14 - Language policy for endangered languages

Summary

Language policy and planning were originally associated with language and literacy policy in post-colonial states, in particular the choice and standardization of a national language. Since the 1990s there has been a growth in interest in language policies, which view linguistic diversity as a good thing and aims to support minority and endangered languages. Individuals' everyday language choices tend to be based on perceptions and received attitudes rather than on rational input and decision-making. Examples of such perceptions may be that a certain linguistic variety is only a dialect rather than a proper language; that languages need to be written to be considered full languages; and that people who speak a particular language are uneducated, illiterate, and inferior. Language policy is intimately bound up with the right to speak one's own language. Language rights are linked to political and other human rights.