Foreign language policy

The sociology of language describes foreign language policy ( school language policy ) as the policy of a state with regard to foreign languages, which are offered in public educational institutions (schools, universities, etc.) as mandatory or optional. The offer is primarily an expression of economic and foreign policy objectives and priorities.

Examples:

• As a result of between France and Prussia conducted with the participation of the southern states war 1870-1871 in were Frankfurt Peace of 1871 parts of Eastern France, the majority of the two Alsatian departments and about the northern half of the neighboring Lorraine to the (1871 founded during the war and Ceded the German Empire to Prussia .

French-speaking areas were also annexed. All annexed areas were called the so-called “ Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine ” and not an area of ​​equal rank to the other sub-states, but were administered like a colony by the authorities of the Reich and Prussia. It was not until 1911 that Alsace-Lorraine was assimilated to the other German federal states. French-speaking communities and families in Alsace-Lorraine, like the Polish-speaking regions of Prussia, faced attempts at Germanization and assimilation. French was only partly the school and official language there .

In the interwar period , the French language was legally the sole official and school language , also for the German-speaking population (see also History of Alsace # 1918–1945 ).

• In the Kingdom of Hungary , after a systematic and bureaucratically quite violent Magyarization campaign at the end of the 19th century, the Magyars succeeded in bringing about a (narrow) Magyar majority.

Previously, the Magyars were in the minority of their kingdom for most of their history; the majority should serve to consolidate their claim to political prerogatives.

• In the People's Republic of Poland , the remaining backward population of Upper Silesia, both German and Polish speaking, had to endure discrimination on the part of the Polish state from 1945 onwards. The Polish state made it its goal to “repolonize” the Upper Silesians whom it declared to be “Germanized Poles”. The use of the German language was banned in public life, in churches and schools, as well as in private life. In order to avoid contact with the German language, German was not taught as a foreign language anywhere in any of the Upper Silesian-inhabited areas. The German language could only be practiced in secret (and with fear of being caught). Due to the long period of time, one to three generations did not have the opportunity to learn the mother tongue of their ancestors.

See also

• School policy
• School language
• Foreign language teaching

literature

• Helmut Glück (Ed.): Metzler-Lexikon Sprach , 2000

Remarks

1. ↑ see also Stefan Fisch: Nation, 'Heimat' and 'petite patrie' in Alsace under German rule 1870 / 71-1918 , in: Marco BELLABARBA u. Reinhard STAUBER (ed.), Identità territoriali e cultura politica nella prima età moderna (= territorial identity and political culture in the early modern period), Bologna / Berlin 1998, pp. 359–373.
2. ↑ See e.g. B. ' Germans in Budapest : Decrease in German-speaking primary school students from 1877 to 1881
3. ^ Franz-Josef Sehr : Professor from Poland in Beselich annually for decades . In: Yearbook for the Limburg-Weilburg district 2020 . The district committee of the district of Limburg-Weilburg, Limburg 2019, ISBN 3-927006-57-2 , p. 223-228 .