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Insociolinguistics, aminoritized language is a language that ismarginalized, persecuted, or banned.[1][2] Language minoritization stems from the tendency of large nations to establish a common language for commerce and government, or to establish homogeneity for ideological reasons.[3][4] Minoritized languages are typically restricted to a smaller range oflanguage domains thandominant languages, and frequently one-way bilingualism develops when speakers of minoritized languages learn the dominant language, but not vice versa. Speakers of minoritized languages may face various consequences, including reduced educational achievement andlanguage shift in favor of the dominant language.
A minoritized language differs from aminority language, which means a language used by a small number of speakers,[1] or alternately to a language with lesser numerical or political power in a given context.[4] There are cases in which a language is minoritized while being spoken by a majority of the population, such as someindigenous languages during the colonization of Africa, when colonial languages were favored.[5] Spanish is the dominant language in Latin America, wherelocal indigenous languages are minoritized.[6] The term "minoritized" is sometimes used in preference to "minority language" because it draws attention to the power differential between languages.[4]
Nancy Dorian, Kathryn A. Davis, and Prem Phyak have argued that there is a "Western language ideology" which appliessocial Darwinism to linguistics. This ideology allegedly idealizesmonolingualism, denies thebenefits of multilingualism, and disdainsnon-standard language varieties. Because such non-standard varieties are labeled deficient, a hierarchy of languages is created.[a] Some authors have drawn a connection betweenanti-immigration sentiment, especiallyanti-German sentiment, andEnglish-only education in the US.[10]
In Europe, the process of minoritization, for example of theCeltic languages in Britain or theminority languages in France andItaly, was connected to the emergence ofnationalist movements calling for the establishment ofmonolingual,monoculturalnation-states in the nineteenth century. The process of minoritization often led to alanguage shift towards the hegemonic language.[11]
The defining characteristic of minoritization is the existence of a power imbalance between it and the dominant language. One sign that a language is minoritized is if its speakers develop one-way bilingualism—they learn the dominant orprestige language, but speakers of the dominant language do not learn the minoritized language. Another frequent symptom of minoritization is the restriction of the language to a limited range oflanguage domains. A language excluded from use in government and formal education might only be used at home and in social situations. Because of the above, speakers of the minoritized language became a subset of speakers of the dominant language;[12] for instance, all speakers ofScottish Gaelic are also speakers of English, but most English speakers in Scotland do not speak Gaelic.[13] Likewise, speakers ofSardinian find themselves in a relatively small minority compared to those ofItalian, whose current predominance onthe island is the result ofpolicies aimed at the exclusion of the former and the stigmatization of the group identity embodied in its practice.[14] In contrast, speakers of a dominant language can carry out all functions of daily life using their native language.[12]
Speakers of the dominant language typically usethe greater prestige of the dominant language to prevent speakers of the minoritized language from changing the situation to one more favorable to the minoritized language. For example, many "liberal" criticisms oflanguage planning for minoritized language communities assert that intervention in favor of minoritized languages is equivalent to the policies that caused the language to become minoritized in the first place, such as linguistic legislation, elitism, exclusion of minoritized languages from formal education, and evenforced population transfer.[12]
InEngaged Language Policy and Practices, the authors cite three studies that have shown that students' academic achievement suffers if policies are implemented that minoritize their native language.Nancy Dorian has argued that the "Western language ideology" favoring monolingualism has fostered an "ideology of contempt" for minoritized languages.[10] The process of minoritization can lead to language shift in favor of the dominant language.[11]
