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Types of Multilingual Communities:A Discussion of Ten Variables

HEINZKLOSSForschungstelle fur N ationalitd ten und Sprachenfragen Marburg

FIRST VARIABLE: TYPES OF SPEECH COMMUNITIESAs we try to find out about types of multilingual communities

we are confronted with a number of variables. One of these is impliedin the highly ambiguous term community. To simplify my task inthe brief presentation to follow, I shall take this term to mean all thecitizens in a given state but excluding members of those whose mothertongue is spoken natively by less than three per cent. For brevityssake shall call this group the national core community, or NCC.

Regarding the mother tongue or tongues used by these NCCs, wehave to distinguish the following three major types: the monolingualtype A the bi- or trilingual type B, and the multilingual type C.These three types represent our first variable. Not much has to besaid about type A at this stage. Iceland and Portugal are good exam-ples. Type B-the bi- or trilingual NCC-consists of two or three lin-guistic communities each of which comprises at least four per cent ofthe population. Three seems to be the maximum number of languageswhich can be placed on equal footing as official languages of thenation. The day-to-day affairs of a countrys administration and evenits legislative proceedings will soon be overtaxed, tangled, and ineffi-cient if transacted in more than three languages. But there is equalityof two national languages in Belgium, Canada, and Finland, andequality of three languages in Switzerland.

Actually, the Swiss example shows that even a trilingual adminis-tration is not too workable a proposition. While, for example, allofficial periodicals are issued in both French and German, the Italianversion is just mimeographed in a number of cases or consists of anabstract or is left out entire1y.l That, to be sure, is due in part to therelative smallness of the Italian-speaking population (roughly fourper cent). But from conversations had with officials in Berne, the

Cyril Hegnauer, Dm Sfirachenrecht der Schweiz Zurich Schulthess, 1947; Mario M.Pedrazzini, La Lingua Italiana nel diritto Federale Svizzero Zurich: Tesi legge Zurigo, 1952. Forsimilar problem8 in the officially trilingual Kanton of Graubiinden (Grisons) see G. Schucany,in Zeitschrift fur Schweizerisches Recht 75 (1956), pp. 371-384.135


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136 SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRYfederal capital, I also learned that civil servants who are equallyfamiliar with three languages are hard to find even in Switzerland.

Here we touch upon the significance of the dividing line betweenNCC types B and C, namely, wherever there is an NCC with fouror more major languages, it seems indispensable to have one languagewhich serves as the countrys lingua franca and is understood by allliterate citizens. This i n itself constitutes discrimination of a kindagainst the other languages and language communities-discriminationwhich may be wholly unavoidable, however, and perfectly excusableif a national framework having translingual and transcultural com-munication is to be created and/or maintained. Thus it was basicallylegitimate for German to become the national language of imperialAustria, for Russian to become that of the Soviet Union, and Hindithat of India. I n each of these countries there were just too manymajor speech communities to make equality feasible at the nationallevel. Two alternatives seem available to mitigate the discriminationembarrassingly inherent to the privileged position of one of the domes-tic languages: either granting preferential treatment to not one buttwo languages, or falling back on an imported and therefore neutraltongue-usually the language of the former colonial rulers. Th e firstof these has been tried out, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, for example,while all over sub-Saharan Africa we find states that use an officiallanguage which has been imported over the last 150 years. The neu-tralizing effect that goes with languages introduced from abroad helpsEnglish to resist Hindi, though the former had been scheduled to bereplaced by 1965. It is hard to overestimate the importance of thedividing line between multinational states of types B and C . The merefact of more than three major speech communities in a state increaseschances greatly of its disruption by international strife.

NCCs of type B do not require superimposition of one languageconsidered to be the national language and therefore to be learned byall citizens. They may function in such a way, nonetheless, thatalthough bilingual at the national administrative level, their indi-vidual citizens remain nearly monolingual in daily life. This is evenmore likely to be the case where the linguistic groups are separatedby clearcut geographical language boundaries and where the structureof government is federal, so that while the country at large may becalled bilingual i t s component states are restricted to one languageterritories and are therefore monolingual. Thus in Switzerland theFederal Government is bi- to trilingual while the component states aremonolingual, Geneva using French; Zurich, German; and Ticino,I talian.


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MULTILINGUAL COMMUNITIES 137SECOND VARIABLE:

NUMBER OF LANGUAGES USED BY INDIVIDUALSTypes A to C are marked off by the linguistic composition of the

population at large. We now shall consider another variable, namely,the degree of individual bilingualism or multilingualism among theadult literate population, t goes without saying and certainly needsno proof that there is some correlation between national and indi-vidual bilingualism. What has to be proven is that the covariation isnot nearly s o strong and consistent as some people seem to believe.

This may be the proper point at which to state that our analysis ishandicapped by the ambiguity of the term bilingualism. In callingBelgium a bilingual country we speak of a nation consisting of twomajor linguistic communities, the members of which may well be-andin the case of the Walloons are-monolingual. By calling Hai ti abilinguai country we refer to the fact that the members of the singlelinguistic community which forms the Haitian nation use either oftwo different languages, depending on functional level. It would beuseful i terms were devised which would help us to circumvent thisambiguity. Some writers have tried to avoid unclarity by applying theterm bilingual to individuals, even if many of the ones in questionare multilingual, and to reserve the term multilingual for states(nations) regardless of their bi-, ti-i-, or truly multilingual natives.Obviously this highly arbitrary dichotomy tends to befog the essentialdistinctions to be made.2

Regarding the new variable, i.e., individual mono-, bi-, or multi-lingualism, I shall speak of the following types: Type 1, denoting afully monolingual citizenry; Type 2, a diglossic citizenry; Type 3, onethat is bilingual; and Type 4 a tri- or multilingual citizenry. Thesefour types will first be related to type A (national monolingualism)and to types B and C thereafter.

The NCC of Type A will consist in many cases of citizens who arefully monolingual in that only one language is used in all walks of lifeand by all age groups. Here Iceland and Portugal may again be cited.Th is may be called NCC Al.

There are other monolingual NCCs which offer a more complexpicture. Thus in Egypt and Haiti nearly all adult citizens may havespoken the same vernacular language during their early childhood(colloquial Arabic or Haitian Creole); but they had to study a closelyrelated yet markedly different prestige language in school (Classical

I t m:ght be a good thing if we had two sets of nouns and adjectives, pitting e.g. mono-, hi-,tri-, and multilingualness or mono-, bi-, tri-, and multilineuality against mono-, bi- tri-, andmultilingualism, so that we might speak e.g. of bilingualism in Haiti but of bilinguality orbilngualness in Belgium. Another way might consist in having one set of compounds combininglingualism and Latin-derived syllables, m i - , bi- and multi-, and another set combining l . : ~ i ua l i s m (or lingualness, or linguality) with Greek-derived syllables mono-, di-, and poly-.


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138 SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRYArabic or French), thus becoming diglossic.3 Here we have type A2.

Again there are other variations of Type A in which all childrenlearn a language upon entering school which is not at all as closelyakin to the vernacular as French is to Creole, but is as unrelated toit as Spanish is to Guarani. Thus we meet Type A3: monolingualnations when viewed from the standpoint of mothertongueness butbilingual in terms of cultural setting and equipment.

But even individual trilingualism, Type 4, can occur among mono-lingual NCCs. Thus Malta, where only one language, Maltese (akinto Arabic), is spoken natively, has used Italian as a second languagefor centuries and more recently has added English. While it is not yetquite clear whether there will ever be a stable equilibrium amongthese three languages (conceivably English may slowly be replacingItalian), something closely approaching such stability exists in Luxem-bourg. Here a diglossic situation between Letzeburgish and Germanis rounded out by superposed French, each of the three tongues beingrestricted to its own, clearly delineated functional domain. This NCCmay be called A4.

From the foregoing it will have become evident that NCCs of typesA2-A4 are monoIingua1 merely insofar as only one language is spokenduring early childhood in each of the countries. It might be appropri-ate to call them monopaidoglossic.4

While the term diglossia as conceived by Charles A. Ferguson seemsapplicable only to the NCC envisaged under A2, there is no gainsayingthat some of the characteristics typical of the diglossic situation recurin NCCs A3 and A4; for in all three such NCCs we are dealingwith a monopaidoglossic population. The school superposes a secondtongue in all, whose introduction and use are characterized by thefollowing features: (1) voluntarism, i.e., no compulsion by externalfactors to adopt a second tongue; (2) permanence, i.e., long termstability in the relationship between the two languages or speechforms; and 3) functional diversification, i.e., assignment to each ofthe languages concerned of a definite and important domain in thelife of the nation. Thus it would seem that the diglossic situationconceived by Ferguson and the situations envisaged under codes 3 and4 have enough in common to justify the quest for a cover term thatwill embrace them all. I am not sure whether the concept of diglossiacould be broadened to cover these related situations.6

Concerning diglossia, see Charles A. Ferguson, Diglossia, Word, 15 1959). pp. 325-340.The permissibility of this term has been discussed with Professor Andreas Koutsoudas ofIndiana University.I f diglossia could become the cover term for 2-4 then perhaps we might distinguish betweenin-diglossia as referring to the relationship within a family or closely and recognizably relatedtongues (Creole-French, etc. , and out-diglossia as referring to the relationship between twounrelated tongues (cf. in-marriage and out-marriage).


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MULTILINGUAL COMMUNITIES 139Naturally the scene becomes far more intricate as w e consider our

second variable, 1 4 , in terms of B, the bilingual NCC. However, inorder not to present too complicated a picture I shall skip types 2and 4 (individual diglossia and individual trilingualism) and restrictmyself to the confrontation between mono- and bilingualism (betweenTypes 1 and 3).shall begin with a situation in which language policy hasachieved perfect equilibrium between the two languages so that bothare recognized as ofhcial at the national level, while the members ofthe two language communities have at the same time remained largelymonolingual. As we have indicated above, this state of affairs may beapproximated where a bilingual federal government exists over mono-lingual component states such as most of the Swiss cantons. Swiss citi-bens are no more bilingual, by and large (apart from Alemanicdiglossiae) than persons from, say, the Netherlands or Scandinavia-probably even less than these. While the machinery of federal govern-ment makes use of several languages, the average citizen is aware ofthis kind of bi- and trilingualism only when he looks at his banknotesor postal cards; otherwise his daily life is conducted wholly in themother tongue.

The same kind of equilibrium may be brought about in very differ-ent fashion. Again both languages may be recognized as official at thenational level; this time, however, bilingualism in the NCC at large ismatched by exceedingly widespread bilingualism among the membersof the two linguistic communities. I must confess knowing of no NCCin which this is an unquestioned reality, because closer scrutiny usuallyreveals that one of the two linguistic communities is less eager thanthe other to study and make use of the partner s language. Perhapsthis is an entirely hypothetical event, one that never existed andwhich cannot exist. It is easy to point out examples, on the otherhand, of states whose two languages are officially on an equal footingbut in which only one of the two linguistic communities is more orless bilingual. Thus in Canada those who speak French are largelybilingual, but not those who speak English; until recently at least,bilingualism characterized Dutch7 speakers in Belgium, but notthose who spoke French; and among white South Africans, theusers of Afrikaans are more often bilingual than those speaking Eng-lish. Attempts to explain this lack of equilibrium in terms of any lack

Concerning Swiss-German diglossia, see William G. Moulton, What Standard for Diglossia?The Case of German Switzerland, in E. D. Woodworth and R. J . DiPietro, editors, Repor t onthe 13th Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Studies Washington, 1963.pp. 133-144 (Discussion 145-148).

7 I t should be noted that the standard language recognized as one of the official languages ofBelgium is Dutch and not Flemish ; there are Flemish dialects but no Flemish language-justas we have Austrian dialects but no Austrian language.


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140 SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRYin international prestige of Afrikaans or Dutch are refuted by theCanadian example where French complaints about Anglo-Saxon atti-tudes of superiority sound like an echo of Flemish complaints aboutWalloon arrogance. Actually, we know since WeinreichS that the inter-national reputation and usefulness of a language has no great influ-ence on the outcome of intranational, let alone local, language issues.

We have assumed in all our examples of bilingual NCCs, so far,that both languages are official. We may now proceed to bilingualNCCs in which only one language enjoys this standing. This chieflyoccurs (a) when one of the speech communities is culturally backward,(b) when one of the two is numerically inferior by far, or (c) when oneof them pursues a policy of linguistic oppression at all costs. Case (a)is illustrated by 19th century Belgium with its then rather backwardFlemish population; case (b), by a good many linguistic minorities allover the globe; case (c), by the policy pursued by the I raq governmentat most times towards its sizable Kurdish minority. Needless to say,there are no hard and fast dividing lines between the three conditions.For example, the Kurds of Iraq are indeed a minority (though not asmall one) and they may also lag somewhat behind their Arabic-speaking countrymen (but not considerably so and probably in partat least because of their cultural neglect by the Baghdad government).

Our next step will be to link individual bilingualism with nationalmultilingualism-in Type C NCCs. In the example to follow I havechosen an imaginary state which combines five major linguistic com-munities. T o make all languages official in the country at large wouldobviously be an event which, though theoretically possible, is utterlyunlikely to occur. Only two principal solutions seem to offer them-selves: either one of the five regional languages will come to berecognized as t h e national link, or a language is imported for purposesof playing this role. These two solutions can be combined by enthron-ing one indigenous plus one imported language (the Indian way), orthey may be exp nded (and complicated) either by enthroning twonative languages (Urdu and Bengali in Pakistan, Persian and Pashtuin Afghanistan) or using two imported ones (Italian and English inSomalia, French and English in Cameroon). As a rule, only the devel-oping countries will resort to using an imported, and therefore basic-ally alien, language. At any rate, under the conditions of nationalmultilingualism individual bilingualism generally means that mostliterate adult citizens will have to know at least two languages, themother tongue plus the national language. At least four out of the fivemajor regional languages have little chance ever to be studied as sec-

Uriel Weinreich, Languages in C on tac t New York: Linguistic Circle of New York, 1953,p 107.


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MULTILINGUAL COMMUNlTIES 141

B. Bilingual

TABLE 1SOME COMBINATIONS YIELDU BY NUMBER F LANGUAGESN NCC AND N U M B E RSED

B Y VARIOUSNDIVIDUALSNatimal Type Use Pattern ExampleA. Monopaidoglossic 1. Complete Monolingualism Iceland2. Diglossia (Vernac ular withPrestige Language StudiedLater) Greece3. Bilingualism Paraguay4. Trilingualism Malta

1. Impersonal Bilingualism(Government Bilingual, Citi- Parts ofzens Monolingual) Switzerland2. Bilingualism in Governmentand in Both Spech Communi-ties (Hypothetical)1,3. Government and One SpeechCommunity Bilingual, OtherMonolingual Belgium1,3. Government and One SpeechComm unity Monolingu al, Spain re Catalans),Other Bilingual Peru, MoroccoAll Regional Languages Con-sidered National (Hypothetical)One Regional Language Con-sidered National EthiopiaNational Language Imported Guinea

C. Multilingual

ond languages by any sizeable number of tudents within the country,let alone outside it. T he psychological effect is obvious; the Tamils ofSouthern India, proud of their very ancient civilization, by way ofexample, resent the prospect of seeing their language permanentlyslighted in favor of Hindi, a newcomer they consider to be an upstart.

Table I lists some of the combinations yielded by the first twovariables.

THIRD VARIABLE:TYPES OF PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL BILINGUALISM

The foregoing presentation distinguished between two basic typesof lingualism in analyzing bi- and multilingual NCCs. Since each ofthese types include a number of subtypes, we have seen their manycombinations make for a considerable variety of possible NCCs.I shall now turn to our third variable, namely one which refers tothe relationship between the individual citizen and bilingualism as asocial force. The main distinction to be made is one between personaland impersonal bilingualism.What is meant by impersonal bilingualism becomes clear when wecall to mind the relationship between the trilingual Swiss federalgovernment and the citizens of the monolingual cantons of Geneva,


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142 SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRYZurich, and Ticino. While the nation may be called trilingual, thedaily life of the citizens in each of these components is influenced nomore by its coexistence with other language groups under one federalroof than is the life of the average Danish citizen by the fact thatDenmark borders on countries where Swedish and German arespoken. Trilingualism is largely an affair of official blanks, postalcards, posters, etc. for most Swiss citizens-and even here trilingualismis sometimes avoided through the use of Latin. A familiar situation isfound in parts of Belgium, especially among the Wallo~ns.~

Personal bilingualism may be divided into three types on the basisof i t s origin. We may call these natural bilingualism, voluntary bilin-gualism, and decreed bilingualism. Natural bilingualism will usuallyarise in one of the following three ways: as a result of mixed marriages,as a result of living in a multilingual locality, and as a result of livingvery close to the boundary line separating two language areas.

Voluntary bilingualism may take two forms. t either occurs throughstrictly private endeavors, or the desire to become bilingual is matchedby legislation or other action on the part of the state so that, for exam-ple, the result of parents urging is that a second language not only istaught in the schools, but also is used.

Decreed bilingualism, though also backed by state authorities runscounter to the wishes of citizens. This is the policy pursued by pre-1914Germany towards the Poles (but not towards the French-speakinginhabitants of Lorrain), by Czarist Russia towards the Ukrainians, andby pre-I914 Hungary towards most non-hlagyar minorities.

The question as to whether we are dealing with natural, voluntary,or decreed bilingualism is of overwhelming importance should we yto predict future developments in a given area. Coercive measureswill inevitably arouse resentment and will lead to attempts at restrict-ing the actual use of the oppressors language to situations and encoun-ters where there are no alternatives, such as when writing letters toauthorities and the like. While natural bilingualism may often becomecompound, decreed bilingualism will almost always remain coordinate.

FOURTH VARIABLE: LEGAL STATUSBesides these three main ones other variables-some of them very

important-have to be considered if the Iinguistic situation in anygiven country is to be analyzed, or if developments within the fore-seeable future are to be predicted.

M. R. Bourgeois in Charles Becquet, editor, Le Bil inguisrne en Suisse en B e lg iqu c e t enCanada Brussels; Publ. d. e. Fondation Charles Plisnier, Etudes et Documents No. 5, 1963, p. 46,warns against confusion entre bilingualisme des servi e et bilinguisme des individus; M. vanHaegedoren, Le Mouuement Flurnand Brussels: Le Conseil Culture1 Flamand, p. 43, speaks ofbilinguisme des services, avec unilinguisme des agents.


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144 SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRYits speakers. These may neutralize one another in some cases and bemutually complementary in others. In India, Bengali, and Tamil mayboast of much richer literary heritage than Hindi which, however,may soon be foremost in efficient] planned modernization. Preliteratesocieties may contain a victorious caste of proud warriors who lendprestige for a long time to a tongue, which does not have any specialintrinsic merits itself or any impressive literature.

French-speaking Belgians have coined11 the terms bilinguisme depromotion, and bilinguisme de concession (or even de resigna-tion). The latter occurs where speakers of a tongue that is widely usedinternationally are compelled to learn the less prestigious language oftheir fellow-citizens, who are supposed to be learning the first tonguein order to promote their own well-being.

EIGHTH VARIABLE: DEGREE OF DISTANCEThe language situation may also be influenced by the degree of

intrinsic distance between the various languages spoken in a country.Thus in India we seem to find less readiness to acquire Hindi amongthe Dravidians than among the speakers of other (non-Hindi) Indo-Aryan languages. By and large, however, this variable might be ofminor importance.

NINTH VARIABLE:INDIGENOUSNESS OF SPEECH COMMUNITIES

The treatment that is meted out to various speech communitiesmay sometimes vary greatly according to relative length of residence.In Hawaii, for example, the language of the Polynesian inhabitantshas been favored over that of the far more numerous (and culturallymore advanced) Japanese who came to the Islands only a few decadesago. The feeling that latecomers ought to conform with existing lan-guage patterns is often shared by immigrants themselves; they oftendisplay considerable readiness and even eagerness to shed their ances-tral tongue.

TENTH VARIABLE:ATTITUDE TOWARD LINGUISTIC STABILITY

The degree of linguistic stability or instability in a language, itsmaintenance or shift, is often associated with certain of the variableslisted above. But what was once an effect may in turn become a cause,

Cf. Marion Coulon, LAutonornie Culture en Be l g i q ue Brussels: Fondation CharlesPlisnier, second edition, 1962, pp. 10 11; and Bourgeois, o p . cit., p. 46.


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MULTILINGUAL COMMUNITIES 145i.e., a new factor which influences the linguistic scene. Thus in theUnited States a century-old tradition of abandonment among linguisticminorities has led to the basic attitude that language shift is a naturaland wholesome step which is to be expected from a psychologicallymature minority population. There is some prima facie evidencewhich indicates that, while large scale language shift is usually con-sidered indicative of a progressive attitude in the Americas and inAfrica, in both Europe and Asia language loyalty is considered to benatural as well as wholesome. But this is little more than a tentativeobservation which calls for extended and detailed spadework before afinal answer can be given.

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