Comments on: 10 Modern Cases of Linguistic Genocide

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:42:57 +0000

Worth noting that people in Ireland were actually killed or tortured for speaking Gaeilge. Answering your name in Irish to a British Soldier was almost a guaranteed death penalty!

By: Amir Dilmaghani

Amir Dilmaghani — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:43:49 +0000

The worst case of linguicide has been taking place in multi-ethnic iran. Since 1920s all indigenous languages were banned and Azerbaijani language (the mother tongue of over 35000000 Azeris of iran) which had long been used in education in the past, was declared to be the language of sub-human. Azerbaijani accent was humiliated on TV and radio programs on daily basis. The publication of a racist cartoon in national news paper “The iran” sparked a wave of street protests in Azerbaijan province of iran in 2006, which is home for over 20 million Azeris. Howerver, Azeris in iran have all become outspoken in recent years and assertively seek linguistic recognition in a country where ethnic communities make up over half of the population. Despite the recognition of lingusitic rights in the constitution, the state has always delibrately evaded the implementation of articles related to language rights. every year ethnic community intellectuals actively march at university campuses or on the streets demanding education in their native language. iranian governmant crushes the peacefull demonstrations violently.

By: Galina

Galina — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:31:19 +0000

Russification did not equal eradication of other ‘minority’ languages. Not a good idea to just copy and paste from old propaganda materials.

By: jixiang

jixiang — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:23:35 +0000

Does it strike you that it would be discriminating against you to make English the global official language, since you are not a native and will never speak it as well as I do? It would mean you would always be at a disadvantage.

By: Raechelle

Raechelle — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 08:21:51 +0000

I had no idea that the Korean language was repressed. I mean I knew Korea was colonized by Japan,I just assumed(being Irish,and as a result of English colonization,a native English speaker) that Korean wouldn’t still be widely spoken there anymore if that had happened. Although maybe Japanese wasn’t inforced for as long as other languages in different countries?* knows nothing about history*

I love Korea and the language though and I wish I could speak it better.

By: molena

molena — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:31:18 +0000

Time has changed. TRT (Turkish Radio Television), official government tv has a kurdish channel now named “TRT 6″. Kurdish is not an official language of Turkey but anyone can open a private Kurdish learning courses.

Main reason Turkish people doesnt like Kurdish is the atrocities of seperatist Kurdish terrorist group PKK. Its illogical but emotional.

By: smj

smj — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 08:46:10 +0000

There is one obvious case that is not listed: in the region of Alsace in north eastern France, 70% of the population still used to speak a German dialect in the 1960s. The figure is now down to probably 20% thanks to government policies aiming at eradicating the “foreign” dialect, ridiculing those who use it, offering no language facilities whatsoever, discouraging the teaching of the German mother tongue, etc. La Grande Nation, Patrie des Droits de l’Homme, is actually the greatest culprit of linguistic genocide in Europe!

By: DZah

DZah — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:43:31 +0000

I’m not sure if this is mentioned by other readers. You probable should list China government too. RPC government is implementing “Putong Hua” Campaign (i.e. Campaign of Using Standard Mandarin”) through out Mainland China. Other dialects are either banned in mass media or restricted in usage. There was a recent protest in the Guangzhou province, which is the place of origin of Cantonese dialect, where protesters protest the restriction of Chinese government of broadcast media using Cantonese. The Chinese government was and is forcing all broadcast bodies to use Standard Mandarin. This kind of implementation has forced younger generations forgetting their own mother tongue and thus making the speaker of such languages dwindle.

By: futureanthropologist

futureanthropologist — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:55:37 +0000

nope. its a real photo of a real Kurdish school girl. The first word is for a person who is Kurdish, the second is the language, and the third word is the name for our homeland.

By: Evan-IRA

Evan-IRA — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:55:18 +0000

I'm actually offended you referred to Ireland as part of the British Isles!