Language, Nation and State: Identity Politics in a Multilingual Age

251 Pages·2004·1.215 MB·

by  Tony Judt, Denis Lacorne (eds.)

Language, Nation, and State
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Language, Nation, and State: Identity Politics in a Multilingual Age
Edited by Tony Judt and Denis Lacorne
Language, Nation, and State:
Identity Politics in a
Multilingual Age
Edited By
Tony Judt and Denis Lacorne
LANGUAGE,NATION,ANDSTATE
© Tony Judt and Denis Lacorne,2004.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-6393-2
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2004 by
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Originally published in French “La politique de Babel:Du monolinguisme
d(cid:2)E´tat au plurilinguisme des peuples”by Editions Karthala,Paris,
2002,coll.Recherches internationales.
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ISBN 978-1-349-52783-0 ISBN 978-1-4039-8245-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781403982452
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Politique de Babel.English
Language,nation,and state :identity politics in a multilingual age /
edited by Tony Judt and Denis Lacome.
p.cm.––(Europe in transition)
Papers presented at a conference held in Paris in Sept.1998,
co-sponsored by the Centre d'etudes et de recherches
intemationales and the Remarque Institute.“The present
edition follows the French version,except for the Introduction
which has been re-cast for an English readership”—Pref.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Language and languages—Political aspects—Congresses.
2.Multilingualism—Political aspects—Congresses.I.Judt,Tony.II.Lacome,
Denis.III.Fondation nationale des sciences politiques.Centre d'etudes et
de recherches intemationales.IV.Remarque Institute (New York
University) V.Title.VI.Europe in transition (New York,N.Y.)
P119.3.P64913 2004
306.44(cid:2)9—dc22 2003064010
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India.
First edition:October 2004
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Contributors vii
Preface to the American Edition ix
The Politics of Language 1
Tony Judt and Denis Lacorne
Part One: The Limits of National
Monolingualism 17
Chapter 1 Difference Rights and Language in France 19
Alain Fenet
Chapter 2 Langue d’oc, French and the Construction
of a State in France 63
Philippe Martel
Chapter 3 Bilingualism and Ethnic Change in California 79
David Lopez
Part Two: The Fragility of
Plurilingual Nations 103
Chapter 4 Nationalism Versus Bilingualism 105
Astrid von Busekist
Chapter 5 Struggling Against Territory:
Language Policy in Canada 133
Kenneth McRoberts
Chapter 6 Beyond Multiculturalism: Identity,
Intercultural Communication, and Political
Culture—The Case of Switzerland 161
Uli Windisch
vi ● Contents
Part Three: Nation-Making and
Linguistic Revivals 185
Chapter 7 Hebrew, the Language of National Daily Life 187
Alain Dieckhoff
Chapter 8 Linguistic Acculturations and Reconstructions
in the ULB Group (Ukraine, Lithuania,
and Belarus) 201
Daniel Beauvois
Chapter 9 Unity and Plurality in the Serbo-Croatian
Linguistic Sphere 215
Paul Garde
Chapter 10 Languages in the Wired World 231
Geoffrey Nunberg
List of Contributors
Daniel Beauvois, former professor of Slavic history at the Université de
Paris I, is the author of Histoire de la Pologne Paris, Hatier, 1995, and of
La Bataille de la terre en Ukraine, 1863–1914, Presses universitaires de
Lille, 1993.
Astrid Von Busekist, professor at the Institut d’études politiques de
Paris, is the author of La Belgique, Politiques de la langue et construction
de l’État de 1780 à nos jours, Louvain: Boeck-Duculot, 1997, and editor
of “Raisons Politiques” (volume 2, May 2001), part of a series of articles
on “La République des langues.”
Alain Dieckhoff, director of research at CERI, is the author of La
Nation dans tous ses États. Les identités nationales en mouvement, Paris:
Flammarion, 2000, and of L’invention d’une Nation. Israël et la modernité
politique, Paris: Gallimard, 1993.
Alain Fenet, professor of public law at the Université de Nantes,
directed with Gérard Soulier the publication of Les minorités et leurs
droits depuis 1789, Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989.
Paul Garde, former professor of Slavic languages and literature at the
Université de Provence, is the author of Vie et mort de la Youguslavie,
Paris: Fayard, 1992, and of Fin de siècle dans les Balkans, Paris, Éd. Odile
Jacob, 2001.
Tony Judt, Erich Maria Remarque professor of European Studies and
director of the Remarque Institute at New York University, is the author
of The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French
Twentieth Century, University of Chicago Press, 1998, and of Past
Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956, University of California
Press, 1992.
Denis Lacorne, research director at CERI, is the author of La Crise de
l’identité américaine. Du melting-pot au multiculturalisme, Paris: Fayard,
viii ● List of Contributors
1997, and of L’Invention de la République. Le modèle américain, Paris:
Hachette, coll. Pluriel, 1991.
David Lopez, professor of sociology at University of California, Los
Angeles, is the author of “Social and Linguistic Aspects of Assimilation
Today,” in Charles Hirschman et al., The Handbook of International
Migration: The American Experience, New York: Russell Sage, 1999; with
Cynthia Feliciano, of “Who does What? California’s Emerging Plural
Labor Force,” in Ruth Milkman (ed.), Organizing Immigrants, Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2000, and, with Ricardo Stanton-Salazarrre, of
“Mexican Americans: A Second Generation at Risk,” in Ruben Rumbaut
and Alejandro Portes (eds.), Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in
America, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
Philippe Martel, director of research at CNRS, and professor at
Université Paul Valéry—Montpellier III is the author of Les noms de
Montpellier, Presses universitaires de Montpellier—Paul Valéry, 2001
(with Jacques Bres), and of Enseigner la region, Paris: l’Harmattan, 2001
(with G. Roques and P. Boutan).
Kenneth McRoberts, professor of political science, is the principal of
Glendon College, the bilingual college of human sciences at the York
University in Toronto. He is the author of Catalonia: Nation-Building
Without a State, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2001, and of
Misconceiving Canada: The Struggle for National Unity, Toronto: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
Geoffrey Nunberg, senior researcher at the Center for the Study of
Language and Information at Stanford University and consulting profes-
sor at the Stanford Department of Linguistics, is the author of The Way
We Talk Now, Houghton Mifflin, 2001. He also edited the publication of
The Future of the Book, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Uli Windisch, professor of sociology at the Université de Genève, is the
author of Immigration, quelle intégration? Quels droits politiques?
Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 2000, and of Les relations quotidiennes entre
Romands et Suisses allemands, Les Cantons bilingues de Fribourg et du
Valais, 2 vol., Lausanne: Payot, 1992.
Preface to the American Edition
T he essays in this book were first presented as papers at a
conference in Paris, in September 1998. They have since been
published in France as La politique de Babel. Du monolinguisme
d’Etat au plurilinguisme des peoples(Editions Karthala, Paris, 2002). The
present edition follows the French version, except for an Introduction
that has been re-cast for an English readership.
We are grateful to the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches
Internationales (CERI) for hosting the conference, which resulted in a
lasting exchange of information and opinions from which the present
volume has benefited greatly. The CERI and the Remarque Institute
co-sponsored the conference and ensuing publications, and we are
pleased to have this opportunity to show our appreciation to the
Fondation nationale des sciences politiques and New York University for
their continuing support. Jair Kessler at the Remarque Institute and
Francine Bianciardi and Karolina Michel of the CERI deserve our heart-
felt thanks for ensuring that the various projects in which the two insti-
tutions have collaborated have been a success.
Finally we wish to acknowledge the confidence that Professor Martin
Schain and the Palgrave Press have shown in this project. In today’s
publishing environment collective works, however outstanding their
scholarship or significant their subject, often have great difficulty in
finding a wider audience. We are thus particularly grateful that the
essays gathered in this volume are now appearing in English. In view of
the subject matter that they deal with, it would be ironic, as well as
unfortunate, were they confined to readers of just one language.
Tony Judt and Denis Lacorne