from cultural isolation and lack of French-speaking leaders. To promote French-language cultural values, the Parti Québécois—one of the province’s leading political parties—advocates sovereignty (effectively independence from Canada), but voters have thus far not supported it.

Confrontation has been replaced in Québec by increased cooperation between French and English speakers. The neighborhoods of Montréal, Québec’s largest city, have become more linguistically mixed, and one-third of Québec’s native English speakers have married French speakers in recent years