In the paper currency I have there are fifteen languages plus English . These are the official languages of the Constitution. However there are many other languages used locally in different regions.
Me too. And Quebec seems on the point of passing a law that will end bilingual services in the provincial and which, according to one report, will end the practice of publishing tax forms in English. That probably violates the constitution (which Quebec never ratified), but really seems designed mainly to create a confrontation in order to grow separatist sentiment. But I think Belgium has it worse.
I have lived for nearly three years in Switzerland and there really didn’t seem to be language problems there. In fact, nearly half that time, I was in the bilingual canton (Fribourg/Freiburg) and I had the impression that most people (in the city, at least) were bilingual.
That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Won’t it cause another mass exodus of businesses that don’t want to operate under those conditions, leading to reduced economic health?
If they’re reasoning like the independentist Catalans, then they’re thinking, and sometimes saying “pfaugh, we don’t need their business anyway!”
I’m not sure if Norway can be described as being ‘split up’, but their language situation is rather confusing.
There is one official language spoken nationally - Norwegian. But there are essentially two written forms of the language.
Bokmål is the traditional form, very similar to Danish. It is used by around 80% of the population if I’m not mistaken. On the other hand you have Nynorsk, which was devised as a way to eliminate traces of Danish colonialism from the Norwegian language. In general, nynorsk is employed by people in the West of the country, whereas most other areas are either bokmål areas or use both forms.
At one point the Norwegian government tried to merge the two languages, but it abandoned the policy because people just refused to accept any changes. So they’re stuck in this situation: public television channels use both languages, as do governmental bodies, and which variant of the language you’re taught at school depends on where you grow up.
It’s tempting to say that this is one country divided by a common language, but Norway isn’t really divided. Let’s just say that Norwegians have a strong feeling of national cohesion - even if they might not agree on how to write their language
The constitution was enacted in 1867, based on the Quebec Resolutions. Those Resolutions were ratified by the Quebec representatives in the Parliament of the United Province of Canada.
The vote occurred in the Legislative Assembly on March 13, 1865. The motion in support carried, 91 to 33.
Of the members from Canada West (which would become Ontario), the vote was 54 in favour, 8 against.
Of the members from Canada East (which would become Quebec), the vote was 37 in favour, 25 opposed.
The vote satisfied the “double majority” principle: that major votes in the Legislative Assembly have a majority from the both regions of the Province of Canada.
Quebec has not ratified the 1982 amendments to the Constitution, but that is not the same as saying Quebec never ratified the Constitution.
[QUOTE=Hari Seldon]
And Quebec seems on the point of passing a law that will end bilingual services in the provincial and which, according to one report, will end the practice of publishing tax forms in English. That probably violates the constitution
[/QUOTE]
Cite, please?
I am not aware of any provision in the Constitution which requires that Quebec provide services in English. Section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, only guarantees the right to use English and French in the Legislature and the courts. The provisions in the Charter requiring bilingual service only apply to Canada and New Brunswick. Quebec is in the same position as the other eight provinces, which do not have a constitutional guarantee of bilingual services.
New York City if it were a country.
Belgium seems the obvious answer. It’s completely torn apart by the issue between Walloons and Flemish. There’s a large risk of the country spliting up, and during the recent years there was no government in charge most of the time because MPs were unable to agree on one.
Spain is pretty high on the list at least among developed countries considering that what most people call “Spanish” is just Castillian and there’s been recognition for several other languages such as Catalan, Galician, and Basque.
Where to begin…
- there are more languages in Spain, depending on how you count (Bable, Valenciano…)
- everybody who’s native is either bilingual, thinks he is bilingual or understands Spanish even if they don’t speak it too well
- you will never, not in the tiniest village, find yourself in a situation where people won’t understand you if you speak Spanish. Some Catalans will pretend they don’t, but it’s a political choice to be rude. Catalans have been imposing Catalan precisely thanks to the mutual intelligibility of both languages, so even if you did meet someone who spoke only Catalan (no such person), they would be able to communicate with someone speaking Spanish.
- “Spanish” isn’t “just Castillian” any more than English is spoken only in Yorkshire.* Español*/Spanish is the name of the language. Castellano/Castillian is either a dialect of Spanish or, starting in 1976 and as a political decision, the name the language officially receives in some, not all, post-1976 Spanish-from-Spain laws (note it receives no such name in other Spanish-speaking countries). The whole language, with all its dialects, is what’s official in the whole country.
The divisions are political, not linguistic.
Sorry, Nava, but a lot of Spanish speakers and others throughout the world use “castellano” to refer to the Spanish language. (I know, we’re getting into our usual “prescriptivist/descriptivist” argument here.)
Additionally, when discussing the languages spoken within the boundaries of the state called Spain, it can be argued that it’s a good idea to say “Castilian” (or “castellano”) to refer to Spanish, to avoid confusion between languages and state boundaries. I don’t do this myself – discussing “Spanish” and “Catalan,” etc. works fine for me – but I understand the argument.
I agree that any problems (“divisions”) in Spain are generated rather artificially, for essentially political reasons, and so don’t fit the OP’s query about places where languages are the true cause of some barriers. Sounds like Papua New Guinea might be the best one so far. Basically, it would have to be a country like that, where none of the “official” languages are spoken well by a majority (?) of the residents.
I can only say one thing: next year (federal elections) will be… interesting.
OK, correction accepted.
As for the second, until 1976 and in Spain that was done only when speaking Catalan, where it referred both to the language and to people who spoke it and did not speak Catalan (my father hated, hated, hated being called “Castillian” - Navarre has never been Castille, but Catalonia has; think of it as calling someone from Alabama a yankee in English). Neither the language nor the people who spoke it were called “castillian” in either Galego, Basque, Aragonese (I am not familiar enough with Bable to tell), nor by the monolingual population (and back then, Valenciano was considered a dialect of Catalan, as the process which has led to it being treated as a separate language legally hadn’t even started). The language was lengua castellana or español, castellano was a dialect. But in any case, Qui seems to have completely the wrong idea about what the word castellano means: what’s official is not the dialect of Pucela (nobody would refer to the dialect spoken in Albacete as castellano, it’s manchego) nor the Spanish spoken by newscasters, nor is it limited to part of the population. Boricua is as official in Spain as my own ribero.
Someting else: the proposal to call it Castellano in the Constitution said that it was because “calling it Spanish makes it sound as if these other languages aren’t Spanish ones”. But that reasoning came from the same people who called Joan Manuel Serrat a traitor when he published Mediterráneo (1971), his first record in Spanish. I’m talking about a guy who had refused to go to Eurovision 1968 back when that was a huge deal, because he wouldn’t be allowed to sing in Catalan; he says “I’ve got the great fortune to be bilingual, some songs come out in one language, some in the other, and nobody can tell me which language to use”. Maybe we’re divided about what to call the language 
- I know, let’s go back to lengua romance!
Getting back to the Canadian example, the OP seems to assume that if only countries only had one language, things would be better. That’s not the case with Canada - if there had not been constitutional guarantees for the francophone minority in 1867, and continuing on today, Canada would not exist. There is no way Confederation could have occurred in 1867 without those language guarantees - the speeches in the Canadian Parliament leading to the passage of the Quebec Resolutions make that clear. Canada exists because it accommodates two languages.
Good points, Nava – thanks for the lessons. For the reasons you gave, “castellano” is certainly a poor choice for labeling the Spanish language with all its dialects – but you could almost argue something similar about English/England (what are the Saxons and Jutes, chopped liver?). People mislabel places and languages throughout history, often either by extending a small place or dialect to a bigger place or language.
Enough of this hijack. Back to the OP, it’s come down to Belgium vs. Papua New Guinea (with a couple of holdouts for Canada, and a plea for India.)
Cyprus is a classic example, not sure if others have mentioned it. Greek-speaking in the south (Greek Cypriots), Turkish speaking in the north (Turkish Cypriots).
Most countries split by language are also split by ethnicity, though. For instance, Belgium is split between the Dutch-speaking Flemish and the French-speaking Walloons. I don’t know of any country divided by language but not also by ethnicity.
I’d say China is “split” into Mandarin-speaking and Cantonese-speaking areas, and by most definitions both areas are populated by the same “ethnicity” (often termed “Han Chinese.”). These are different (though related) languages which share a written component.
But I’m not aware of any serious problems this “split” has caused. Mandarin is taught in schools in Cantonese-dominant areas, but as far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong) there hasn’t been a backlash against this among Cantonese speakers.
Eh, that’s a cultural division, tho… you can play “spot the Walloon” all you want, but it ends up being a coin toss. And modern mobility is making “the Rh people” (those who insist in keeping blood-purity along with the purity of language and cultural traditions) less relevant every day.