The Economics of a Language
The 31st of August is an official holiday in Moldova. It is supposed to celebrate 'our language.' In 1989, 'our language' was considered the Romanian language, the mother tongue of the Moldovans of Romanian descent (about 70% of Moldova's population). At that time, such celebration of the Romanian language complemented the national revival of the Republic of Moldova. The mother tongue of the majority people in the former Soviet Moldavia has been neglected for a very long time, therefore the joy of those Moldovans can be well understood. It was then when the Romanian language was declared the official state language.
Since then, obviously, the languages have not changed. My mother tongue continues to be Romanian. What has changed is the government, opinions and politics. For example, the current government prefers to call the same language Moldovan, and pays less attention to celebration of Our Language holiday. In a political realm, this is understandable.
What is less acceptable is the public cost of politicizing the language issue. After 15 years of independence, the number of those who cannot communicate in Romanian is relatively large.
From among all costs that the Moldovan government has transferred on to citizens (education, health, housing, etc.) those deriving from learning the state language should have been the least problematic and painful. But judging by the continuously large number of non-Romanian speaking citizens, the incentive to learn the language has been low. Instead of bearing the costs of communicating its policies to these citizens (e.g. translating all legal and normative acts, official documentation, government web-sites, on-line publications into Russian), as it has been doing for several years now, I think the government should defer these costs on to those citizens, thus creating the needed incentive to learn the state language.
Comments:
I wouldn't normally just add a link to my blog, but since this ties in with what you're saying, readers might want to read this on my site.
Peter, I read your article, and left a comment on your blog.
We have different opinions: you think that the Moldovan govt is doing too little in terms of communicating with its non-Romanian-speaking citizens. I think it is starting to do too much.
Moldova did not and still cannot afford billingualism. From the point of view of public policy cost and effectiveness, it is much better (meaning less expensive and more efficient) for Moldova to use one language. There are many very important benefits of this policy such as affordability, social cohesion, incentive to learn the official language for a large number of people, stronger and SHARED national identity, improved communication and analytical skills, mutual respect between various ethnic groups etc.
The US actually has no official language and all levels of government translate many documents including election ballots and drivers exams into dozens of languages. I’m not sure how much this all costs, but it must be significant.
There are sporadic attempts to make English the official language, but it is highly politicized and entwined with broader debates on immigration.
I think there is a big difference from Moldova though, as there is a strong economic incentive to learn English as a key to better jobs.
A set of comments from a person otherwise known as "Peter Myers father."
1) The US does have strong language requirements, at least for citizenship. From the USCIS website "Applicants for naturalization must be able to read, write, speak, and understand words in ordinary usage in the English language." On the other hand, we try to be as practical and inclusive of immigrants, and reach out to them in their language - it was true with the Italians and the Poles early in the 20th century, and it's true for the Vietnamese today. And keep in mind that the older people (>50) will probably never want to learn a new language.
2) I've seen the cost of bilingualism when I go to Canada (normally Ottawa... right on the border of English Ontario and French Quebec). It's a heavy cost for a wealthy country, and would be too much for Moldova.
3) Don't make English your native language. I've seen the struggles of the Dutch and Swedes to maintain their national culture in the face of the English language. Let English be the language of commerce, industry and trade.
Charles,
Thank you for your comments, and understanding my point. As for English, the chances of it becoming a state language in Moldova are pretty slim. However, I would really like to see more Moldovans becoming fluent in English, at least to the extent of Finland, where even drunkards on the street speak English :)
Ever since I finished school I didn’t think I would want to have anymore lessons ever again, however recently I have wanted to learn a language, maybe become fluent in one and basic in a couple of others. I did a bit of research and found there were loads of different packages available I went with one that claims you teach yourself Spanish and I was impressed it was a computer program that helped with pronunciation and speaks back to you so you can hear it too.