Language and Power

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I've got a gun license (from 1809, to be renowed in 1810 [which I forgot Laughing

]), which is printed on one site in French, on the other in German: it's from the territory of the French Kingdom of Westphalia [Royaume de Westphalie, Department Fulde, District Padeborn to be precise.]

Well, I thaught it to be quite natural to print documents in those two languages: the official and the actual spoken.
And I must admit that I never really though about this being a problem.

But recently I came across a thesis "Spanish in the Netherlands under Philip II until the Conquest of Antwerp (1555-1585)" [Wolfgang Alt, Trier, 2005]

The summary reads as follows:

Quote:

D'acquistare e governare e mantenere gl'imperii sono tre instromenti: la lingua, la spada et il tesoro." (Tomaso Campanella)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The focus of my thesis lies on the political relevance of the Spanish language in the Netherlands under Philip II, who as king of Castile was as the same time sovereign of the Seventeen Provinces between Thionville and Groningen. The corpus I examined (mainly the correspondence between the courts in Brussels and Madrid) shows that the choice of language was far more frequently determined by political and ideological factors than has hitherto been assumed. As early as 1562, when the trouble between king Philip and the noblemen in the Netherlands entered a new critical stage, Italian and Spanish were introduced by Margareta di Parma in Brussels and the king in Madrid in the form of a second channel" of communication in which things of higher importance were discussed. With the arrival of the duke of Alba in 1567, the language of this unofficial correspondence" became entirely Spanish and proved to be an outstanding instrument to undermine the power of the institutions in the Netherlands. Had the noblemen in the Netherlands not opposed the use of Spanish before the Revolt if it suited certain purposes, language now became a strategic tool and Spanish was judged upon as negative for ideological or propagandistic reasons. Especially the upper classes and those Netherlanders living outside the Seventeen Provinces (in exile or for professional reasons) increasingly perceived the Netherlands as a unity and also held their language in higher esteem. The supporters of the Dutch Revolt instrumentalised their own language as a weapon and argument against Spanish rule". Philip's few plans for Spanish language planning" such as the creation of a chair for Spanish at the University of Leuven and an exchange programme for students of the Universities of Salamanca and Leuven, were never realised, partly due to financial reasons. One chapter of this work treats with the language policy in Switzerland and France in the 17th and 18th century. In concordance with Tomaso Campanella cited above, the findings of my thesis can be summed up thus: Three instruments are an imperative for statecraft: language, military and money.

source: URN: urn:nbn:de:hbz:385-3268
URL: http://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/volltexte/2005/326/
(incl. the complete thesis as pdf-file [in German])

Does anyone know of more examples?

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Interesting topic, Walter. I'm not sure if this is an example that would meet your criteria, but the erstwhile Soviet Union, of course, is a prime case of how the language of the conquerors (Russians) gets grafted onto local non-Russian speaking localities. When the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) were incorporated into the USSR, following World War II, Russian became the de facto official language in these countries, although nobody spoke it at home or on the street. In fact, an insistence on maintaining their own languages was one of the things which enabled the Baltic states to immediately regain independence after the breakup of the Soviet Union and to shun any suggestion that they should become part of the new Commonwealth that the new Russian Federation recommended.

Language is, indeed, a mighty instrument of power. If you take away the language of a subjugated people, you take away a major part of their identitiy. I recall that indigenous Americans (the so-called Indians) were routinely forbidden to speak their own languages among themselves when they were sent to the white man's schools.

During the Russian supremacy in Latvia, I recall my father being asked whether he had never considered going back to Latvia to visit his homeland or whether his hatred of Communism was so strong that he wouldn't do it. He answered that it wasn't about Communism but about language. He said he would never return to Latvia as long as his visa had to be in Russian, rather than Latvian. Unfortunately, he died before he could see the full regeneration of his native land. When I visited Latvia, my visa was printed in Latvian, German and English.

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Exactly of such examples it is what I've thought of, Andrew.

There are quite a few examples, where exactly the opposite happened, namely that those people could stay on their own language, were helped even to develop it, like the German minority in Denmark or the Danish in Germany.

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Just occurred to me that new languages develop in such a way also. When Duke William of Normandy invaded and conquered England in 1066, Norman French became the language of the gentry, while the peasantry and tradesmen continued to use Old English in everyday life. But after a period of time, the upper classes had got to using some English words, while the lower classes had picked up a smattering of French to be able to understand their 'betters.' The upshot was the birth of a new language -- modern English.

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It's an interesting idea -- but didn't the members of Germany's ruling class speak French and Latin with one another long before Napoleon? For all I know, it didn't keep Prussians, Saxonians, and Bavarians from perceiving themselves as a unity. Or did it? German history before ca. 1750 is not my strength, so I'll be happy to be corrected.

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Thomas, I'm not sure whether this has anything to do with language or not, but, as to history, after the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire (which was, in fact, a kind of Greater Germany) there was no unity among the German states. Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria -- these were all separate kingdoms, principalities and dukeoms until Fredeick the Great reunited Germany again under what is generally termed the Second Reich. But, again, I don't think that language was a factor here. Waiting to hear Walter's opinion on that.

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Merry Andrew wrote:

Thomas, I'm not sure whether this has anything to do with language or not, but, as to history, after the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire (which was, in fact, a kind of Greater Germany) there was no unity among the German states. Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria -- these were all separate kingdoms, principalities and dukeoms until Fredeick the Great reunited Germany again under what is generally termed the Second Reich. But, again, I don't think that language was a factor here. Waiting to hear Walter's opinion on that.

This is mistaken in several respects. First, the Holy Roman Empire did not collapse until 1806, when Napoleon conquered it. Before that, it had been a loose confederation of states. It was reunited not by Frederik the Great, who lived before Napoleon, but in a rather long development starting with the failed Republican revolution of 1848 and ending with formal unification in 1871. The first emperor of the reunited Germany was Wilhelm I, who had done little to drive the unification. The main driver in the 1860s was Otto von Bismarck, who became Wilhelm's chancellor.

In any case, I was not talking about Germans perceiving themselves as a unity, but about Prussians perceiving Prussia, Saxonians perceiving Saxony, and Bavarians perceiving Bavaria as a unity. I hope that clarifies things.

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Thanks for that, Thomas. Also, I had misunderstood the thrust of your post.

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Thomas wrote:

First, the Holy Roman Empire did not collapse until 1806, when Napoleon conquered it.

Generally, it is thaught (at least legally) that the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation ended with the " Final Recess of the Imperial Deputation" ('Reichdeputationshauptschluss' - officially "Hauptschluß der außerordentlichen Reichsdeputation") in February 1803.

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Well that's what I thought.

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Fair enough, Wikipedia confirms 1806, but maybe we are wrong. Let's not quibble about three years. I would be much more interested in hearing your take on the role of the German ruling class speaking French, which was the point I raised in the first place.

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Merry Andrew,

The gentry did indeed cater to the French language after the battle of Hastings 1066.

I think it's interesting to note that good old Anglo-Saxon four letter words became replaced by Latin influence in French. Thus, S--t" became excrement
F---k became a more polite intercourse,
etc.

The indluence carries through to today.
We raise steers and cows, but eat "Boeuf" beef
raise chickens, but eat poultry
raise sheep - but eat mutton
raise pigs, but eat porque - pork
etc.

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Sorry, Thomas, didn't really want to be nitpicking or similar :wink:

I suppose, you might be right that at least parts of the ruling class were speaaking French. Besides, speaking French, was even a kind of an identifying mark as being a member of the ruling class. (For example: when someone was quoted as Monsieur Thomas in a source, which is otherwise in German, this can be seen as sign of his status: perhaps not really nobility, but "better" than the others.)

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Certainly the Court of the Romanovs was largely Francophone, with English and German used as secondary larguages. The Russian nobility spoke Russian only to their servants as a rule, not to each other. And when, prior to the outbreak of World War I, Czar Nicholas wrote personal letters to his cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm, they corresponded in English. This has been a great boon to Anglophone historians. :wink:

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Finland was a Swedish province, or colony if you will, for some 600 years (from the 12th centry until 1807) and the Finnish upper class was entirely Swedish speaking until the independence of Finland (from Russia) in 1917, although many sought to speak Finnish for nationalist reasons well before that.

This is the reason why Swedish is an official language of Finland next to Finnish, and in counties that contain a certain amount of Swedish speakers all official dcuments must be presented in both languages! The Åland archipelago is even entirely Swedish speaking and residence will not be granted unless you speak Swedish. Thus the Finland-Swedes are the best protected linguistic minority (by now onlt 8 percent of the population) in the world, something for which I count myself fortunate, since I belong to that minority!

Swedish as the language of the upper class has had a certain influence on the Finnish vocabulary, but due to the peculiarities of Finnish, this influence is only visible to linguists.

By the way, when Swedish was the language of the rulers in Finland, in Sweden the language for the ruling class was French (Americans should not underestimate the importance of French as a language of culture in the 18th and 19th centuries). The King of Sweden which ascended to the throne in 1818, as Karl XIV Johan, was a Frenchman (one of Napoleons ex-marshalls, in fact), who wrote in his memoirs that he spoke French to dignitaries, German with his servants and Swedish to his dog!

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Merry Andrew wrote:

This has been a great boon to Anglophone historians. :wink:

Correct: I'm writing English openly since that time Laughing

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A bit off-topic, perhaps, but it seems to me that in the past 60 years or so English has taken the place of French as the lingua Franka in Europe and, in fact, throughout the world. The prevalence of French as a near-universal language of the upper classes continued well beyond the 18th century. It was recognized as the universal language of diplomacy well into the 20th Century and was the most commonly used language at the short-lived League of Nations. It seems to have fallen into decline since the end of World War II.

When I was a wee lad in Latvia just prior to that war, there were what were sometimes known as 'the three local languages.' Latvian was the official language, but to get employment in any field where one might have to deal with foreign nationals, both German and Russian were required. And many people were apt to acquire a smattering of French and -- yes -- Swedish as additional languages.

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The Baltic states, especially Estonia, Ingria and Livonia, retained a Swedish speaking minority after the territories were lost by Sweden during the Great Nordic War (1700-1720), but during and after WWII practically all of those that remained emigrated to Sweden or America.

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THIS interesting animated pic shows the Swedish territories from 1560 until today.

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Very interesting, Walter. From what I've read on the subject, most Latvians and Estonians were quite comfortable with Swedish rule. And they adored King Karl XII for starting the Great Northern War against Czar Peter the Great. But that didn't turn out so well. As a result of that war, Livonia -- and later the rest of the Baltic territory -- ended up under the Russian rule. And this was not comfortable any more. In fact, Latvian insurrectionists were in the forefront of both the unsuccessful 1905 revolution and 1917 overthrow of the Czar.

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