New documentary explores identity in the linguistic landscape with a focus on Qatar
Focusing on official street signs in Qatar written with non-standard Arabic spellings, Mal Lawal explores the complex interplay of language, dialect, script, and issues of identity and migration. The documentary shows how supposedly “incorrect” spellings serve as visual icons that mark the public space as Qatari. They serve to showcase Qatari identity and heritage as distinct from other Arabic-speaking societies. The desire to mark the public space as Qatari must be understood against the demographic background that Qataris constitute only about 10-11% of the total population.
Beyond Qatar, Mal Lawal shows how social, cultural and economic tensions play out in the linguistic landscape more broadly. The documentary also provides an introduction to linguistic landscape research.
The ‘missing’ definite article
Rarely does a grammatical form like the definite article become a matter of intense public debate and receive big and bold headlines in newspapers. However, that’s exactly what happened when Al-Rayah, an Arabic language newspaper published from Qatar carried a six-page report on what it described as linguistic mistakes on government street signs. It published pictures of the signs containing the so-called mistakes circled in red and asked the government to correct them; the reporter and others interviewed for the report argued that the mistakes “distorted” the landscape of Qatar.
The most striking part of the report was the ‘missing’ alif in words with the definite article “al” which is written in Standard Arabic with the letters alif and lam as in al-kitab (الكتاب, “the book”). The report provided a list of more than a dozen street names which they believed were written incorrectly without the letter alif and contrasted them with the correct spellings. This needs to be understood against the background that in Qatari dialect words such as al-kitab is pronounced as liktab, dropping the initial letter alif.
The newspaper articles was published in 2016 soon after the Qatar government approved the Arabic Language Protection bill, which later became a law in 2019, whereby the use of Arabic became mandatory in many official domains (Amiri Diwan 2019). The Law is the culmination of a series of measures taken by the government in the last 10 years to strengthen the position of the Arabic language including reinstating Arabic as the medium of instruction in government schools and Qatar University.
In this context, a minor grammatical item such as the definite article becomes highly politicized. Our documentary explores the construction of identity in the linguistic landscape in greater detail.
فيلم: مال لوّل
يركز هذا الفيلم الوثائقي على لافتات الشوارع الرسمية في دولة قطر وخاة تلك المكتوبة باللغة العربية باستخدام تهجئات غير الفصحى والتي يعتبرها العديد من المتحدثين وعلماء اللغة غير صحيحة ومخجلة. ولكن تلك التهجئات غيرالتقليدية تعكس في الحقيقة اللهجة القطرية العامية بدلاً من اللغة العربية الفصحى وهو أمر غير متوقع في اللافتات الرسمية. ومن خلال اتباع نهج لغوي قام هذا الفيلم الوثائقي بتوضيح كيفية عمل هذه التهجئات غيرالصحيحة كأيقونات تبرز الهوية القطرية والتراث القطري وتقوم بتمييزهم عن المقيمين العرب. الدافع وراء ترميز الهوية القطرية على لافتات الشوارع باستخدام اللهجة القطرية ينبع من التكوين الديموغرافي الفريد للدولة والذي يشكل فيه القطريون حوالي 10-11٪ من إجمالي عدد السكان مما يدعوهم للقلق المستمر من التلاشي المحتمل لثقافتهم وتراثهم ولهجتهم.
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In Morocco different groups and ideologies can be perceived and separated into Arab and Amazigh tribes.
Hereby, the most known language is Tamazight. Its script is written in Tifinagh, but can also be found in Arabic, which shows the entanglement of the opposing groups.
Most Amazigh are bilingual and mix both languages while speaking. For example are Amazigh coming to the cities to sell their goods. For earning their daily bread, Arabic skills are necessary.
Due to the growing influence of Arabic, its international use and the influence of the Arab League, the language loss holds on.
Disparities between the population of the city and the remote Amazigh tribes can be seen.
Still, colonial structures influence the education, the daily lives and further undermine the position of tribal languages.
Power structures shifted due to the Constitutional Reform of 2011. Standard Moroccan Tamazight became an official language and the government integrated the Berber script on road signs and introduced the Tifinagh alphabet in some schools which was supported by the rising Amazigh movements.
Due to the diverisity of tribal languages, a promotion is difficult, which is why many of these languages will probably be swallowed up by Arabic or the standardized Amazigh languages.
Thanks for this comment, Carla! This would make a great topic for your presentation!
Since I’m Chinese, I don’t know anything about Arabic, but through this article, then I searched some info about definite articles in Arabic culture online.
as below:
Arabic has only one article, while English has two articles, “the” and “a”. If the Arabic word has the article “al”, it is equivalent to the English noun with “the”; if there is no article, which means it is to emphasize the quantities, it is equivalent to have ”a“ “one” or “some”.All kinds of Arab nouns, in the context of not emphasizing quantity, are all defaulted with the article al.
And Chinese has neither definite nor indefinite articles 😉
Thanks Carla for your insightful comments. I agree that this is a great topic for further exploration.
During my visit in 2016, I also noticed that English is now competing with French and in fact there is a push for adoption for English in the school system. How will this impact linguistic landscape remains to be seen.
Language is like a covenant that is constantly being renegotiated. This discussion is evidence of that. The choice to go with a local dialect vs using standard Arabic is definitely an important discussion to have. I think many Qatari’s are afraid both of losing our standard Arabic language and of diluting our Qatari identities. On one hand Qataris want to preserve the standard Arabic language as it is not spoken at home or between Qataris, and on the other Qataris are afraid of losing their identity due to globalization and as mentioned in the documentary being a minority in the country. It’s a constant struggle between national identity and much broader identity of being Arab. I think we can definitely reach an equilibrium by using a balanced mixed of standard Arabic in official signs and Qatari dialect in non official commercial signs. The key is to find the middle ground of honoring both local dialects and our native language. As for the use of the local Hadhari dialect to name areas, I am all for it as it is not used for every area/street in Qatar. I think Qatar uses a variety of naming methods that I think reflects our culture beautifully. A wonderful film by Dr Rizwan, thank you so much for highlighting an important discussion.
Thank you for the article Ingrid.
To reflect on my experience, in Thailand, the official language in Thai (central dialect). The Thai central dialect is used among government sectors, education, and is often assigned a prestige as high class language or the standardised language. However, there are other dialects that was originally spoken by Thai people in different regions before the central dialect are employed. The four regions of Thailand (North, Central, North Eastern, and South) all have different dialects have been spoken for centuries. Nowadays, there are various reasons why people from each region changed their way of speaking, tone as well as dialect to match the central dialect, or the so called “standardised language”. Some reasons behind this could be migration. When people migrate from South to Central part, they tend to change their original dialect to central one to avoid misunderstanding or the chances of being bullied that they speak differently. However, when they meet people who are originally from the same region, they automatically switch to their original dialect.
Speaking about being bullied, the origin of bullying motives are mostly from Thai soap operas or movies when they often describe the characters who speak regional dialect other than central dialect as “coming from countryside, being uneducated, low technology, for example, which in fact, is not necessarily true. These characters speaking regional dialects therefore are put as a funny role or inferior role in such movie or soap opera. The kind of activities are then passed on to reality, without questioning the truth or the morality behind this. This is the main reason how fake news or very negative stereotype are broadcast and believed from generation to generations. This vicious cycle not only make people afraid to speak in their original dialect, but it may also increase the chances of new generation stop speaking their own dialect, leading to dialect extinction the end.
In my opinion, dialects should be respected and preserved as we have learned from the beginning of Literacies class about how language was created and developed which is not an easy job at all. Also, in certain cultures including Thai culture, regional dialect is the only communication tools that new generation can use to communicate with their grandparents/older generation because they were born with such dialect, and would be so hard for them to learn new dialect/language at old age.
Thank you, for sharing this example from Thai. Sadly, these linguistic hierarchies and the bullying, discrimination, and exclusion they give rise to seem almost universal. You might be interested in this example from Iran: https://www.languageonthemove.com/ridiculing-accents/
I believe that language is the mediator between individuals and their cultural identity. And that is the case in Arab countries, what distinguishes each Arabic person from the other is their “Dialect”. Therefore, by preserving the authentic dialect we preserve our culture and heritage from extinction, especially in a globalized world. Also, we strongly believe as speakers of Qatari Arabic that we can achieve a socio-cultural necessity, and that is to maintain our unity as Qatari people, by upholding the use of our distinctive dialect.
Language plays an influential role in defining identity. Street signs emphasize local identity through their writing. It also serves as a way of protecting the future of the Qatari language, and culture, and of fostering pride in its people. Knowing ourselves is essential for maintaining the continuity of our languages and cultures as well as for passing along this rich history to future generations. There is more to a language than just conveying ideas or connecting people. Our personalities are reflected in it. In other words, it contains all the thoughts and understandings we have.
Qataris are worried about their identity and importantly their language, which is a strong indicator of identification, because they only make up 10% to 11% of the country’s overall population of 2.9 million. Communication can also be challenging because the majority of Qatar’s population does not speak Arabic. And maintaining Qatar’s identity is one of the country’s toughest tasks. In my opinion, the way we raise our children it’s important in maintaining our identity, because they’re growing up in a multicultural environment, they need to learn respect and accept others while being loyal and proud of their Arabic language and Qatari identities.
Language is the address of existence and identity, as it is the faithful repository in which the elements of belonging and the memory of the future are stored. A cultural identity is not complete, and its civilization specificity is not revealed unless its reference is embodied in the entity of a person in which three elements are identical: the homeland, the nation, and the state.
“Loss of identity” is a psychological disorder that is related to social conditions – it has no relationship between the presence of non-Qatari people. Yes, the presence of non-Qatari people affects the difference and influence of some dialects, but it does not reach the level of identity loss.
Yes, I see a conflict between the use of a non-standard local dialect on street signs and the Arabic Language Protection Law of 2019. These dialects affect and invade the Arabic language
References:
https://youtu.be/riLecrZt7xE
I believe that using a Qatari local Nonstandard dialect on street signs will cause people who are speaking a Qatari local standard dialect to throw a fit over this matter and the reason for that is mainly because people who speak the local standard dialect Also known as the Hadhari dialect cannot understand fully the Qatari non-standard dialect whereas people who speak the local nonstandard dialect known as the Budiwen dialect can understand people who speak the local standard dialect perfectly thus it is better that all street signs in the nation to be written in Qatari local standard dialect.
Unfortunately, the sad thing is that Qatari people nowadays, and also since a couple of years before have started to use English mostly with everyone they interact with, or even it could get to the extent that they use English daily with their family which makes their usage of their native language to be spoken less than usual and that’s why the government stepped in for the sake of preserving both the Qatari identity of people and as well for the sake of protecting the Arabic language because it is an official language of the country. Based on those reasons the government has decided to place this law on people not just Qataris but also on people who can speak Arabic because most Arab countries have Arabic as their own official language.
Qatari people have always cared about Arabic standard language ,but they also think that Relationship between Arabic dialects and social identity is important too. And that is why controversies happens between citizens in Qatar.Qatari people can distinguish which tripe a person belongs to according to his dialect for example people who say “رجال “which used in Bedouin tripes, yet “ريال “ is used by Hadhari tribes which’s will known in the Qatari community, e.g. مسجد and مسيد . In my opinion I agree with D.Darwish Al-Emadi who mentioned that Qatari people are skipping the “A” letter in any word with (الف ،لام ) whether written or pronounced as (لوسيل )instead of (الوسيل ), that’s because our dialect shorten some of the word because it used daily and emphasis our local identity.
My reflection after reading the short article and watching the documentary of linguistics landscape of Qatar, I gained the knowledge about it, also I was able to reevaluate my preconceived notion about use of local dialect on street signs. In my opinion I don’t think there is conflict between the use of non-standard dialect on street signs and Arabic language protection law in 2019 because the Arabic language protection law was only on state institutions and formal places. I think that we should use local non-standard names on street signs because the names was committed to preserve the geographical name from extinction for coming generations. Moreover, it was written in non-standard dialect to preserving the local pronunciation, Qatari identity and it’s easier for the people to pronounce it.
The changes and transformations that occur in the language, negatively or positively, are directly reflected in the identity of the speakers of that language, just as the distortions and imbalances in the identity of a group appear on the mirror of this group and dictate thought, Qatar has provided many opportunities for ownership and use for investment for non-Qataris residing in the country, the most famous of which is the “real estate field” of space lands and buildings I believe that the presence of non-Qatari people does not affect the identity. Every person is undoubtedly proud of his identity, and all Arabs are brothers…
I see no conflict between using the local language and preserving it. The Arabic language is in the heart and memory. These local dialects cannot change or erase it.
As a Qatari person who spent her entire life in Qatar speaking Qatari dialect, I never realized that these we considered mistakes as it was not strange for me because this is the way I say these words. But having explored more about the linguistic side of this topic, I now understand why it might be an issue for some Arabic speakers, because there is no Arabic dialect that lacks “AL” in its words, so seeing that some words written in “L” without the “A” of course the majority will consider it a mistake. However, I think the way they are written now is better, because it is in the Qatari dialect, and it emphasize the Qatari identity.
Language is an important aspect that is heavily tied to someone’s identity. Qatari people have faced the issue of losing their language due to dialects and have been subjected to laws and discrimination about this. However, there was a conflict between the use of a non-standard local dialect on street signs and the Arabic Language Protection Law 2019. And that we must apply the law of the Arabic language to the official street signs, but in my opinion, we should not change the names of the streets and leave them as they are familiar and accustomed to them by the people of the State of Qatar, and they were named in this way by the ancient Qataris in the seventies and eighties. Before the issuance of the law to protect the Arabic language, not changing it and leaving it as it leaves an imprint on the Qatari dialect in the country.
As Dr.Rizwan mentioned in his documentary the local Qatari identity must be distinction and unique from the standard Arabic and other variations in Arabic dialects, so Hadhari dialect is the best to represent local Qatari dialect as they use the variant (j) of the variable [k]
commonly unlike Bedouins who use variant (k) of the variable [k] similar to standard Arabic. And to show more of their Qatari dialect without communicating with others they use the signs on streets to write in a Hadhari handwriting so the visitors and people passing can see visually how different and unique Qatari dialect is.
Thanks Dr rizwan for sharing this fantastic and informative work . Many dialects utilized in various regions. Eventhough that the official language in Qatar , people tend to interact with each other more in English to avoid having to explain things or ask for clarification. English is more widely understood in Qatar than Arabic . In addition , they believe that learning Arabic is difficult and that not everyone can do it. For example :-Many Qatari parents were unhappy about their children losing their own identity because when kids get active in the English school, they lose their Qatari identity and gradually become more connected with the West identity ( English) . That is why parents should put more effort into raising and teaching their children to make cherish the Arabic language .
Qatari Dialect is a unique dialect and shares many similarities with other Gulf Arabic dialects. It was mentioned in the “Mal Lawwal” documentary that in 2016, the law on the protection of the Arabic language was approved by the cabinet. Then alraya newspaper wrote an article on the linguistic mistakes of the street or city names. In my opinion, city names don’t have to be written in standard Arabic language because people are used to pronouncing those names in the Qatari dialect, and they have the right to pronounce them that way. In the seventies, there was a roundabout called Al Maynoun or Al Majnoun roundabout; then the roundabout was removed, but still, the street was known as “Al Maynoun roundabout” by Qataris and non-Qataris. Recently, they named the street as Al Maynoun roundabout intersection.
Link to the article of Al Maynoun roundabout:
https://m.al-sharq.com/article/24/07/2022/دوار-المينون-يعود-للحياة-من-جديد-ماهي-قصته-ولماذا-كان-زوار-قطر-يخشون-المرور-به
Qatar nationals make up less than 15% of the total population, Qatari people fears of losing their identity with the presence of non Qataris and the different language people are speaking and how younger sees that speaking in english would make them more civilized in adding english words completely forgotten about how should they cherish their qatari dialect , After many years and with the children involvement in foreign schools that base their studies on foreign curricula , Many children lost their qatari identity and became more in tune with the western identity which made many qatari parents upset about their children losing their own identity ,Parents should focus more in teaching their children about their identity and care for it as the older people in the past did
I thought that it was weird for me to read a word like “لكتاب” even in a chat between me and my friends, I know that some say this word but mostly do not write it. I happen to know some few cases in my life that write like this and I always don’t understand why they don’t write it how it’s supposed to be written? I mean maybe because I’m Bedouin and I don’t say it like that. However, the moment I noticed the street signs like “لوسيل” I felt like it was meant for us to read, even though I don’t say most of those words but we are different and we are all one. The Arabic Language Protection Law 2019 is meant to keep our standard Arabic protected and in my point of view this is the perfect way to keep our language protected. I still feel weird when I read a whole paragraph between me and my friends that contains dozen of grammatical mistakes, but reading street signs or even malls or big places written by one of the Qatari dialects means a lot, they are unofficial signs and it may be a problem if it was official because most of Qatar population is international. Therefore, every country could have it way on establishing their dialect as a cultural view.
In some mountainous areas of Vietnam, a lot of minority children are able to speak English better than Vietnamese – their national language. This is owing to the strong language contact between these young locals and foreign tourists flocking to these areas to enjoy the picturesque landscapes and customs of these communities.
However, parents of these children become reliant on this seemingly-positive ability and make them become sellers. The young ones often go in groups and use their fluent language skills to force tourists to buy their traditional handicraft products, even though these tourists seem not interested. In the first encounter, they could make the purchase out of curiosity, but this soon gets on their nerves as the kids will not let them go until they buy more. From that, the values of these handmade products become lower significantly.
In combination with the difficulties in providing standard education in the official language to minority children, it is likely that more and more children will neglect their country’s language and adopt foreign tongues with ill intent. Local authorities have been making some efforts to raise awareness of national identity and show how this act can negatively influence minority children’s perception of their community, traditional values and international tourists. However, this will become more common following the rise in ethnic minority tourism, which poses a difficult problem to solve for local authorities as well as the government.
Thanks, Quynh! The education of minority children is a complex issue, in Vietnam as elsewhere. I’m curious whether these minority languages are also used in writing, particularly on tourist signs? Or commodities to sell to tourists?
In South Korea, we use only one mother tongue, several local dialect exist at each province. For example, standard Seoul language finishes every sentence as “~다.” however, at Jeolla province local people end sentences with “~께”. In addition, the dialect of Jeju island is not easy to understand. Therefore, Korea made standard Korean. Therefore, when I was watching this video, I had the question why Qatar did not use the standard Arabic, and from what language Arabic originated from, Latin? I don’t Know. Arabic is written from right as I know, therefore, people usually write with left hand, that was quite interesting to me before.
Hi SunKyung, Arabic is a Semitic language (like Hebrew or Aramaic) – it has nothing to do with Latin, a Indo-European language. Although Arabic is written from right to left, the right hand is the preferred writing hand, too. The overwhelming majority of humans are right-handed – that’s biological, not cultural …
Thanks for sharing this great work. I live in Bangladesh, where Bengali is the official language. However, apart from Bangla, English is the only other language widely used in the country. Due to the British colonization of the land, English is still a widely spoken and commonly understood language in Bangladesh. The use of English in the fields of education, government, courts, private organizations, media, and communication, among others, demonstrates how dominantly English is used in Bangladeshi society. Most of the private sectors use English as their official language. Even the advertising sector nowadays uses English as their media of communication. If we visit the biggest shopping malls in Bangladesh, we will hardly see the use of Bengali in their shop name, any promotions, or written advertisements. However, the government of Bangladesh still prioritizes Bengali in every public sector, for example, road signs, advertising, news, etc. Because 40% of Bangladeshi people are illiterate, using another language will create a communication barrier and confuse the general.
Thanks, Abdulla! Your mention of the literacy rate reminds me of a campaign in Bangladesh a while ago to stop public urination. The idea was to write “do not urinate here” in Arabic. The expectation was not that people would be able to read the signs but that the use of the sacred language would stop them from misbehaving … apparently it was not a huge success in the absence of public toilets: https://globalvoices.org/2015/05/11/why-arabic-scripts-on-the-walls-may-not-stop-public-urination-in-dhaka/ … do you know more about this campaign?
The article reminds me of how signs and advertisement banners in Eastwood, where I am living now, are written in different languages. There is a Chinese area in Eastwood in which there is a wide range of Chinese restaurants. Their signage is written with big Chinese characters first and then a smaller English translation of their names. Banners in some supermarkets or shops also have information that is written in both Chinese and English. I suppose this way of disclosing information can help to maintain the language of Chinese people who are living in an English-speaking country – Australia. Moreover, from my observation, there are a lot of Chinese people from the older generations living in this area and their English is not good. Only by writing information in Chinese can they understand what is being displayed on the signage and banners. However, Eastwood is still a part of Sydney, Australia, where there are not only native English speakers but also people from different countries. Therefore, the English translations in these banners and signage are also very helpful in attracting these customers. For example, because I am living in Eastwood, I often go to these Chinese restaurants to eat out with my housemates. We are all strange to Chinese characters so the English translations on the signage as well as banners really help us in choosing where to eat. Here are some pics I took to show some examples: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1i9_NxpkTcJpfmS2E9ifgt-SotrM3Vigq?usp=sharing
Thanks for these great examples! Visiting different Sydney suburbs is a bit like travelling around the world … do you know the show “8 Nights Out West“? It’s a culinary tour through some western suburbs … quite mouth-watering 😉
Elementary school, which is ‘Chodeung Hakkyo’, was originally called ‘Kookmin Hakkyo.’ ‘Kookmin Hakkyo’ was the name that changed when Japan forcibly occupied Korea. It is an abbreviation of the Imperial New People’s School, which means “the school attended by the people of the king of Japan.”
After Korea’s liberation from Japan’s colonial rule, it continued to be called ‘Kookmin Hakkyo,’ but in August 1995, the Government decided to change it to a new name that fits our national spirit to mark the 50th anniversary of Korea’s liberation. I remember when I was in the lower grades of elementary school, the school name was ‘Kookmin Hakkyo’. However, my graduation certificate is written as ‘Chodeung Hakkyo’.
Thanks, PurebearJo! Exploring language is a form of time travel, isn’t it?
Thank you for sharing the interesting story of Arabic language position. Meanwhile I think the origins and influence of Chinese are very interesting. As the saying goes Chinese culture is vast and profound so is the language. The language has evolved over the years and has changed over time. For example,There are many different ways of saying the word ‘I’ (我等，我辈，我躬，卑人，敝人，卑身，鄙老，愚，老身，爷，大爷，姑奶奶，老娘) and so on. And that’s not all. Moreover, there are different dialects depending on the place, including simplified and traditional characters. Such a complex language also has a certain influence in Asia, as the kanji in Japanese and some words in Korean are influenced by the Chinese script. Language is truly amazing.
Thanks, Chloe! Couldn’t agree more! Can you tell us a bit more about the differences between all these different “I”s? That’s a lot of ways to express the 1st person pronoun …
In ancient time, each person had a different first person pronoun depending on their status, position, age and gender. China has a long history and is divided into several dynasties, and depending on the dynasty the first pronouns of these people would also be different. To give a simple example, in the Qin dynasty the first pronoun of the emperor was “孤&寡人” but，in the Tang dynasty it was “朕”. The term “老身” is a term used by older women to refer to themselves and “鄙人，卑人” is a term of self-effacement used for men of low status. “敝人” is the term used by people of low moral character to refer to themselves. The term ‘姑奶奶, 老娘’ is a term used by older women to refer to themselves, but it is a bit crude and can sound rude. I won’t list them all, and to be honest I don’t feel confident in saying that I know every single self pronoun from the ancient and modern worlds, because there are just too many.
Thanks, Chloe! Sounds fascinating – I’ll have to read up on that! Any suggestions?
I found this website and article that helps with understanding。
Please have a look!!
https://eastasiastudent.net/china/classical/first-person-pronouns/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267997013_Change_of_functions_of_the_first_person_pronouns_in_Chinese
谢谢你!
**Note:** This is perhaps more of a social landscape than a physical one, but I continue nonetheless…
“And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, / They wol come up and offre a Goddés name.”
(“And whoso findeth him out of such blame, / They will come up and offer in God’s name.”)
-Geoffrey Chaucer, *The Canterbury Tales* (1387-1400)
Singular “they” has grown from a humble moniker for unknown individuals to a de facto marker of LGBTQ+ inclusivity in English-speaking spaces.
Among younger speakers of the language, it is preferred both for its succinctness (“his or her” be damned) and, increasingly, for its eschewal of the gender binary. Use of singular “they”, as such, is employed not only by those non-binary individuals (“enbies”) who select and identify with the pronoun, but all those who identify as an ally to progressive causes.
Respect for one’s pronouns–and avoiding misgendering them–is as fundamental a practice in many social circles as remembering a name.
Thanks, 烏 (からす)! It is quite amazing how much a humble little pronoun can signal …
What an interesting and informative article. In my country, Vietnam, our language is still widely used on every corner and sign on the street. Even though sometimes I could see some bilingual signs, it is not regular. However, there is one place where the language landscape is visible everywhere, which is Bangkok, Thailand. When I travelled to Bangkok, I was impressed by the density of bilingual signs. This is because Bangkok is the top-visited city in the world, with 22 million visitors per year.
Consequently, they have to use English everywhere, along with Thai, to serve visitors from other places. I have to admit that it is highly convenient. I could go around this city easily even though I do not know a word of the Thai language. Here is a picture that I took at the train station when I visited Bangkok https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rR_9WyB7C45KZpJm3myMz_JZptZTiD_P/view?usp=sharing
Thanks, Emma! Bangkok’s linguistic landscape includes many other languages, too, e.g., Japanese: https://www.languageonthemove.com/japanese-in-bangkok/
In Korea, different dialects are used by region, and the strongest and most unique dialect is the Jeju dialect.
As soon as you arrive at Jeju Airport, the very first sign you can see is ‘혼저옵서예’, which is ‘hello’ or ‘welcome’ in Jeju dialect. This dialect is an expression that is not usually used when speaking in standard Korean. But every Korean knows this means ‘hello’ as we can see this sign around Jeju when we visit there.
Signs in Jeju reflect their own language. Although signs in the downtown of Jeju are mainly written in standard Korean, signs in the outer area of Jeju can often be seen written in the Jeju dialect.
Thanks, Kate! “Welcome” signs are an interesting part of the linguistic landscape because “welcome” doesn’t convey much information and mostly serves symbolic purposes: https://www.languageonthemove.com/banal-cosmopolitanism/
Algeria has an official language which is Arabic and also they use French as a second language because of colonisation, however both languages are used in the country. even-though, the official language of the country is Arabic but all the commercial and non commercial signage are in Arabic and French. During the colonisation French was the only language used in the country, however, now both languages are used as some people understand French more than Arabic, also, within the same country there are many Arabic dialect and that’s because the country is to big and each dialect is different than the other so some people end up communicating in French to avoid explaining and asking for clarification. In addition, in some places people use french as a sign of being educated or high class to show they belong to the upper class so instead of communicating in Arabic they use only French, however, that’s not true as Arabic is a fancy and hard language too and not everyone cal learn it as it is a difficult language. Hence, in Algeria two languages are used Arabic and French but it was never an issue for Algerian to use two languages au contrary its beneficial as it facilitate the communication in an event were two people have different dialect and the communication is hard between them so French will be the first thing they use to avoid any complication.
Thanks, koki! I’m curious about Amazigh in Algeria. Has that language gained greater visibility in recent years? Is it used in the linguistic landscape?
Hi Ingrid, the interplay between language, identity and politics in Qatar reminds me of the debate about the use of 外(wài)婆(pó) or 姥姥(lǎolɑo) (both mean grandma) in a primary Chinese textbook in Shanghai a few years ago. The public debate aroused as the editor of the Chinese textbooks in Shanghai changed all the 外(wài)婆(pó) in a compulsory literature piece to 姥姥(lǎolɑo) for the reason that 外(wài)婆(pó) is known as a dialect mostly used in southern China instead of standard mandarin. Chinese citizens, especially people from the south argued that firstly, 外(wài)婆(pó) is widely used across all areas and provinces in China, so it should never be categorized as a dialect. Secondly, even if it is a dialect from southern China, it should be included as in the original literature and properly taught to embrace and celebrate the distinct regional identity and diversity of dialects. As a result, the editors amended the textbooks to change all the 姥姥(lǎolɑo) back to 外(wài)婆(pó) under the public pressure. This is not the only time people in the south challenges northern citizens (origin of standard mandarin ‘Putonghua’) over the use of a particular Chinese word or expression. I thinks this is another example of how standard national language, dialects and identity are interplayed. I do think it is necessary to promote a standard national language for the convenience of communication establishment of national identity, but we really should also protect the dialects and celebrate, value regional cultural diversity.
Great example, Rebma! The editor should have known (and will have discovered in the experience) that bilingualism is a normal human ability, and anyone can learn two different words for “grandma” – diversity enriches the standard language 🙂
In mainland China, subject to the vast territory and the various kinds of dialect, communication between people from different regions can be difficult. In 1955, China began to implement the promotion program of Putonghua, and it has became the lingua Franca since then. The popularization rate of Putonghua in China has reached 80.72% by 2020. It is obvious that Putonghua has taken the dominant place, leaving little space for other languages and dialects. However, Putonghua has also integrated with and influenced by the local languages in the promotion process, my parents would usually talk to me with Putonghua mixed with dialect, which happens in so many families as well, because they wanted me to practice speaking standard Putonghua, but they can’t speak it properly. Therefore, I thought that some of the words that only appear in the dialect were also standard Mandarin, and I would use them with my classmates and teachers in school where we should only speak Mandarin, and nobody had any problems with it, everyone would use them, but with the standard Mandarin tone, and with the development of social networks, dialect words are also getting known by more people and used in their daily life.
Thanks, Librarising! Language contact does work in so many different ways and traces of large-scale shift will inscribe themselves into the dominant language, as your dialect-words-turned-standard demonstrates …
Having watched the documentary and read Ella’s comment, it occurred to me that most of the signs in South Korea consist of predominantly English text. It was so natural and familiar that I didn’t even realize the reason why they are not written in Korean until I watched this documentary. Presumably, the reason is not only because English is the global and predominant language but also the entrenched idea that the design of English letters is more sophisticated and stylish than Korean letter from the Korean Perspective. However, this conventional perception breaks down when you visit Gwanghwamun, located in Seoul, where you can see a Korean traditional palace built during Joseon Dynasty and the statue of King Sejong who created Hangeul, the Korean alphabet. It is very rare to see Korean text predominating the signs of names of buildings and even some stores and companies, like STARBUCKS. I feel like this place is a symbol of the preservation of our own national identity, full of Korean style and culture. It is ironic that this place seems awkward considering it should be more natural to see signs adorned with Korean letters.
Thanks, Suyeon! Good reminder that global languages come and go … English may be on top of the global linguistic hierarchy now but that wasn’t true even a hundred years ago and won’t be true in the future …
Politically correct language constantly faces disruptive semiotic forms aimed to call attention to several social concerns. For instance, distinguishing a community and highlighting its values through language (Just like in Lawwal’s documentary). Or Anastasia Candre’s narration portraying her mother, who avoided learning Spanish, because it resembled the people that took away the peace from Amazon indigenous communities.
One disruptive form of language that I can think of is rock music, from the aesthetics to the lyrics; these groups have been the voice of many generations. They have managed to represent youngsters’ discomfort with the establishment through powerful songs, psychedelics, and sometimes disturbing album covers, or music videos.
A potential research prospect sets in the linguistic atmosphere of the Mexican American band “Brujería”, through a brutal display of reality, they present issues such as drugs, migration, and politics in a way that has been subject to debate. For example, in this song, you can have a look at their perspective regarding the US southern border: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kCRbSyjmo
And if you’re curious about heavy metal and LOTE, you can have a look at the text
Multilingual Metal Music: Sociocultural, Linguistic and Literary Perspectives on Heavy Metal Lyrics
https://tinyurl.com/2p37ndrf
Thanks, Jhonny, for the song and the reference! What a discovery!
During lockdown period, the need of delivery has increased significantly and terms of “ship” and “shipper” have become more popular in Vietnam. Instead of using Vietnamese words (giao hàng hoá, người giao hàng hoá, etc.), Vietnamese people, even elders who do not know English, use the words “síp” (ship) and “síp pơ” (shipper). I think the reason is that people use social media in the COVID-19 period more than on usual days and social media is an international environment. As a result, through social media, the words “ship” and “shipper” are more familiar to everyone, and more Vietnamese delivery companies also use those English words in their advertisement. For example, the link below is from a popular delivery service in Vietnam and it uses the word “shipper” in the poster.
https://www.grab.com/vn/blog/grabexpress-ra-mat-dich-vu-rent-thue-shipper/
Thanks, Brownie! The language of delivery logistics and how it has changed with the pandemic sounds like a great suggestion for a research project!
Thanks for the article!
Interestingly, the article that I had to analyse for my presentation was based on Qatar and the government’s struggling response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Qatari government didn’t recognise the minority languages that exist in Qatar which was a nightmare for them. It’s a long story but the Qatari government did not emphasise other languages like Hindi and Tagalong (due to big migration population).
I guess the bilingualism of street signs is getting more common across places around the world, except for native English-speaking countries like Australia. I’m yet to see a street sign in my local street to have another language despite living in a relatively multicultural community. In regards to the documentary and article, there are so many examples when quotes, sentences and words can get lost in translation, and this can cause massive problems. I use Google Translate sometimes (I know, it’s not reliable) and some huge miscommunication problems can arise because they don’t emphasise on specific articles or grammatical forms of specific languages.
As the world continues to learn more languages, and with greater resources, I think personally we are getting more lost with translations and the reliability of online sources that are not accurate.
Thanks, Ian! Dr Rizwan is the author of that article, too 🙂
Ahmad, Rizwan, & Hillman, Sara. (2021). Laboring to communicate: Use of migrant languages in COVID-19 awareness campaign in Qatar. Multilingua, 40(3), 303-338. doi:doi:10.1515/multi-2020-0119
In the past, Viet Nam was invaded by many countries; consequently, our language has been affected a lot. Vietnamese people first adopted “chữ Hán” from Chinese as an official language, and then the ancestors created the writing system called “chữ Nôm” which was based on Chinese characters and native words. Many well-known poems written in “chữ Nôm” are still taught at school and appear in examinations. Later on, when the French colonized Viet Nam, they hugely impacted our culture and language. They use Latin characters and diacritics, making the writing system easier to learn and teach. Latin gradually took the place of the ancient “chữ Nôm” as the national language script and became the official writing system. It is not difficult to find elements of French throughout Vietnamese society, such as pho, banh mi, and motorbike culture. The Vietnamese language also contains dozens of French’ loan words’ that, while often spelled and pronounced differently, serve as a reminder of the country’s colonial past. And, unless you have a grasp on both French and Vietnamese, many of them do not seem particularly obvious.
Thanks, Clara! As an outsider, I sometimes feel like the Vietnamese writing system is the worst of both worlds: it has Latin letters but the European pronunciations hardly ever seem apply … so it seems like the spelling should give me a clue to the pronunciation of a name, for example, but, as likely as not, it doesn’t … any tips how to deal with that problem so that I can learn to pronounce my Vietnamese students’ names more effectively? 🙂
Hi Ingrid, I am really sorry for the late reply. I totally understand your effort when trying to pronounce Vietnamese students’ names correctly in class. It is difficult to say there are any tips to speak Vietnamese as my language is monosyllabic, and syllables are pronounced separately. If you have time, I highly recommend you start with the Vietnamese alphabet, or you can note some Vietnamese names that you often pronounce incorrectly to remember. There are just a few that can confuse you, for example, my friend’s name, “Dung”. The rest of the Vietnamese names are quite easy to speak. I believe you can probably do it in the near future.
🥰
Thank you for your interesting article. I concur with Tram and Emily that the inclusion of language can sometimes give individuals the impression that they are being treated like criminals. I remember vividly when I had a trip with my family to Thailand last year, and we tried a lot of local cuisines there. However, the thing strongly impressed me was the note on the wall of every buffet restaurant. It was in English, “Do not waste food or you will be charged for 300 baht” and below the sentence was the Vietnamese version. I know that Thailand is an attractive destination for traveling, and the visitors definitely come from all over the world. The problem here was their action of translating warning signs into only Vietnamese somehow gave me a sense of uncomfortable. It appeared that only Vietnamese people did not value the food and would waste it in their restaurants. The rest of the things from the menu to the instructions to order were still in Thailand and English only. I firmly believe that it would be better if restaurants provided various languages besides Vietnamese, as this would boost customers’ pleasant experiences.
Thanks, Clara! Sorry to hear of tourism signage that impacted your holidays! There is an example of a similar sign at https://www.languageonthemove.com/multilingual-prohibitions/ – this one is in 6 languages – all the major tourist languages of the hotel in Prague where I took the photo. Because it’s so multilingual it doesn’t single any one out and, for better or worse, all tourists are equally constructed as transgressors …
The video reminds me of what I am experiencing in Sydney. The language signs especially the name of restaurants in suburbs where many Chinese stays are usually written in Chinese. I even realized that when I swiped my credit card at Burwood shopping center, the pos machine gave me clear Chinese instructions showing on the screen, which shows a special linguistic landscape of suburbs like Burwood, Chatswood and other suburbs that do not speak English the most. Furthermore, those suburbs have their own Chinese names shown on Google Maps, and somehow the names are pronounced in Cantonese which I am not familiar with as one who speaks Mandarin.
Thanks, Maya! The digital linguistic landscape is clearly the next frontier! I’ve also discovered that the receipts in some of the Chinese supermarkets in Chatswood are in Chinese only, which I actually find a bit unsettling …
Thank you for sharing this video. It’s new and interesting information to me. The linguistic landscape of Australia is highly diverse, but it varies depending on the region. When I first came to Australia, I was surprised by how naturally bilingual the linguistic landscape appeared to be, particularly the signs of shops and restaurants. However, store signs or menus are displayed in the language spoken by the majority of the residents. For example, in the Vietnam neighbourhood, most of the stores are titled in Vietnamese; similarly, in Chinese or Korean communities, they prefer using their languages. However, when I visited Vietnamese restaurants or shops in other areas, I saw that the shops had some Vietnamese names and other English ones. In certain places, “banh mi” is referred to as “pork roll” instead of “banh mi.” Although there are a few sites where Vietnamese is still used, Vietnamese characters are generally more minor and behind English, especially in areas with few Vietnamese. The language chosen depends on the residents of each neighbourhood or the targeted and primary customer base of each restaurant.
Thanks, Kat! You also have to keep in mind that Vietnamese Australians are likely to be bilingual and so code-switching and language mixing is to be expected …
Talking about road signs, I read some online comments by some North Indian people who were travelling in South India and they had to face some problems reading the signs on boards which were completely in the local language. Even though nowadays we have a lot of support from technology in terms of translation and navigation services, but it’s still a matter of inclusion in the society. Looking at our own language especially in our own country, makes us feel accepted in the society. Recently, there were protests going on in Karwar, a city in Karnataka, India. Konkani speaking people are demanding that road signboards should be written both in Kannada (the state language) as well as Devanagari scripts. The protest started because the municipality had installed signs in both the languages but the Kannada speaking organizations got the Devanagari script removed. Leaders said that it is a question of the sentiments of the Konkani speakers. And few even said that if their language is neglected, then people will move to other cities where they feel accepted.
Thanks, Tushar! Can you recommend a reference about the Kawar protests? I’d love to learn more.
Talking about India, it has 22 separate official languages and 28 states in the country. Hindi and English are the major languages. Looking at the road signs, you will find that in the national capital Delhi, the road signs are in four languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and English, but if there’s someone who can’t understand any of these four languages, then that’s a matter of discussion. As it is said that you can’t have everything in life and you have to make compromises, and that is true looking at the situation of a government, especially Indian govt. which has to deal with so many official languages as well as other mother tongues that are spoken which are not even listed in this list. If you travel through different states in India, you will find that the road signs will mostly be only in two languages; English and the state language. English is permanent on all signs throughout the country and the state governments include their official language as well on the signs. But, there’s no inclusion for any other local language, because that’s technically not a viable option.
Thanks, Thushar! Agree that we can’t have everything – and that’s what makes the study of the linguistic landscape so fascinating as it allows us to interrogate what kinds of choices are made and who benefits from those choices …
You might enjoy this article by Dr Rizwan about changes in India’s linguistic landscape:
Ahmad, Rizwan. (2018, 2018-10-12). Renaming India: Saffronisation of public spaces. Al Jazeera. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/10/12/renaming-india-saffronisation-of-public-spaces
Singapore is a multilingual country with four official languages. When I visited Singapore, I was amazed by the fact that the signs in the subway used four languages. The nameplates of the stops were often translated into major languages such as Malay, Madarin, or Tamil. Emergency signs and directions were also fully written in four major languages. Furthermore, MRT announcements were also recorded in all four languages. This might help people with poor English ability to use public transport and be aware of basic and necessary instructions such as exits. And I thought the linguistic landscape in Singapore was so diverse that the placement of the four main languages seemed to be equal.
However, in fact, English is still a dominant language in Singapore’s linguistic landscape. English is the preferred language used most in government, business, or even daily communication. Tang’s research (2020) showed that signs in English still overshadow the remaining languages, whether monolingual or bilingual. He also mentioned that languages in Singapore are also hierarchical when English appears with other languages; it takes up the first place, and the last place is always Tamil if the four languages stand together.
Tang, H. K. (2020). Linguistic landscaping in Singapore: multilingualism or the dominance of English and its dual identity in the local linguistic ecology? International Journal of Multilingualism, 17(2), 152–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2018.1467422
Thanks, Kat, for the interesting reference! Equality in the linguistic landscape is virtually impossible … you might also enjoy the chapter on “stratification” in my book Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice
In Korea, there is an area, Jongno-gu, that only has commercial billboards, banners, and street signs in Korean. As there is lots of interaction and integration with foreign countries, foreign languages, such as Chinese, Japanese, and English, are widely spread in the language landscape in Korea. Jongno-gu is one of the autonomous districts in the centre of Seoul, South Korea. They established “A by-law of Hangul love” to regulate the exorbitant use of foreign languages. Most billboards and banners are written in Korean to preserve Korean and avoid unnecessary use of foreign languages. For example, ‘Starbucks coffee’ is written as ‘스타벅스 커피’, ‘Baskin-Robbins 31’,which is an ice cream café, is written as ‘배스킨 라빈스 31’, and ‘Toilet’ is written as ‘화장실’. Likewise, visitors to the area might feel the beauty of Korean and get a strong impression of Korean identity.
That’s so interesting! Where can I read more about Jongno-gu?
Transliterated brand names can also be found in the Arab world: https://www.languageonthemove.com/linguistic-theory-in-dubai/ and https://www.languageonthemove.com/transliterated-brand-names/
As globalisation, importing western products or receiving foreign travellers in Korea, even though Korean is dominant as our national language, there are many road signs, billboards, banners, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings in English. For instance, road signs are generally written in both Korean and English in most major cities, such as Seoul, Busan, and Daegu. Furthermore, lots of English commercial billboards and banners are predominant, showing modernity and appealing stylish and fancy. Moreover, shop and restaurant signs are also written in English. On the one hand, it is beneficial for foreigners to quickly deliver information. Many elderly people, on the other hand, struggle to comprehend the meaning of the signs. For instance, toilet, takeout, self-order, sold out, and so on. According to the Korean ministry of culture, sports and tourism, the level of understanding of foreign languages among the elderly in their 70s and older is less than half of the national average in 2020.
It is useful to include foreign languages in the language landscape. However, it needs to have a balance between the inclusion and exclusion of foreign languages.
Thanks, Haein! Road signs outside countries using the Latin script are actually required to be bi-scriptual for all signatory states of the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. Article 14 stipulates that “The inscription of words on informative signs […] in countries not using the Latin alphabet shall be both in the national language and in the form of a transliteration into the Latin alphabet reproducing as closely as possible the pronunciation in the national language.” As more and more countries have become signatories mono-script directional signage outside the Latin-script world have largely become a thing of the past …
Thank you for this interesting article. Languages are ubiquitous in today’s society; they are found in advertisements and commercials, the names of buildings, streets, and shops, instructions and warning signs, graffiti, and cyberspace. In Vietnam, language use in the linguistic landscape can reflect some of the features in the area. For example, it is not hard to see multilingual private announcements like the rental of flats or public signs in the heart of Ho Chi Minh city. I believe using multilingual signs helps to actively include target people and be accessible to a wider public; in this case, they are foreign business partners and foreign residents. In addition, the mark of identities in specific areas can be seen on shop signs. Chinatown is one of the notable examples in this case. The shop signs written multilingually in Chinese and Vietnamese, together with the traditional architecture, stress the uniqueness of Chinese people’s living area. All in all, linguistic landscape is important as it indicates what languages are locally relevant to include targeted people and mark specific features in an area.
Here are the pictures to demonstrate my comment:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1G0L2IcrDjk8vW2OnQW38hR_rvkV3Bsxn?usp=sharing
Thanks, Characoal, for sharing these interesting Vietnamese-Chinese bilingual signs! Are these only in areas where traditional Chinese minorities reside, and are there different signs for “new” Chinese, like tourists, students, or business people?
In the linguistic landscape of Vietnam, although the English-using population is limited, English has still become the most prevalent foreign language being learned and utilized in some fields such as tourism, advertisements, etc.; second only to Vietnamese – the official language. However, Nha Trang, the capital city of Khanh Hoa province located in southern Vietnam has witnessed the dominant status of Russian and Chinese in tourism and advertising due to the rapid and massive growth of Chinese and Russian tourists. Many shops display signs in these languages and many restaurants prepare their menus in these languages. Even the store staff, waiters and waitresses can speak Russian and Chinese. Here is an example: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HLp1ZYEbUDf5esvSbUHNAGCCrVyc1MtP/view?usp=sharing
The purpose of these languages is to attract and welcome Russian and Chinese people- their target customers. Recently, the Nha Trang tourism industry has struggled with the shortage of Chinese and Russian tourists due to the impact of Covid pandemic and the Russia- Ukraine conflict. Consequently, this city is seeking ways to diversify tourism markets with an eye on the India tourism market. I wonder whether it will lead to the inclusion of Hindi in the future?
Money talks, as they say … https://www.languageonthemove.com/money-talks/
This video and article was opened my eyes to the Arabic language. As I did not know that Arabic had different dialects and other ways of pronouncing the same word according to the region/dialect. A public sign is supposed to be understood by everyone and I found it interesting that the authorities are trying to preserve standard Arabic, as well as maintain the regional, distinctive dialects and that Dr. Ahmad did not understand why some Arabic words that were written in English did not match his way of pronunciation. The signs that were written in the local style may offer pride, sense of belonging and a way to introduce the community to the public. But it needs to be understood by people who are not from region ; and one must also consider standard Arabic because Arabic is one of the United Nations official languages and people need to communicate and understand each other.
Thanks, Chocomilk! You raise an important point about the need for street signs to be clear to everyone … using them to express local identity may defeat their purpose…
Thank you for sharing this article!
China is a multilingual and multi-dialect country, which is also reflected in the urban language landscape. In addition to the bilingual landscape of Chinese and minority languages in minority areas, there are also Chinese-English bilingual landscapes in major international cities. As China becomes more and more integrated with the world, the language landscape of the developed tourism areas tends to be more diverse. For example, on many signs, Chinese is the dominant language, while English, Korean, Japanese and other languages are used as auxiliary foreign languages. In addition to serving tourists, the increasing number of foreign languages or national languages among the sign languages in major tourist areas and commercial areas can also meet the needs of people of different nationalities, ethnic groups and backgrounds with different language abilities. These “Chinese first, foreign languages supplemented” language landscapes have obvious symbolic meanings of mother tongue authority, reflecting the unshakable status of Chinese as China’s absolute dominant language and also demonstrating China’s enthusiasm as well as friendship towards other countries. It is said that the language landscape can not only reflect the language pattern of pluralism and unity, but also show the country’s tolerance of multilingualism.
Thanks, Kelly! You might enjoy this book: https://www.languageonthemove.com/english-china-and-the-olympic-games/
As a (Non-Qatari) Arabic speaker, it took me a couple of minutes to understand the title (Mal Lawwal), and I am sure that many Arabic speakers would have no idea about the meaning. Watching this documentary made me worried about the language. I understand the concerns of the Qatari authorities about their identity, but I think that such way of writing is destroying the Arabic language. I have visited many Arab countries where all signs are written in standard Arabic and English, but I have never seen any signs or formal messages written in any Arabic dialect. I believe that formal writing including road signs and street names has to be written in standard Arabic which is the unified written form of the language. This is to protect the language and make it understandable for all Arabic speakers. Taking the word (much) as an example, the commonly understood form of it is the standard form (Kathiran), however, if we are to write it in different dialects we can say (Awi, Halba, Barsha, Bizzaf, Ktir. Kithir, Wayed, Hwaya, Shdid, etc.). Therefore, if each country uses its dialect for writing, the Arabic language would lose its identity.
Thanks, WAA! It’s actually quite amazing that Standard Arabic even exists, given this great level of diversity! Agree that the uniformity of the written standard language is an important good. Do you think Standard Arabic will survive social media where everyone can write in whichever way they please?
I think that social media doesn’t have the same impact as road signs, or any written documents issued by the government. The Arabic language also has its religious background which makes it very hard for it to disappear.
I do not necessarily see a conflict between the representation of dialect pronunciation on signs and the desire to promote standard Arabic. The signs have a very limited function and do not really interfere with standard Arabic. If the presence of multiple forms for the word ‘very’ in different dialects do not pose a threat to Arabic, these signs in Qatari dialect don’t either.
Mal lawwal مال لوَّل is a Qatari pronunciation of Mal Al-awwal مال الأول ‘of older days’ which may sound non standard but is actually attested in Quranic recitations. In Warsh’s reading of the Qur’an when the definite article Al- is attached to words beginning with a hamza, the Hamza is dropped resulting in words like Al-?ardh being pronounced as a-lardh.
The presence of multiple forms do not automatically lead to disunity and the vice verse. Unity is a social and political act that can be achieved even when people speak different languages.
Very interesting video, I believe the reason behind the study is very legitimate to protect the linguistic landscape in any country. Even though the main language is Arabic in Qatar but the use of Qatari dialect make it really hard for Arabic speakers to comprehend the language. I believe the issue with the signs mentioned in the video is not the only problem. I agree with protecting any country heritage dialect but I believe we should protect more the standard language which is the language we use to read and write. Dr Rizwan mentioned in the video how the pronunciation for the rice dish differ between Bedouins and Hadar (people who live in cities) the way I see it when I read the name and heard the pronunciation it makes no sense to me as an Arabic speaker. This is making it harder for any Arabic speaker to communicate in our own language. In Lebanon, we use the standard Arabic on the street signs plus we have translation in French and English and that is for tourism reason. As for shops, cafes etc. they use French more to make the place look more attractive and elegant especially in the cities where we have more tourists and classy people. I do not mind the use of English or French on signs but I think a translation should be provided as not all population of Lebanon is bilingual. We learn both languages at school but we only use Arabic to communicate. I guess we are getting to a place where we will loose our standard language due to globalisation therefore we should work harder to protect it. I really like the way the Qatar Government enforced laws and rules to protect the language and this should be worldwide because the issue is not only for Arabic but after reading some of my colleagues comments i noticed that most countries are loosing the identity of their languages.
Thanks, Lily! As you rightly point out, the written and spoken language are different beasts. And diversity is a greater value in spoken language but uniformity is more desirable in writing.
In Indonesia, most of the official signs are written in Indonesian or bilingual, depending on the location. Bilingual signs are often found in the airport or tourist areas. Further, I’ve hardly seen any official signs written in any local tongues except in Bali. Despite the language ideology of the Indonesian government, the mix of local languages with English, Indonesian, and other local languages can be found in the name of restaurants, villas, and shops. Article “the” often use before local words such as The Bangket (the rice field), The Bale (the house), etc. Many local words are still used, specifically for restaurants. However, only a few Indonesian companies use local words for the name of national or global brands. I often mistake Indonesian big brands for foreign products since most of them are named in English. For example, The Executive, Tompkins, Silver Queen, Excelso, etc. And I still can’t believe that Terry Palmer is a towel brand from Indonesia. Interestingly, almost all Indonesian airlines combine Indonesian words with the word “air, airline, or aviation” i.e., Sriwijaya Air, Batik Air, Garuda Indonesia Airline, Adam Air, Kalstar Air, etc instead of using the Indonesian word “udara, perushaan penerbangan, penerbangan”.
The unceasing attraction of English…
Finland has two official languages, Swedish and Finnish. However, in Finland, a few minority languages have a special status that allows the language to be used in specific areas, for example, when dealing with authorities. Sami is one of these languages.
In bilingual cities and places, signs are written in Finnish and Swedish. Similarly, in the areas populated by the Sami people, Sami languages are used in the landscape. Three distinct Sami languages are used in different parts of Finnish Lapland. On some occasions, these different languages might be considered dialects because they are similar in many ways. Therefore, the linguistic form in the street and shop signs might vary depending on the area’s dialect. So the phenomenon is someway like the one in Qatar! Although I don’t think that different Sami languages or dialects in “official contexts” is considered a problem among the Sami people.
Thanks, Milla! Can you tell us what kinds of signs are usually written in Sami? Is it mostly official or commercial? And more likely to convey information or for symbolic purposes?
Most signs are official signs, like road signs and place names. Some shops, especially if they sell products made by the Sami, might also have their signs written in one of the Sami languages. There is, unfortunately, a long history of oppression and discrimination against the Sami people in Finland. Thus I think that the reason is symbolic, a way to tell the Sami that they also belong here. I believe that majority of the Sami are bilingual and know Finnish quite well, so there is not really a “need” to have informative signs. But like said, they should get all official information from authorities in their mother tongue.
Thanks Milla for your comment. Given the recent entry of many Arab refugees into Finland, it would be interesting to see how Arabic fares in the linguistic landscape of the country. This is especially important because most recent immigrants wouldn’t know Finnish. One would expect inclusion of Arabic in the signs so as to facilitate the basic needs of communication.
Thanks, Rizwan! Have you seen this article? It shows how Arabic on some Finnish signs racializes Arabic speakers and brands them as thieves:
Nishiyama, Hidefumi. (2020). Racializing surveillance through language: the role of selective translation in the promotion of public vigilance against migrants. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43(10), 1757-1775. doi:10.1080/01419870.2019.1654115
Thanks for sharing this article, Ingrid. It is very interesting; it shows not only the politics of translation of signs but also how it is used for racialization of minority speakers.
As someone who was born in a Cantonese-speaking region, I think Mandarin is much more influential than Cantonese. The most obvious phenomenon is that our local children (the 10th generation) almost no longer have to speak Cantonese, because the teachers in school speak Mandarin, the TV shows are also Mandarin, the only way for them to learn Cantonese may be their parents.
When I was studying in Guangzhou, I went to the village near the school to teach children. I found that many native children can only do listen to cantonese, but can’t speak cantonese (even if their parents also speak cantonese). I communicated with them in Cantonese at first, but they replied me in Mandarin, and I felt that it was very inconvenient for them to speak Cantonese. I have asked these children why they don’t speak Cantonese, and their answer is that they rarely use it. In school, it is also required to use Mandarin when chatting with classmates between classes, and children listen to their parents’ Cantonese at home. In this language environment, the new generation may not have an affinity for Cantonese. How to protect Cantonese? Language and culture should be passed down from generation to generation, the current generation is already like this, and it may gradually disappear in the future…
Personally, I think the protection of local languages mainly depends on two aspects: education and the export of Cantonese culture. If it weren’t for the support of Hong Kong’s Cantonese cultural output, Cantonese would decline faster, but in the past 10 years, Hong Kong’s film and television has also declined…
You can see this viedo: The dying Language in Guangzhou: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AIvQZ7pvow&t=31s
Thanks, YJ! Your harrowing description of the gradual disappearance of Cantonese reminds me of Yoko Ogawa’s novel “The Memory Police” …
I find it very interesting that I can still experience “a taste of Vietnamese culture” here in Sydney, Australia. According to the 2016 census, accounting for 33% of Cabramatta’s approximately 22,000 residents, its predominant ethnic group is Vietnamese. Therefore, whenever I visit Cabramatta town square, I realise that there is a shift from English to the Vietnamese linguistic landscape. On the busiest thoroughfare, John Street, all the storefront signs use English and Vietnamese. Everyone strolls and stops to engage in small talk, and they all speak Vietnamese. I also found an unofficial printed sign that was written in English and Vietnamese warning people to not give the “fake monk” any money (image link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NBzHADJDdLWmFmHwjqpIItA8Codcf03y/view). This is very helpful in keeping Vietnamese, who have a low level of English, informed because it is likely that a vast majority of Vietnamese will read the sign. Overall, I think that the population, the language used, prominence, target audience, and sociolinguistic implications contribute to the inclusion and exclusion in the linguistic landscape.
Thanks, Minnie, for the great example! I’ve added it to my collection of Sydney signage. Visiting different suburbs of Sydney is like a mini-trip around the world … personally, I first encountered the Ngoc Lu Drum, through its replica at Saigon Place in Bankstown. It’s kind of amazing to think that an artifact in contemporary Sydney led me on a journey of discovery about the Dong Son culture and the Bronze Age in Vietnam … 🙂
Thank you for sharing an amazing article! In Vietnam – my home country, it can be easily seen that Vietnamese is dominant in every corner of public places although it is known as a country with diverse ethnic backgrounds. Vietnamese is used because it is the national language of my home country and it is the one that people of all ages can read and understand. However, in the integration period, English is becoming more popular and widely used in some biggest cities in Vietnam such as Ho Chi Minh, Ha Noi and Da Nang. It is not a surprise for everyone in these places to encounter some English words in advertisements, banners, posters or billboards. For example, nowadays, nearly most Vietnamese shopping malls or fashion stores use the term “discount” to mention the amount of money taken off the usual cost of something, but they do not use the term “giảm giá” which has the same meaning in Vietnamese. However, from what I have observed, in Vietnamese government offices, public places supervised by the local government or national news, words in foreign languages are often transcribed into Vietnamese. For example, the capital of USA is transcribed into “Oa-sinh-tơn” instead of Washington. It seems weird but the Vietnamese government believes that thanks to this, all Vietnamese can read it without any difficulty.
Thanks, Dung! The “Washington” vs. “Oa-sinh-tơn” spelling is similar to the transformations in English spelling due to language contact: https://www.languageonthemove.com/is-english-spelling-an-insult-to-human-intelligence/
Vietnam used to be invaded by Chinese for about one thousand years. Therefore, Chinese culture and its alphabet affected Vietnamese people’s life in the past. In 333 BC, Chinese language was brought to Vietnam and used widely as a means to communicate between Chinese people and Vietnamese people. After that, all Vietnamese schools used Chinese language called “chữ Hán” in their curriculum and national examinations. As a result, the number of people knowing “chữ Hán” increased dramatically. In the 10th century, Vietnamese people invented “chữ Nôm” based on “chữ Hán”. “Chữ Nôm” is a hybrid writing system used to write Vietnamese language, based on Chinese characters. Besides, it was especially used to write particular Vietnamese vocabulary which could not be written by “chữ Hán”. “Chữ Nôm” was first used to write the name of people or places but then used in the daily life of Vietnamese people, national examinations, writing poems and traditional festivals. In other words, between the 10th century and the 20th century, “chữ Nôm” gradually took the place of “chữ Hán”. Till now, “Chữ Nôm” is still one of the biggest pride of Vietnamese people. However, some people are concerned about the future of “Chữ Nôm” because now nearly no one uses it in daily life. If you have an opportunity to visit Hanoi – the capital of Vietnam, you can see “chữ Nôm” in many ancient attractive places such as: Ngọc Sơn Temple, Temple of Literature. In most traditional festivals in the northern region of Vietnam, besides Vietnamese, “chữ Nôm” is also used in speech or on festival flags as a reminder of such a great invention.
Thanks, Dung, for this intro to Chữ Nôm! Where Chữ Nôm is used in the linguistic landscape today, can people still read it? Or is it purely symbolic to remind viewers of the great past?
In the places where “chữ Nôm” is used in the linguistic landscape today, there are some people who can read it. Some of them are the ones who were born in Nguyen Dynasty and taught “chữ Nôm” at school. The others are some Vietnamese university students whose major is Vietnamese language. These students study some units related to Vietnamese literature from the 18th century to the 19th century which is also the heyday of “chữ Nôm” in Vietnam.
Chinese is believed to be one of the most complicated languages. Regional, stylistic and lexical differences can be seen in written Chinese between China, Taiwan and Hong Kong which reflects their unique identities. They might understand each other with some guessing. Even so, it is more appropriate to apply locally specific vocabulary and writing style to avoid awkwardness. Amongst all kinds of written Chinese, Cantonese dialect is least comprehensible by Chinese and Taiwanese due to its distinctive grammar structure, lexical use and English influence (similar to mutual comprehensibility between different Slavic languages). Under British administration, Hong Kong Cantonese have somehow established a kind of ‘firewall language’ in which the people distinguished themselves from Mainland Chinese, even after the handover in 1997.
Besides, simplified Chinese was introduced in China after the Chinese Communist Party took over. Many scholars argue that such a policy has disconnected people from understanding the ancient classical literature. Personally, I would advise people who wish to learn Chinese to start with traditional characters like what Taiwanese and Hongkongers do. Not only do they link with traditional heritage that also connects with kanji nations in Asia, but also its aesthetic value that contributes to the cultural legacy.
Thanks, XM! Funny that you recommend learners start with traditional characters – I’ve found learning Chinese characters difficult enough, even with the simplified ones 😉 … I reflected on the beginning of my Chinese learning efforts here: https://www.languageonthemove.com/character-challenge/ … more seriously, there is a really fascinating study on Chinese spelling reform (and how the Chinese script was almost replaced with Latin), which I’d very much recommend: Zhong, Yurou. (2019). Chinese Grammatology: Script Revolution and Literary Modernity, 1916–1958. New York: Columbia University Press.
It’s interesting how only an ‘article’ could become an abundant source for news articles in this context of Qatar.
Despite the diverse ethnic background, the linguistic landscape in Vietnam is quite straightforward with the dominance of Vietnamese in public space. Given the flexibility of the orthographic system, it can be used to transcribe most of our minority languages as well as foreign borrowings effectively. This orthographic transcription used to be the common practice.
However, globalisation and an emphasis on integrating English into daily life has caused our linguistic landscape to become somewhat ‘all over the place’. One notable change is the transition towards using the original spelling for foreign words. Although students learn rules to transcribe these words at school, this skill might be useless. And the consequence is the mixture of both ways, for example, this website https://vietnam.embassy.gov.au/hnoivietnamese/home.html displays both ‘Australia’ and its Vietnamese transcription ‘Ôxtrâylia”. Writing the latter can be considered ‘outmoded’ and ‘weird’ nowadays, and its abandonment may marginalise the older generation who don’t know English.
In short, our language policies might be facing a dilemma of preserving the ‘purity’ of Vietnamese or adopting English with open arms, leaving a ‘hybrid’ identity that lacks a coherent standard.
Thanks, Justin, for this fascinating perspective! The same problem exists in German, and is an endless source of frustration to my mother and people of her generation who don’t know English … if this goes on long enough, it may even change the whole logic of spelling from alphabetic to logographic, as happened with English: https://www.languageonthemove.com/is-english-spelling-an-insult-to-human-intelligence/
I share my concern with Justin on this matter regarding the use of both Vietnamese transcription and English nowadays.
Since I was at school, the Vietnamese version of countries’ names has been more familiar to me than its standard spelling in English. When learning English, I find it extremely difficult to change this habit and always get the pronunciation wrong. For example, the country Israel is pronounced as /ˈɪz.reɪl/ in both English and American English (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/israel), but on Vietnamese official news channels or radio, it is called ‘I-xra-en’, which is a word different. I can see the resemblance in Australia and Ôxtrâylia, but not with Israel. This also happens in the national textbooks when all foreign words referring to locations and names are transcribed into Vietnamese, which creates a habit of spelling extremely difficult to break for Vietnamese students.
While removing Vietnamese transcription could cause confusion to people who do not know English or are unfamiliar with foreign languages, we have to prioritize the study of foreign languages and avoid putting unnecessary challenges for the next generation.
Thanks, Quynh! I’m sure different people will have different views about this – just like the missing pronoun on the Qatari road signs 😉
Hi, Justin, I agree with your comment on the current linguistic landscape of Vietnam. We are certainly in a transitional period where the idea of ‘Vietnamese purity’ is being challenged by the effects of globalization.
To add to your example, a notable change that I’ve seen is the introduction of English to the high school curriculum. Of course, English as a subject has been around for decades but recently, English has been appearing in other subjects. To be specific, many high schools in Ho Chi Minh city have been using English terminologies for subjects such as chemistry and physics (an example I can think of is that instead of using the Vietnamese transcriptions such as “Axit Clohidric” for HCL, they’ve been calling it by its English name – “Hydrochloric acid”). Of course, for public institutions, the main language of instruction is still Vietnamese, but we’ve seen English appearing more and more in textbooks and the curriculum.
This has led to certain confusions and marginalization of both teachers and students, as older teachers, and students who were born between 2004-2006 are not familiar with these new English terminologies. And since there is no official guidelines for this process, some schools have either ignored it completely or partially implemented it, creating more confusion for students and teachers.
I do think that this is an inevitable result of modernization and globalization, as it is hard to maintain the idea of ‘language purity’ in this day and age. But I can’t help but wonder about the effects that this will have for individuals, specifically how this has created the pressure of ‘adapt of be left behind’ for many teachers and students.
Thanks, Bob! Private English-medium education strikes me as problematic not because of language purity but because (1) it isolates a tiny minority elite from the rest of the population; and (2) as a form of submersion education, it damages student learning …
As English becomes a global language, in Korea, it is not unusual to see many signs in English, including names of shops, cafes, and restaurants (as mentioned in the video as well). The question, however, always comes to my mind – why do we use signs in English? Even though we have our written characters to pronounce and read? It seems like we are losing our own identity because language itself plays an important role in protecting identities.
Fortunately, it was not just me thinking this way. In fact, there are many streets in Seoul that have shops and cafes written in Korean. Starbucks, Cafe Pascucci, Skin Food, and many others are included here. Using English is obviously not wrong, but if we keep this trend without any changes, I’m afraid that we might lose Korean as our identity.
Thanks, Ella! You might enjoy this interview with Professor Adam Jaworski about semiotic styling: https://www.languageonthemove.com/language-makes-the-place/
After seeing the video and reading Emily’s comment, I have to say I agree with her on the matter that sometimes, the inclusion of language could make people feel like a criminal. Last Saturday, I went to La Perouse, a suburb in south-eastern Sydney and I captured these 2 warning signs (I cannot attach the pictures into this comment so here’s the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NNdi7HpsFpE5J7OV7qVOtQ3HLE-kGYi_/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101967273221852127965&rtpof=true&sd=true )
For the first sign (5 deaths sign), overall, I considered it to be well-written and well-translated. I thought to myself how thoughtful it is to include a diversity of languages (English, Vietnamese, Korean, and 2 versions of Chinese) here to protect people. But then I looked to the top-right corner, interestingly the “emergency” word isn’t translated.
The second sign (wear a life jacket when rock fishing), the same languages are translated (there is one more language which is Arabic). However, only the line “YOU MUST WEAR A LIFEJACKET WHEN ROCK FISHING THESE WATERS” is translated into other languages. Again, I thought about how considerate the local authority is. But, why isn’t the lines “IT’S THE LAW” and “Penalties Apply” translated?
Why did the local authority decide to translate some content and exclude others? As we can see, the “emergency” number is as important as the warning “5 deaths….”. Or for international residents living in Australia, when it comes to involving in law and losing money for penalties, that would be a major issue as well. Therefore, can we still consider this an act of thoughtfulness or only an act of giving strict warnings and low-key wanting to “punish” the international wrong-doers?
Anyway, after seeing these signs, I think that it would be interesting to do some research on beach signage.
Thank you, Tram, for sharing these two photos! They’ve gone straight into my collection of multilingual warning signs 🙂 … the first one was new to me but I had already taken photos of the 2nd in other council areas – exactly the same sign except different council name.
Hope you get to do research on beach signage – definitely worth it! You might want to start with this (very old) post about a multilingual crocodile warning in Queensland: https://www.languageonthemove.com/croc-warning/
This documentary is a marvelous example of LL. Not only Arabic speaking countries face this interplay in linguistic differences, but also if we count, an infinity of facts will turn out from various works of sociolinguists. According to my own fast and insincere findings, it became plausible that the linguistic landscape is more realized internally by a group of people rather than showcasing it externally. Evidently, coming off with the reasons, logic, and changes, for founding a monolingual landscape is very difficult as it needs the attention of the government. My concern is directed toward the linguistically underestimated or divided minority of speakers who are forced to repress their joy of using their own language in public. as a result, some of the groups have to make up their minds to forget most of their Lingua Franca and develop the official language more seriously. However, linguistic justice is not possible by made-up rules as the illiterate and linguistically unconscious public will always try to run their own trades using the language that they are grown up with. In Bangladesh, the phenomenon of the linguistic landscape is seen in numerous situations, from signs, posters, and billboards to spoken dialects. The common people who speak official standard Bangla, get bothered by the different dialects of the lower class as it is sometimes very vague and incomprehensible. On the other hand, the educated and higher class speak English and standard Bangla both at home and outside. Recently, the power of globalization and mass media have strongly influenced the new generation whose everyday life cannot go without speaking at least 100 English words. Even the banners and posters in shopping malls, restaurants, and other public places are written in English to save the reputation of the store or company. The fun fact is, the lower class is also getting involved to cope with the tradition, and when they are trying to run their protocol, they are sometimes using the English language in the wrong way. The Bangladeshi government is monolingual as it only loves its national language Bangla, for what the country historically is known to the world. the country fought against the Pakistani language movement to save Bangla in 1952 and battled in the war of 1971. Conversely, noticing the terrible facts of code-mixing and code-switching and flourishment of the English language in Bangali society, the government is weak to take the necessary steps. By the way, English is the second official language of Bangladeshi customs.
Thank you, Ayesha, for these reflections on the linguistic landscape in Bangladesh! You might be interested in this article about the representation of Bangla and Bangladeshi English on British TV: https://www.languageonthemove.com/illegitimate-english/
Hi Ingrid, in the video you mentioned that people of certain languages can earn legitimate positions in particular areas by having signs written in their languages, and I believe this notion resonates deeply with my context in Vietnam. During the French invasion in the 19th and early 20th centuries, French was the official language in Vietnam, which was used in both daily life and education, thus legitimising the status of colonizers in the country, separating social classes, and taking away Vietnamese speakers’ rights. In recent years, however, French speakers in Vietnam have declined significantly to make way for English, which has become the most popular and important foreign language in the country due to globalisation.
English is now a free pass in Vietnam. With an IELTS score, high school graduates can enrol straight in universities without taking the national entrance exams, and employees gain the advantage of being recruited and promoted to positions where knowing English is not particularly vital. Not only in education and employment, but English has also spread into daily life where the majority of signs on Vietnamese streets are written in both Vietnamese and English. Various shops pop up with English names or English translations of their slogans to catch up to the Westernised trend and to sound “cool, modern”. Even in remote and rural areas, the signs are written in English to intrigue Vietnamese rather than providing information for target speakers. English has gained a crucial and official status in Vietnam, and the reality is displayed in every nook and cranny of the country.
Thanks, Brownies! English-language signs outside the Anglophone world are super-fascinating; oftentimes, they are less about inclusion and more about indexing modernity and inclusion … you might enjoy the anecdote about English signs in Japan in this post: https://www.languageonthemove.com/banal-cosmopolitanism/
Gulf countries and eastern region of Saudi Arabia dialects sounds very similar but dropping the “A” sound from definite article is something unique to Qatari dialect. I personally think it is inappropriate to write the street signs names in dialects in any language. Arabic language is unique in this case, and I can see both parties’ arguments. Dr. Rizwan pointed out that there are two groups in the Qatari society, Boudin, and Settlers. Both use the standard Arabic language and it easier to decide on one. I think that preserving the standard Arabic language is more important than preserving a dialect. Dialects could have a special heritage festival aside putting in mind that there are many dialects ‘Bedouin and Settlers’. I liked how Qatar government forced the international brands to put Arabic language in their logos. And in sport events, the players’ t-shirts are printed in Arabic language. These are wonderful steps to preserve the language.
Thanks, Abed! The linguistic differences between the bedouin and the hadhar were really fascinating to me – it demonstrates how societal conflicts play out in the linguistic detail. Is the distinction between bedoiun and hadhar also important in Saudi?
Prof. Piller, this article reminds me of what you said in your book, “the term language is political”. It also reminds me of Indonesian and Malay. Sumatran Indonesian tends to be much away more similar to Malay than the one spoken in most parts of Indonesia, which makes sense because they are closer to Malaysia geographically. Malay and Indonesian are kind of mutually intelligible languages but Malaysian and Indonesian refuse to call their language by the same name because those languages have a lot of different vocabulary and they are separated politically, they are two different countries. I can relate to how Qataris feel.
I hope someday Qatari can make its own Qatari-Arabic Standard for showing the identity of the land and its people, not depending on “mainstream Arabic”. Qatar can also have its own dictionaries like what Americans and Australians do. Australians write Macquarie Dictionary for Australian English and Americans have Merriam’s Webster Dictionary and Longman Dictionary for American English. Having Qatari-Arabic will enrich the language variety discursively. Furthermore, Qataris are trying to include other languages spoken in their public service. They realized that a cosmopolitan city is not only about having skyscrapers and great public transportation but also about having multicultural societies and how public service and communication can reach all communities that live in the city.
Thanks, Ziadah! Agree but there is another side of the coin, too: there is strength in numbers … keeping standard languages unified has many practical advantages – e.g., in terms of how many books or how much information will be available to speakers ….
From an commercial point of view, if I was a writer I would write in standard Arabic so my books reach a larger audience. If I wrote in Qatari Arabic or any one dialect my audience will be limited. I agree with Ingrid’s point about this.
As more foreigners migrate to Korea, multicultural policies are being established these days. One of the policies for multicultural families is to provide a translation of school information through a mobile application. Through thise service, parents can find the school announcement in their own language. The service is available in 6 languages now. When the service launched in 2016, it was availabe in 4 languages: (Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and English. Then Russian and Camboidian were added in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
This is a good service to help parents of multicultural families not to miss necessary information from their children’s schools. But there are a couple of downsides. First, this service is only available through mobile application, but some famillies don’t own mobiles. Second, it does not cover Arabic, which consists more than 20 percent of immigrants. Recently, many foreigners from the Arabic-speaking world have migrated, but it is unfortunate that there is not much support for migrants from this language, especially since there is a shortage of Arabic translators in Korea.
Thanks, Yoonie! The app sounds really great – what’s it called?
I didn’t know that there was a large Arab migration to S Korea? Do you know from which country?
I didn’t know about the large Arabic-speaking migrant population. Thanks for your input.
Hello Ingrid and Rizwan,
As of the end of 2021, the number of international residents in Korea is 2,150,000. Out of this, the arpabic speaking population is 150,000. That’s about 7% of the whole immigrants. The service is called something like Multilingual Translation Service for Targeted Audience. I’m glad you find this informaiton helpful.
Cantonese, which is a branch of the Chinese language, is spoken in south-eastern cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Macau. The status of Cantonese in the pearl river delta region (the cluster of Cantonese-speaking cities in southern mainland China) has been gradually weakened by the official promotion of Mandarin (Putonghua). For example, Shenzhen has already become a monolingual city speaking only Mandarin for many years. Also, public signs written in Cantonese are rarely seen in Guangzhou. At present, in Guangzhou, although the governmental organs repeatedly stress the importance of respecting the Cantonese language, I can hardly find any ACTUAL governmental measures to protect the local language, and even some local actions to promote the language have been discouraged… It is an embarrassment to talk about it as a Chinese member living in such a multicultural nation.
I think Hong Kong as a special administrative region serves as an example for mainland cities to learn from. When I was in Shenzhen working as an English teacher before COVID-19, I had a few students receiving schooling in Hong Kong while residing in Shenzhen. My students were preparing for their private middle school entrance exam. I was amazed that they were required to prepare for a Cantonese speaking assessment. As you can imagine, I helped them not only with their English, but also their Cantonese speaking and pronunciation. However, regardless of how standard and accurate my students speak Cantonese, I do not consider them to be Cantonese speakers in the true sense. This is not because they are migrants to Shenzhen and were not born in the Cantonese region although they moved to Shenzhen at a very young age; rather, I do not feel a sense of cultural identity as a Cantonese from them.
Thanks, Ste! I’m curious about your observation that you don’t feel a sense of Cantonese cultural identity from your students. Is that because their Cantonese is school-learned rather that home-learned? What is missing?
My students didn’t seem to have a sense of Cantonese cultural identity and I believe that this is partly due to the fact that Putonghua has a strong linguistic influence on both their Cantonese vocabulary (they used too many Putonghua borrowed words) and sentence structures. Also, they found it challenging to incorporate Cantonese slang and idiomatic expressions into their speech although they could understand most Cantonese utterances. Moreover, their Putonghua accent did heavily affect their Cantonese speaking, making it difficult for them to articulate Cantonese words in a natural manner.
When I asked them why they did not practice speaking with their classmates from their HK school, they told me that they only hung out with just a few classmates who were also from the mainland and didn’t enjoy being with classmates from HK. This has also made me wonder a lot whether mainland students receive some form of local exclusion in local schools in HK. If I had the chance to move to HK as a teacher, I would be so interested to research this issue.
Thanks, Ste! Michelle Gu has done research on the experiences of mainland students in HK … (don’t have the reference handy but you can probably find it on Google Scholar)
Hi Ste,
I totally agree about the strong influence of Mandarin Chinese in the Cantonese speaking areas like Shenzhen. As a Macau resident, I think the same thing is happening over here, but not to the extreme at this moment. Since COVID-19, many local residents have been unemployed (especially hotels or F&B managements). When companies recruit new members again, Chinese residents from mainland (particularly young women) who do not speak any Cantonese are recruited. My mother is an F&B manager and she explained that the reason is that these companies are seeking young women with good physical appearances and can serve customers. If you go to any restaurants in hotels these days, 70% of the staff members would only communicate in Mandarin, which can give local residents who do not understand or speak any Mandarin a hard time. I do not feel like Macau is the same Macau from the old days.
And if I type Chinese while using the google search engine in my own area, simplified Chinese has now become the priority when the suggested topics pop up. If you select any of those suggestions, the search result will all be in simplified Chinese. I can barely even read simplified Chinese as it was never taught at school. The solution is to type everything in traditional Chinese at the very beginning.
Thanks, Sharkie, for drawing attention to the digital linguistic landscape! Search engines like Google have become hugely influential as language policy makers, yet remain widely overlooked …
Banknotes play an important role to represent not only culture and history but also the nation’s identity. Even though it is the age of a cashless society now, some private shops only accept cash in Japan and people often have to use it. Like other foreign countries, the front side has a portrait of a well-known Japanese man or woman, while the other side has a picture showing something unique to Japanese culture and history. An interesting point is that the font of the Japanese language on the notes has been the same since the end of the Second World War, while the design of other parts has changed every time it was updated. Thanks to the font, Japanese people can somehow feel close to notes and trust them. New Japanese banknotes will be issued in 2024, but Japanese people will easily tell the font is consistent. Even a font can be a visual icon that helps identity established.
Thanks, Japanda! Great point that banknotes and coins are an important – yet often overlooked – aspect of the linguistic landscape around us.
This is a fascinating article about multilingual banknotes if you’d like to explore further:
Csernicskó, István, & Beregszászi, Anikó. (2019). Different states, same practices: visual construction of language policy on banknotes in the territory of present-day Transcarpathia. Language Policy, 18(2), 269-293. doi:10.1007/s10993-018-9485-3
I like how it was mentioned that identity has many layers and language is one of them. Also you mentioned language use on signs indicates legitimacy and recognition, a form of welcoming of a group. Hundreds of languages are spoken in Australia and yet only a handful are officially recognised in translations such as government handbooks and on signs on public transports. What does this mean for the languages not mentioned, do speakers feel recognised and welcome and legitimate. Many tourist hotspots in Australia have signs in English and Chinese. Would this indicate that other tourists from other nations are not as important. Of course you can’t cater to the ‘10%’ but this shows use of language not only has the ability to be inclusive but it can also be exclusive in nature.
Thanks, Thao! Good question – the banner of the NSW Federation of Community Language Schools has many language names printed on it (here’s a photo of the banner at their 2018 conference, plus a couple of Language-on-the-Move team members 😉 – each time I see the banner put up somewhere, there will be people looking for their language; which perfectly illustrates that this kind of recognition is important, and, conversely, that not finding your language represented may be experienced as exclusive …
Thank you for sharing some insights into the Qatari linguistic landscape. Regarding the purposeful decisions of the Qatari nationals to preserve the local linguistic features and maintain a perceived sense of local identity, it somehow resonates with my feelings as a Cantonese speaker. China in recent years has proposed strong government interference in introducing Mandarin-medium instruction in teaching, especially for regions like Hong Kong and Macau. Following an exclusive approach to exclude Cantonese as the medium of teaching, the CCP as well introduce sets of compulsory civil and moral courses in school curriculums, penetrating intense pro-China beliefs in communism and nationalism. For instance, some Guangzhou parents have reported that students would have their ethics grades deducted if they spoke Cantonese at school. During a recent interview in 2019 with some Hong Kong primary students, it was also revealed that one of the young interviewees was punished to have the sentence “I will never speak Cantonese” copied multiple times as he spoke the local language at school, causing a surge of criticisms. By purposely replacing Cantonese with Mandarin, this exclusion in education is viewed by many SAR citizens as China’s attempt to erase the unique local linguistic heritage and identity to sustain the CCP’s rule.
Despite the attempted erasure of Cantonese, similar unification acts have also been imposed to eliminate local languages of Uyghurs and Tibetans for language standardization, however, in more extreme and aggressive ways (e.g. re-education camps with long hours of rote learning Chinese in Xinjiang). I admit that language standardization can bring advantageous effects on communication and social development. However, I hold a strong point of view that language learning should be driven by personal choice and that the development of a language should go with a natural flow. Like English, if people find it an essential language, they will pursue the relevant linguistic proficiency according to their needs. In addition, considering the long-term personal and collective goals of a bilingual workforce, the cultivation of several languages signifies an improvement in one’s linguistic repertoires, which raises competitiveness and is a much preferable way to attain sustainable social success. Forceful attempts to replace or erase minority languages violate human rights and are, on the contrary, likely to lead to social disorder with negative long-standing consequences.
Thank you, Hakunamatata! Appreciate these important reflections – as you say people are perfectly capable of becoming multilingual and making language choices they consider beneficial; suppression of local languages is something else …
Dear Hakunamatata, Your observations about Cantoneses in China are quite insightful. A parallel could be seen in India when a college in Delhi did not approve the Urdu word ‘ilham’ meaning ‘inspiration’ borrowed from Arabic, as a name for a student drama club. It forced the students to rename it ‘aarambh’, a word derived from Sanskrit meaning ‘beginning’. Policing of languages and words must be seen in relation to issues of power, identity, and inclusion/exclusion.
It was interesting to see the diversity of the Arabic language and how the linguistic landscapes in Arab contexts can highly reflect social, cultural and economic tensions, as they may come across conflicts when there is a dialect difference or language difference (e.g. definite article).
When it comes to multilingual signposts in Macau, it is similar in terms of language choice in street names, they reflect different cultural ideas. Interpretation in both Chinese and Portuguese can be different as they represent important historical figures or historical events from the past. They can be seen as a city’s autobiography’s manifestation and the key to comprehending both its past and present. For example, a street name in Chinese called “聚龍里” (Dragon’s meeting place) while it is called “Beco da Cule” (Pig lane) in Portuguese. The translation is completely different from one another. The Portuguese name serves as a reminder of the day’s unpleasant reality, whilst the Chinese name represents the labourers’ expectations for a better future. These street names do not cause conflicts but they allow people to appreciate and embrace the culture of the city.
Thanks, Sharkie! Interesting example – do I understood the example correctly and the street is/was where slaughterhouses/butchers are/were located? Or can you explain the street name a bit more?
Hi Ingrid,
Yes sure, when I said ‘Dragon’ and ‘Pig’, these terms were actually metaphors. They refer to “Chinese labourers” or a harsher term ‘coolies’ back in the 19th century. At that same time, it was also the peak period of the ‘Coolie’ trade. In the early 1850s, an unforgettable story sprouted in Macau. A human trafficking company that was composed by foreigners and Macao people sent some Chinese who were forced to sign contracts of prostitution for nearly 10 years to be sent to South America via Macao to engage in manual labor. Before they were sent to the ship, they were trapped in that area that I mentioned. And due to the harsh environment, countless people died either in that are or in the boats before even arriving in South America, and most did not return home after their work contracts were completed. This illegal business was stopped by the Portuguese government in 1873. That is why the Chinese were hoping for a better future back then. Whereas the Portuguese perceived this as a tragic story 🙁
Thanks, Sharkie! That’s really helpful. So, the Chinese street name literally translates as “Dragon Street” and the Portuguese name as “Coolie Street” – is that right?
Fascinating example – it’s often too easy to assume that different language versions of a street name (or similar) mean the same thing … also, adding reading up on the Coolie system to my to-do list – can you recommend a good book on the topic, by any chance?
Hi Ingrid,
Yes pretty much. Also it is important to keep in mind that ‘Dragon’ may be referring to Chinese labourers but it does not necessarily refer to Chinese people in general, Chinese people love the term ‘Dragon’ so much that they even refer their own children as the ‘The descendants of dragons’. There is even a famous song in China exactly called ‘The descendants of dragons :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qughcw0s2r8
There is also a literal translation name in Chinese for that street. Which is called ‘苦力圍 – Kú Lì Wéi’. It sounds so much like ‘Coolie’. In modern society, many people love using the literal translation just to make it convenient for them when they are trying to meet up or pinpointing the location.
In terms of books, I would recommend “Macau: A cultural Janus” written by Christina Cheng. This book focuses on different conflicted history of Macau. It also mentioned how Macau managed to merge cultural differences and avoid the destructiveness of ethnic clashes. However, if you are interested about the coolie trades in particular, there should be more information in Chapter 5 and 6. The book is available for download here:
https://vdoc.pub/download/macau-a-cultural-janus-9750f1eg2du0
Hope this helps 🙂
多謝🙏
I think that concepts of inclusion and exclusion not only relate to what languages are included, but under what circumstances. In Japan, elements of English are common alongside Japanese, either as English text or as Japanese words in the Latin alphabet. This seems to at times benefit English speakers, and at others to make the place appear trendy and clever for a Japanese audience. It is less common to see other languages, save decidedly international spaces, including public service institutions, or apartments and businesses with an international clientele. Regarding the importance of circumstances though, one exception is the use of signs containing cautions or warnings. I have seen numerous unofficial signs (as described in the video) around the city where I live. These include languages such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Thai and Korean. Messages might be “No theft allowed”, “No trespassing”, “Don’t throw your garbage away here” or “Keep quiet at night”. Providing signs in other languages does help a group to feel included. However, this common limitation of multilingual signage to negative messages can make people feel they are considered criminals, and a more common source of problems than Japanese speakers, thereby reinforcing feelings of exclusion.
Thanks, Emily! You raise such an important point! This happens in Australia, too, and some years ago, I did a little study on scapegoating toilet signage, which you might find interesting:
https://www.languageonthemove.com/toiletology/
And these two related posts:
https://www.languageonthemove.com/australians-speaking-asian/ and https://www.languageonthemove.com/multilingual-prohibitions/
This study addresses “exclusion through linguistic inclusion” in the S Korean context:
Chesnut, Michael, Curran, Nathaniel Ming, & Kim, Sungwoo. (2022). From garbage to COVID-19: theorizing ‘Multilingual Commanding Urgency’ in the linguistic landscape. Multilingua. doi:doi:10.1515/multi-2022-0009 – we’ll hear more about this study in one of the presentations next week 🙂
This was a fascinating watch! I think Dr. Al Emadi really gets to the crux of the debate when he talks about the signs and says that people ask, “Is this Arabic or not Arabic?”, but that they really should be asking, “Is this local or non-local?”. Of course, we know that the age-old debate about what constitutes a dialect or a language (and which of those is more “legitimate”) happens worldwide, but it was really interesting to see it happening in the Arabic context. When I lived in Bahrain, I do remember the Bahrainis (who, like the native people of Qatar, numbered very few compared to the amount of non-Bahrainis living in the country) being proud of their Baharna Arabic and often pointing out the differences between it and “classical” Arabic.
On a more personal note, recently a fellow American friend and I were chatting with some Australian friends, and the Australian friends poked a bit of fun at the way the other American and I said the word “dentist”. She and I pronounced it more like /dɪnɪs/ (we’re both from the southern part of the US). Even though our Australian friends weren’t trying to be mean, the way that they implied that our pronunciation wasn’t “real” or correct did annoy us. I can absolutely see why a debate over a definite article in Arabic would have the same effect (and then some!).
Thanks, Brynn! If you are interested in language in Bahrain, you should read this:
Al-Alawi, Wafa. (2022). English at the center of the periphery: ‘Chicken nuggets’, chronotopes, and scaling English in Bahraini youth. Language in Society, 1-23. doi:10.1017/S004740452200015X
Wafa is a Bahraini scholar who has a sharp observation of the sociolinguistic landscape of Bahrain.I read the article Ingrid refers to as a draft in 2019. I didn’t know it was out. Thanks, Ingrid.