A few days ago, I discussed an interesting article that said that it’s actually not so unusual for countries to be multilingual. Ubs disagrees:
Although there is more to nationalism than just language, the idea of identifying a political state with a single language is a central idea of nationalism. When you contemplate why it is that today we expect any state to have a single language and think of Canada or Belgium as “weird” (and don’t forget Switzerland), what you’re really contemplating is why the nation-state has become dominant in the modern world.
Among those who study such things, the standard and mainstream thesis is that there is a fundamental incompatibility between a multinational state and a modern state. Historical evidence is abundant that nationalism tends to occur simultaneously with industrialization, and there are plenty of plausible reasons why this should be so. In a traditional society, where the economy is primarily agricultural and power flows hierarchically, a local noble who does not speak the language of the capital is at no particular disadvantage; in a modern society, where production is aimed for the market, literacy is essential to economic success, and political power flows through a central establishment, he is disenfranchised.
Historians continue to debate the exact nature and significance of the connection between modernization and nationalism, but no one can ignore the question. The two central examples are the Habsburg and Ottoman empires. The 19th century history of both states is completely dominated by their efforts to reconcile the multinationalism with modernization. The Ottoman Empire remained multinational and as a result failed to effectively modernize. The Habsburg empire did modernize but was unable to remain multinational.
The notion that language became a problem in Habsburg lands only after the end of World War I, as your quoted excerpt seems to imply, is ridiculous. The language problem dominated the empire’s politics from its founding in the Napoleonic wars until its defeat. Following the links, I see that Kamusella’s book is 1,168 pages long, so I’m sure he has plenty to say about this, but if his thesis is merely that multilingualism is extinct in central Europe because the mean British, French, and Americans “delegitimized” multilingualism, then either he is naive or he thinks we are.
I would say — and I believe this is a pretty mainstream view — that the multilingual nature of the Habsburg empire (and likewise the Ottoman) put it at a disadvantage vis-à-vis nation-states like France and Britain. As a result it was unable to recover after defeat as Germany did. The victors of World War I did not “choose to delegitimize” Austria-Hungary; they defeated it, and they destroyed it. The bundle of smaller states that filled the void were created not in the pursuit of any unilingual ideal, but simply for the usual geopolitical reasons.
It is true that Wilson paid lip service to the idea of drawing state boundaries to match national identities, but this premise was used only where it was politically convenient. It was easily abandoned in South Tyrol, Sudetenland, and Asia Minor, among other places, and the victors’ preservation of bilingual Belgium was the very opposite of delegitimization. The principle behind the carving up of Central Europe after World War I was not any “ideal of ethnolinguistic homogeneity”, but rather an attempt to secure all the economically productive property under the political control of the victors.
But I digress. Reading the post again, I think I probably don’t disagree with Kamusella nearly as much as I initially thought I did. I think the excerpt and the context in which it was presented rubbed me the wrong way.
The point is that if you had “always thought of monolingual countries as a default rather than a construct”, you were absolutely right. At least for any modern state.
Far be it from me to argue with someone who can not only use the expression “vis-à-vis” in a sentence but also knows how to put the accent into an email. But . . . what about China, India, and the former Soviet Union?
P.S. Ubs also points out:
If you say “monolingual” you’re mixing languages (not that that hasn’t been done before): Bilingual, multilingual, unilingual; polyglot, monoglot (and I suppose, though I’ve never heard it, “duoglot”).
I’ll try “unilingual” on for size. (I can’t bring myself to say “monoglot,” given that “polyglot” sounds weird enough as it is.
Go ahead and mix languages — or else stop riding your unicycle wearing a monocle.
Many modern states mix two languages relatively successfully. There are people in the UK who speak Welsh and Irish, in Northern Italy people speak German, in Northern Germany people speak Danish.
Not always successfully though, see: http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?ti…
What about them? The Soviet Union failed. Before it did, it was well aware of the nationality problem and addressed it aggressively, by denying/suppressing some nationalities and compartmentalizing the rest into special nationality boxes.
China has a dominant nationality, which the state officially deems to be even more dominant than it really is. Exactly how much China oppresses its minorities varies with time and place, but I certainly wouldn't characterize it as a state pursuing a multinational identity.
India is very interesting to me in this context. I don't know a lot about India, and I'd be curious to study it a bit more as a possible solution to this problem. That said, I gather that very large portions of the state aren't really modernized, and I wonder how well nationalist strife correlates to the areas to are modernizing.
Ubs,
Also those examples are unusual in that they are all large countries.
Alas, Belgium is a very bad example of a bilingual state as its current political instability can testify. It has been unable to settle on a government for more than two years, because of the language barrier between the Flemish and the Wallon parties (note that political parties there are first defined by their linguistic affiliation, second by their ideology!). Unfortunately, both sides are now getting more radical, with parents being fined for their kids speaking the alternative language in the playgrounds, elected mayors being demoted for not printing political leaflets in the locally recognised language and so on… Belgium is a country where, when a university (Louvain/Leuwen) split into a Flemish part and a Wallon part,the Flemish part got the even years of Annals of Statistics and the Wallon part got the odd part! It is also a country where train accidents occur because the train driver and the traffic controller do not speak the same language…
Yes it is possible for a modern state to be multilingual, but I don't think it's desirable. Multilingual virtually implies multicultural. Most modern states that are multilingual will have a single dominant language and cultural group. In Switzerland it is the Germanic culture that dominates. This is true in the UK, with a smattering of regional languages.
When two cultures/languages are of similar size, conflict of some from is almost inevitable, and the lack of a common language and culture make the difficulties that much harder to resolve.
Australia works not because it forces a single dominant language and culture, but because it is very hard to function in our society without speaking English (what an awful language!). Initially non-English speaking migrants concentrate in areas where there are people from a common language and cultural background. Their children usually leave these areas and their grandchildren usually can only speak English, although they may retain other aspects of their original cultural identity – religion, marriage within culture etc.
Belgium's woes make it a good example of the phenomenon, not a bad one.
After writing my comment, it occurs to me that China's model for assimilation could be America: exterminate some, assimilate many, struggle with more while ultimately trying to assert a meta-nationality that can include all. Tolerate some minority languages so long as the official language remains dominant.
It is a very interesting topic. As I live and work in Canada this topic connects many issues, some of them political. I will say this – having two languages in the country can be challenging (especially if one is not willing to learn (about) the other) but it can also be rewarding. Traveling to Quebec can be a wonderful experience as the whole culture is very different – this makes Canadian culture so much richer and so much more interesting. Of course one can get snubbed because one doesn't know AT ALL the local language and things may get out of hand in the name of old and
somewhat out-of-fashion nationalistic ideas (I hope they are out-of-fashion). Let's not forget that millions of people immigrate around the world, sometimes changing language and much more. It would be interesting to know what is their honest opinion on nation and language and "home" culture. What makes them so much more flexible than the Belgian train conductor who is willing to risk other people's lives? Just a question to end this comment which is already too long.