BY DR. JOSE PALU-AY DACUDAO
FOR MOST of the history of humanity, no one has thought to legislate a national language.
There have been customs, it is true. For example, the Roman Empire customarily used Latin in its government communications and schools, but it never made laws that in effect made Latin as the only official or national language of the Roman Empire.
Many Romans even admired and used the Greek language over Latin, including some Emperors.
At face value, the legislation of a national language sounds unnatural and weird. Humanity has always spoken diverse languages; that is the natural human condition. One may like it, or may not like it, but for countless centuries no one had ever thought of lawfully making one language the only official language for a state.
It started during the ultra-nationalistic French Revolution and its aftermath, Napoleonic France. Nationhood after the French revolution was based on the idea of One Nation, One Language, or Unity in Uniformity. To be a citizen of France one had to know French.
Just as English has William Shakespeare and Russian has Alexander Pushkin, the French language has the early 17th century poet François de Malherbe who, through his poetic writings, created a standard for the language.
In 1635, Cardinal Richelieu created the L’AcadĂ©mie Française (French Academy), whose primary purpose was and is to standardize the French language.
In 1795, during the French Revolution, the French Academy was incorporated into the substantially more powerful Institut de France. This institute acts similarly to a national commission that dictates what is to be regarded as French or not, and to impose what is regards as French in all of France.
Napoleonic France set a mono-cultural standard that was soon followed by most of the rest of the world.
At the extreme end was probably Czarist Russia. Under Tsar Alexander III (1845-1894), emperor of Russia in 1881-1894, the government dogmatically imposed Russianness in the traditionally multiethnic Russian Empire. Schools and government organizations were directed to use only the Russian language. Publications in the Empireâs non-Russian languages were banned or outlawed.
The 19th century and the first half of the 20th century was the age of ânationalismâ, specifically the idea of One Nation One Language.
In the early 20th century, Chinese nationalists took up the idea of Unity in Uniformity. The Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) was formed in 1912, from the merger of several nationalist organizations that had just overthrown the last imperial Chinese dynasty (the Qing).
Specifically, the Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing was made into the basis of the modern written language, Baihua; and under the nationalist regime this began to be taught in Chinese schools after 1917. (To be continued)/PN
